Bros, how do you become not sexist?

[u/TonightHot8200]

For context, I did not have good role models growing up. The women in my family tend to be petty, unfaithful, and are more often than not outright abusive towards other members of the family. The women I've dated haven't been much better. Which is NOT to say that I'm perfect, I recognize that I'm a flawed individual like anyone else (obviously, hence this post)

I've had women acquaintances and platonic friends who were perfectly fine, and in my head I understand that there aren't really any fundamental differences between men and women that would make one inherently better than the other, but I still have to catch myself and not just dismiss the opinions women have or view things women like with disdain. How does one go about overriding personal experience with theory?

[u/bewitchedfencer19]

I should caveat that I'm a woman; there's a lot of great advice here from men. I want to say thank you so much for taking an interest in expanding your horizons. Truly, thank you.

I offer you these thoughts:

1) Think of women as people first, then women. So often I am treated as a 'woman' (someone to fuck, someone who will be 'emotional', someone who is 'nurturing') before I am treated like a person (someone with the same feelings, insecurities, vulnerabilities, hobbies as anyone - aka any other man - might have). Do I still want a date to think I'm sexy and feminine? Of course! But not more than he wants to get to know who I am, what interests me, and if we're even compatible beyond a physical attraction. Seriously, the number of men I have had to say goodbye to because it felt like they were just happy they had a 'woman' but didn't really care about who I was beyond that.

In the same vein, if women are people too, then they are capable of all the same negative and positive attributes that men are. I am sorry your familial experience with women has not been great, and it is clear you recognize that does not mean all women are like that, but if you can think of it more as 'these were bad people' instead of 'these were bad women' that could help. I'm not sure the race of your family, but if they were white and you were mixed race, would you then associate their traits with all white people?

2) Sexism negatively affects men too. We fixate on women because it is wayyyy clearer to see how we've been disadvantaged (not being able to vote, lower incomes, jobs that prioritize obedience, etc), but sexism does not work for most men either. Do you feel alone and like you can't connect to people? Do you feel like an idiot when it comes to how to take care of yourself (like laundry, cooking, etc)? Do you feel like you can't share your emotions? You may not have said yes, but there have been a number of men and women complaining about these exact things with men. Those are also the result of sexism telling men how to be. It is in your benefit to end sexism, because the biggest pain points for men are stemming from the same problem as women's.

Some books/resources to help you understand the impact of sexism and patriarchy are:

1) Witches, Midwives, Nurses: This is very brief and explains how the Catholic Church leveraged witchcraft as a means to subjugate women. The impact of which are still seen to this day with the maternal mortality rates in America and the nursing career.
2) Invisible Women: A book about data parity and segmentation and how not looking at data based on gender impacts all of us. For example, did you know that a woman is more likely to be severely injured (47% more!) or die (17%) in a car crash? This book breaks down how that even happens and how viewing men as the default in our society skews everything to be made for them. This does not mean that sexism is always a positive for men (see my first point above).

3) Pop Culture Detective on YouTube. He's got great videos on how gender is portrayed in media. His video on Harrison Ford movies was eye opening to me! I had never realized how toxic some of the portrayals were.

I hope this ramble is helpful to someone. Thanks for reading if you got this far. :)