Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

by Seyward Darby

WOMEN ARE SUPPOSED to be nice. It’s a belief inscribed in our social gospel. There’s even a name for it: the women-are-wonderful effect. Psychologists coined the phrase based on research showing that people tend to assign more positive attributes to women than they do to men, qualities like “happy,” “good,” and “nurturing.”3 To meet these expectations, women are conditioned to be polite and self-effacing. A study described in a 2009 book found that young girls “quickly learn to smile, work quietly, be neat, defer to boys, and speak only when spoken to.”4 The effect cultivates benevolent sexism, as women are pigeonholed as pleasing, civilizing, and selfless forces. They are told to absorb misogyny without complaint, and they are often policed and punished when they don’t.

Its nice to see what all women already know written down