Positive feelings like pity can reinforce inequality

Evidence

Importantly, the Stereotype Content Model posits that some subjectively positive feelings toward disadvantaged groups (e.g., pity and sympathy) may nevertheless reinforce inequality by casting these groups as incompetent (worthy only of pity rather than respect). Jackman (1994; ch. 6 this volume) provides a general analysis of paternalistic aspects of racist, classist, and sexist prejudices and their effects on undermining disadvantaged groups’ resistance to social inequality. Glick and Fiske’s (1996) ambivalent sexism theory presents an in-depth analysis of one such paternalistic prejudice, benevolent sexism (the notion that women are “wonderful but weak”). Benevolent sexism involves positive feelings toward women, but is nevertheless associated across nations with gender inequality that disadvantages women (Glick et al., 2000). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2273

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the additive reading about small acts of decorum toward corpses — here affect that feels kind operates as a control mechanism rather than a remedy. — connects to: Pity persists as irrational mediation of reason, becoming vice; Indiscriminate kindness and liberality become affirmation of everything bad that exists — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 87; A privileged man’s pity toward disadvantaged women makes him prey to their demands. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1933 (+2 more)
• SEED: An essay on benevolent paternalism: why kindness from the powerful is a more durable form of domination than overt hostility.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that warm affect can harden hierarchy — pity as a technology of control — is genuinely counterintuitive and dense enough to sit with.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2273