This is an interesting study, though I wonder whether its results, drawn from work with French subjects, will be replicable when actual humans are involved:
Somewhat more fundamentally: I find the pivotal diagnostic statement of the study (“A woman is made mainly for making and raising children”) rather curious. I’m not sure that I know anybody who would agree with so crude a declaration, though I expect that I know many who would sympathize with the more gently-expressed belief that, say, “A woman’s unique role in life is conceiving, bearing, and rearing children.” But is such a belief really more “sexist” than the implicit conviction of many that “A woman is made chiefly for the enjoyment and pleasure of men”?
France, you will recall, is the place where, some months ago, the “burkini” (a hyper-modest outfit designed to permit traditionalist Muslim women to enjoy the beach) was banned and where Islamic women wearing it were, in some cases, forced by police to remove it. (See my note here.) It is also a place that features many nude and topless beaches and where, even at mainstream locations, women are permitted (if not encouraged, if not pressured) to wear as little as possible while still nominally clothed. “Burkinis,” you see, are sexist in the land of Brigitte Bardot, while objectifying women as bodies is . . . well, liberating (to somebody).
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