I have a theory. I've been thinking for a long time that the mid-20th century, Mad Men-era sexism is of a different strain than old school patriarchy. Tell me what you think
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I don't necessarily see a straight line between socially conservative "traditional values" and the idea of people hiring only "attractive" flight stewardesses or harassing their secretaries. That sort of Playboy Magazine, men-in-suits, women-as-sex-objects thing seems to be more of a new-ish result of the mixture of free love/sexual revolution and commercialization-driven commodification of sexuality. As an extreme example of old-school patriarchy, think of the Taliban: their mores would never lead to the notion of a "sexy secretary", because of strict sex-segregation and frowning upon extramarital interactions. In a less extreme way, Victorian middle-class mores don't necessarily encourage that kind of behavior either. There is something "new" that happens with the sexual revolution that combined with business, advertising, movies, etc. makes the male gaze (and objectification of women, normalizing bad behaviour, etc.) suddenly so widespread.