ethnocentrism meaning essay

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Ethnocentrism Essay

• Author Kimberly Ball
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Introduction

Ethnocentrism is the judging of another culture according to the qualities and benchmarks of this culture’s lifestyle. Ethnocentric individuals judge various social events regarding their specific ethnic alliance or culture, especially with stress for vernacular, lead, conventions, and religion. These racial capabilities and subdivisions serve to describe each ethnicity’s exceptional social identity. Dissecting and evaluating different phases of ethnocentrism is basic in keeping up and making a robust and productive environment. Creating systems to attract and help an individual is critical to a leader’s accomplishment in this multicultural age. Therefore the theme of this article will look to illustrate and explain the ethnocentric stages of denial and minimization of cultural differences and outline strategies that a leader in this multicultural age can use to transform the individual into a more culturally competent individual or group.

Denial is a naive ethnocentric stage in which there is foreswearing that social contrasts even exist. A man in the Denial Stage has a couple of classifications to see differences. People at this stage are not debilitated by social disparities since they decline to acknowledge them. They are ethnocentric through and through in that they accept there is a right sort of living (theirs), and that the individuals who act contrastingly mainly don’t have the foggiest idea about any better. Likewise, a man in this stage may credit subhuman characteristics to those from various societies and respect them with extraordinary partiality. In this stage, individuals incline to force their esteem framework upon others, trusting that they are “correct” and that other people who are diverse are “befuddled.” In general, the individuals who encounter social disavowal have not had extensive contact with individuals not the same as themselves, and along these lines have no experiential reason for having confidence in different societies. A vital pointer of the foreswearing stage is the conviction that your knowledge is superior to local people.

Minimization

This stages includes acknowledgment of social contrasts BUT minimizing their significance in our lives. Individuals in the Minimization Stage trust that social distinctions are merely shallow; the fundamental characteristics of being human will get the job done. Social contrasts debilitate them, and they endeavor to limit them by revealing to themselves that individuals are more comparable than divergent. Never again do they see those from varying social orders as being confused, inferior, or terrible. Despite everything, they have not made social care and are unyielding about living together in harmony with everybody. Western estimations of distinction, transparency, and trustworthiness add to this view. Once in a while, people with abroad experience discover an asylum in this stage – it empowers them to keep up a vital separation from sentiments of inadequacy notwithstanding numerous social questions. Since they accept that all societies are inherently comparative, people in this stage disregard the tailoring of their approach to successfully manage a social setting. Moving into the following phase of acceptance speaks to “a noteworthy theoretical move,” from an ethnocentric position that depends on straightforward standards (i.e., either/or) to an ethnorelative stage where answers are not all that unmistakable.

For a leader to make and keep up a thriving environment that is strong and functional, one needs to create systems and schemes to neutralize the difficulties or different phases of ethnocentrism. These procedures that will change a person into an all the more socially skilled individual and empower them to incorporate into a workplace flawlessly will be imperative for a leader’s achievement in this multicultural age.Bearing in mind that the employment of different strategies depends on the ethnocentric stage at which an individual is, a leader should be careful to understand the needs of specific individuals and correctly meet them.

For a person at the Denial Ethnocentric stage, the utilization of non-threatening social mindfulness exercises such as ethnic luncheons, entertainment by social groups, travelogues, chats on history, exhibits is suitable. The approach is commonly known as “Objective Culture Approach” which centers around the social manifestations of diverse persons. The reason for existing is to enable individuals to start to perceive contrasts. It, as a rule, constructs nature with “legends and occasions,” may include “ethnic” sustenance in the eatery or restaurant, and frequently has a devoted month featuring the commitments of subordinate gatherings. Craftsmanship shows, ensembles, shows, teachers, and pamphlet articles all join to expand the profile of different ethnic groups. By and large, this type of varying variety work is available to all, albeit regularly it isn’t obligatory. The perception of strife it that it is solvable through inclusivity.

There is a compulsion to be pretentious of such endeavors as not having any essential esteem. Be that as it may, this sort of action has its place. For those in the Ethnocentric Denial stage, where the social distinction is “out of the picture, therefore irrelevant” and administered by the decree “don’t ask, don’t tell,” such endeavors can bring society into cognizance. However, because commonality with social manifestations does not in itself improve intercultural capability, the reasonable restrictions of this style of advancement are apparent: the endeavor is decent, yet not adequate. The protection from this sort of exertion is more or less moderate, as it hardly challenges perspective or personality. Be that as it may, protection may happen from nondominant assemble individuals, who secretly lambast such endeavors as short of what expectations. However, if dealt with consciously, the Objective culture approach exercises can add to expanded consciousness of other ethnic gatherings and the part they have played to the organization and society as a whole.

According to Deane (p.1), for those in the minimization stage of Ethnocentrism, taking care of this move appears to be ideal. Utilize recreation works out, individual stories, “agents” from different societies carefully selected to demonstrate how to decipher conduct unexpectedly. Recognize the distress individuals may feel amid this move for it is ordinary. The concentration of this stage features the significance of decent variety, builds members’ recognition with what assorted variety incorporates, proposes a couple of issues that may influence the work environment, and exhibits a business case to back up the activity. All employees are subject to this approach, and any contravening is portrays a picture of one who is not on board with the workings of an organization.

The approach is agreeable and fascinating to those people who are in the minimization phase. It invokes the feeling of “small world” theory and more often than not acknowledges the variety cause, given the activity isn’t excessively requesting of progress inside the association. More prominent requests may drive those at minimization to relapse to the Ethnocentric stage of Defense, influencing them to ponder about “exceptional right” and “out of line inclination” against the majority. Be that as it may, for those as of now in protection, even this approach may push them past their status. Obviously, this does not mean wiping out the program; instead, it proposes we should be set up for the protection. Individuals from nondominant bunches see this sort of work as precisely what is not required yet are frequently ready to see it at an initial step especially for those in the later phases of ethnic personality advancement.

In conclusion, there are different stages in the ethnocentrism some of which include Denial and Minimization. They are challenges experienced in different societies at different levels. For a leader in this to enjoy success in this multicultural age he/she needs to have a pragmatical look at these challenges and come up with strategies such as have been pointed out above. The solutions offered will is foster unity in an organization amongst the peers, ensure that there is a favorable working environment and contribute to the success of a leader heading the organization. Above all, it creates a situation where there is no racial discrimination or prejudice based on one’s ethnic affiliation.

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What is Ethnocentrism and Examples – Explained

Ethnocentrism is the practice where we tend to believe that our own culture, ethnic group, race, etc. are superior to others. Such a belief develops out of socialization, which provides us the knowledge of the existence of different cultures, and that of our own, what these cultures entail, what is normal, what is different, what is right or what is wrong. Ethnocentrism is often a judgment that we make based on our own culture, we tend to believe that what we practice in our own culture is right, as opposed to the practices of the other cultures, it is a kind of cultural relativism where we are comparing our own culture to the other while at the same time keeping the focus on our own culture. We all learn ethnocentrism while growing up, as the practices of our own culture are normalized to us, we automatically tend to start assuming any practice that is not a part of our culture is not normal.

E.g. In the Western countries, it is normal for girls to wear dresses that are short, skirts, cut sleeve clothes whereas in India, even though now it is coming to be accepted, those wearing such clothes are often judged to have a loose character it is said that girls should always be dressed in clothes covering their body, as this is ideal and thus they must not attempt to copy the west. When we talk about Western values, we find that the culture of eating with knives, forks, and spoons seem to have come from the West. Habits such as using the spoon even while eating rice are a western influence, in India rice is eaten with hands, thus anyone belonging to India would consider this the way to eat rice.

Ethnocentrism leads to the formation of feelings of ‘us’ and ‘them’ creating and enforcing the ideas of an in-group and an out-group, where the former will refer to the people of one’s own culture, and the latter to the people of another culture. This process will create the tendency of in-group favoritism or bias, as we are likely to favor our own culture and thus accept the cultural practices of our own culture as opposed to that of the other. E.g. when we judge the taste of the Chinese in eating insects, as ‘gross’ or ‘disgusting’ simply because we are not used to eating such food we are automatically implying that, the food choices or practice of our own culture is more normal than theirs and thus it is better and not ‘disgusting’.

While ethnocentrism is a good promoter of a group solidarity or we feeling, on of the major drawbacks for it is the fact that, when we label another group as them and their practices as not normal, we tend to not cooperate with these groups as doing so would require us to compromise on our own culture. Ethnocentrism lies in contrast to the practice of xenocentrism , where we tend to judge the other culture as superior to our own. Both are an extreme end to a spectrum and thus there is a need to look for ways to allow change to come about by taking practices of other cultures missing in our own and at the same time maintaining our own culture.

Difference between Ethnocentrism and Xenocentrism

Ethnocentrism means The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one’s own traditional, deferred, or adoptive ethnic culture, while Xenocentrism means a preference for the products, styles, or ideas of a different culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism

https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/individuals-and-society/perception-prejudice-and-bias/v/ethnocentrism-and-cultural-relativism-in-group-and-out-group

Aishani Menon, a sociologist, communicates her thoughts through words. She values learning, seeing it as the catalyst for growth, and believes that the best writing stems from continuous knowledge

Ethnocentrism In Psychology: Examples, Disadvantages, & Cultural Relativism

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

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On This Page:

Ethnocentrism in psychology refers to the tendency to view one’s own cultural or ethnic group as superior and to judge other groups based on the values and standards of one’s group. It is the belief that one’s own culture is correct and superior compared to other cultures.

In essence, ethnocentrism leads individuals to use their own ethnic group and its standards to interpret and evaluate other groups, often in a negative manner.

Those who are ethnocentric assume their cultural norms are the ideal that other cultures should be measured against or aspire to.

For example, someone who is ethnocentric might believe their traditional cuisine or clothing is the proper way, and that other cultural practices are inferior or strange in comparison.

Or they may think their language should be the default spoken, rather than needing to accommodate other languages.

Ethnocentrism occurs when one believes that their own cultural group is superior to others.

Explanation

Individuals who are ethnocentric will believe that their culture’s beliefs, ideas, values, and practices are correct, and they use the standards in their own culture to assess other cultural groups.

They will tend to have negative attitudes toward other cultures and believe their beliefs, ideas, values, and practices are wrong or strange.

A popular example of ethnocentrism is to think of the utensils different cultures prefer to use. Some cultures prefer to use forks, spoons, and knives to eat and may believe that it is weird or incorrect that some cultures traditionally use chopsticks to eat.

Ethnocentrism can occur for anyone across most cultures and societies and is not limited to one culture.

It is thought to occur largely because people have the greatest understanding of their own culture, leading them to believe that the norms and standards of their own culture are universally adopted.

So, if they notice anything that deviates from their cultural norms, this can lead to ethnocentric attitudes.

Some researchers believe that ethnocentrism comprises in-group favoritism and vilification of out-groups; thus, people have a high opinion of their own group and think negatively about out-groups.

How does ethnocentrism relate to psychology?

The predominant view in psychology has been white males, mainly from the USA.

It means psychologists ignore views, values, language, or culture from elsewhere.

For example, views about the signs and symptoms of mental disorders in the DSM are based on white male experiences, so other experiences are ignored.

Views about appropriate patterns of child rearing are based on the practices shared in white, English-speaking cultures and other ways devalued.

In psychology, ethnocentrism can exist when researchers design studies or draw conclusions that can only be applied to one cultural group.

Ethnocentrism occurs when a researcher assumes that their own culturally specific practices or ideas are ‘natural’ or ‘right.’

The individual uses their own ethnic group to evaluate and judge other individuals from other ethnic groups. Research that is ‘centered’ around one cultural group is called ‘ethnocentric.’

When other cultures are observed to differ from the researcher’s own, they may be regarded negatively, e.g., ‘primitive,’ ‘degenerate,’ ‘unsophisticated,’ ‘undeveloped,’ etc.

This becomes racism when other cultures are denigrated, or their traditions are regarded as irrelevant etc.

Ethnocentrism in psychology can reduce the generalisability of findings since the researchers may not have accounted for cultural diversity.

What are the disadvantages of ethnocentrism?

While it is not necessarily bad to believe your culture is good or to be patriotic, ethnocentrism is the belief that your culture is superior, which can come with downfalls.

Ethnocentrism can lead to people being more close-minded to how other people live, almost as if they are living in a bubble of their own culture. This can reinforce the in-group/out-group mentality.

Believing that one’s own culture is correct can spread misinformation about other cultures, leading to negative consequences.

If a group upholds the belief that other groups are inferior to them, this could result in groups discriminating against each other. On an extreme scale, ethnocentrism can lead to prejudice or racism.

Upholding the sanctity of one’s own culture may hinder societal progress and may prevent cooperation between cultures.

Cultural groups may be less likely to help each other in times of need and may only seek to preserve the people in their own group whom they consider more important.

Specifically, ethnocentrism in research could result in negative consequences if the materials used for research are produced with one culture in mind.

An example of this is when the United States Army used IQ tests on individuals before World War I, which was biased towards white American ideas of intelligence.

Because of this, Europeans had lower scores of intelligence, and African Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale.

This had a negative effect on the attitudes of white Americans towards these other groups of people, specifically that they were not as intelligent as them.

When research does not consider ethnocentrism, this can reinforce pre-existing discrimination and prevent other cultures from having equal opportunities.

Ethnocentrism examples

Ethnocentrism in samples.

Some of the most famous psychological studies (such as Milgram’s, Asch’s , and Zimbardo’s) used only white American males in their samples.

Conclusions were drawn from the results that the results would be the same across all cultures. However, the results were different when these studies were replicated on other groups of people.

As these studies were conducted a long time ago, you may expect that psychological research is more culturally diverse now.

However, psychology still has a long way to go to be truly representative of all cultures. There is still a strong Western bias, with one analysis finding that 90% of participants in research are drawn from Western countries, with 60% of these participants being American (Thalmayer et al., 2021).

They go on to say that only about 11% of the world’s population is represented in the top psychology journals and that 89% of the population is neglected.

The Strange Situation 

Ainsworth’s classic study of The Strange Situation (1970) is an example of ethnocentric research. This study was developed to assess the attachment types of infants – the sample in this study used all American infants.

Many researchers assumed this study has the same meaning for infants from other cultures as it did for American children. However, the results from other cultures were very different.

Most noteworthy are the differences observed in Japanese and German infants compared to American infants.

While the American ideal standard for attachment is ‘secure attachment,’ many Japanese infants displayed behaviors that would be considered ‘insecure-resistant attachment’ whilst many of the German infants displayed what would be considered ‘insecure-avoidant attachment.’

The different results from other cultures were presented as ‘abnormal’ and in need of explanation rather than considering that the differences are due to cultural differences in how children are raised.

It does not mean that German mothers are more insensitive or that Japanese mothers are too clingy to their children just because their infants react differently to American children.

The methods used in The Strange Situation are examples of imposed etic, meaning to study a culture from the outside and make inferences in relation to one culture’s standard.

More valid results could be obtained through the use of an emic study, meaning studying culture from the inside.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Bias

Cultural bias in psychology is when research is conducted in one culture, and the findings are generalized to other cultures or are accepted as universally applicable.

Ainsworth’s research is culturally biased since standards were set regarding what securely attached means based on an American-only sample.

This theory was then generalized to other cultures so that what was considered the behavior of securely attached children in America should be what all children in other cultures should behave to be considered securely attached.

The parenting styles and behavior of their infants in cultures outside of America being seen as abnormal because it doesn’t fit the American norms is what relates cultural bias to ethnocentrism.

Another example of cultural bias relates to the designs of standardized tests such as intelligence tests. Intelligence tests that are designed by Western researchers reflect the idea of what the West considers as being intelligent.

However, Western cultures may have a different idea of what qualifies as intelligence compared to other cultures.

Thus, when using Western-designed intelligence tests in non-western countries, there is likely to be a bias in the results since the test measures something from the benchmark of different cultural experiences.

This can lead to ethnocentrism if those outside of the West score significantly lower on intelligence scores, leading to the West having the misconception that non-Western countries are less intelligent.

There are two types of cultural bias that can relate to psychological research:

Alpha bias – this occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different. Since their differences are exaggerated, the cultural norms and values of the researchers are considered superior to other cultures.

Beta bias – this occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimized. All people are assumed to be the same, resulting in research that is universally applied to all cultures.

What is Cross-Cultural Psychology?

Cross-cultural psychology is a branch of psychology that examines how cultural factors influence human behavior.

The goal is to look at both universal and unique behaviors to establish the ways in which culture has an influence on behavior, relationships, education, etc.

After focusing on North American and European research for many years, Western researchers began to question whether many of the observations and ideas that were considered to be universal actually apply to other cultures outside of the sample that was studied.

Many cross-cultural psychologists have found that many observations about human thought and behavior may only be generalizable to specific groups.

An emic approach, which looks within cultures to identify behaviors that are specific to that culture, is usually the most appropriate approach to studying cross-culturally.

With the emic approach, researchers can immerse themselves fully into a culture and develop a deep understanding of their practices and values.

From this, they can develop research procedures and interpret the findings with that culture in mind. These procedures would then not be used across other cultures where they may yield invalid results.

What topics can be studied in cross-cultural psychology?

Cross-cultural psychology can explore many topics, such as:

Child development – whether unique cultural practices influence development.

Emotions – do all people experience emotions the same way? Is emotional expression universal?

Language – whether the acquisition of language and its development is similar or different between cultures?

Relationships – the differences in family, romantic relationships, and friendships that are influenced by culture.

Personality – the degree to which aspects of personality might be influenced by or linked with cultural influences.

Social behavior – understanding how cultural norms and expectations have an effect on social behavior.

What are the benefits of cross-cultural psychology?

By understanding what could have been cultural bias, researchers have increased their understanding of the impact of culture, cultural differences, and culture-specific behaviors.

This has had benefits when it comes to diagnosing mental illness, for example. Previously, some culture-specific behaviors were often misdiagnosed as a symptom of a disorder.

Recent issues of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) now include a list of culture-specific behaviors that help diagnose mental health issues accurately.

Modern researchers are now able to travel a lot more than they would have done in the past. They are able to have contact with people from all across the globe as well as being able to hold talks and conferences where researchers from different cultures can meet to discuss ideas.

This may mean there should be less cultural bias now since researchers from other cultures being able to talk can help grow understanding and acceptance of differences.

Researchers can also use input from people from different cultures to discuss any potential methodology flaws which can lead to cultural bias.

Ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativism

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two ways in which we assess a culture that is not our own.

While ethnocentrism means someone may judge other cultures based on the standards of their own cultures, cultural relativism is the notion that a culture should be understood on its own terms, without judgment against the criteria of another culture.

Someone who is ethnocentric may believe that their culture is ‘correct’ and ‘normal,’ but someone who adopts cultural relativism understands that one culture is not better than another.

An example of ethnocentrism is believing that the traditional clothing of a culture other than your own is ‘strange’ or ‘incorrect.’ In contrast, cultural relativism would appreciate and accept that different cultures have their own clothing and would not make a negative judgment about someone’s clothing even if it is different from what is the norm for them.

In research, cultural relativism is the ideology that what may be observable in research may only make sense from the perspective of the observed culture and cannot be applied to different cultures.

Ethnocentrism can be avoided or reduced by studying culture using an emic approach. This approach aims to observe cultural differences in the relevant context and uses that culture’s concepts or standards.

Ethnocentric studies are not inherently invalid and should not be disregarded. Instead, researchers should make sure to point out that their research may only be applied to the sample they studied, and the application to other cultures is questionable.

Cultural Relativism in Psychology 

An example of how cultural relativism is relevant in research is noted by Sternberg (1985), who stated that the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture.

They noticed that in some cultures, coordination and motor skills are essential to life, so if someone excels in these skills, they are considered highly intelligent according to that culture.

However, in other cultures, motor skills are less relevant to intelligent behaviors, and the culture instead values vast knowledge on a range of topics, such as intelligence instead.

There is the development of ‘indigenous psychologies’ in research, which draws explicitly on the unique experience of people in a different cultural context.

Afrocentrism is an example of this, which suggests that theories of people with African heritage must recognize the African context of behaviors and attitudes.

This approach matters because it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to the lives and cultures of people not only in Africa but also those far removed from their African origins.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some examples of ethnocentric behavior.

In psychology, ethnocentric behavior can occur when a researcher conducts a study in a particular culture and then states in their findings that their results can be generalized to all cultures.

Likewise, when researchers apply their theory to another culture, and the results differ from what was the norm in their culture, they state that there is something wrong with that culture.

Otherwise, some other examples of ethnocentric behavior include:

– Judging other cultures’ food and specialty dishes.

– Judging people’s cultural outfits.

– Expecting others to speak your language and criticizing them if they can’t.

– Historical colonialism.

– Judging someone who chooses to live on their own when it is traditional to always live with family in your culture.

What is ethnorelativism?

Ethnorelativism is the ability to see values and behaviors as cultural rather than universal.

It is a belief based on respect for other cultures, believing that all groups, cultures, or subcultures are inherently equal.

Furthermore, it is the belief that other cultures are no better or worse than one’s own but are equally valid despite their differences.

What is the difference between ethnocentrism and racism?

As ethnocentrism implicates a strong identification with an in-group, it can lead to ingrained negative feelings and stereotyping of out-group members, which can be confused with racism.

Whilst they are not the same, ethnocentrism can lead to prejudiced behaviors and attempts to impose one’s subjective culture onto other cultural groups.

Ethnocentric attitudes can lead to prejudice and discrimination based on race and the belief that one race is superior to all others.

What is the difference between ethnocentrism and xenocentrism?

While ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior and correct compared to others, xenocentrism is the belief that other cultures are better than one’s own culture.

Essentially, xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism. In some ways, xenocentrism is considered deviant behavior as it goes against the norms of what someone is expected to appreciate.

Examples of this can include:

– The belief is that vehicles manufactured in other countries are better than ones made in your own country.

– European Renaissance artists desired to emulate ancient Greek artwork.

– The belief that cheeses and wines from other countries are superior to the products from your own country.

– The belief that the style of clothing in another culture is superior to those within your own culture.

– The idea that quality products cannot be purchased in one’s own country.

Further Information

• Teo, Thomas, and Angela R. Febbraro. “Ethnocentrism as a form of intuition in psychology.” Theory & Psychology 13.5 (2003): 673-694.
• Christopher, J. C., & Hickinbottom, S. (2008). Positive psychology, ethnocentrism, and the disguised ideology of individualism. Theory & psychology, 18(5), 563-589.

Hasa. (2020, February 17). What is the Difference Between Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism. PEDIAA. https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-difference-between-ethnocentrism-and-cultural-relativism/#:~:text=and%20Cultural%20Relativism-,Definition,using%20standards%20of%20another%20culture

Rosado, C. (1994). Understanding cultural relativism in a multicultural world.  The Elements of Moral Philosophy , 15-29.

Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Implicit theories of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. Journal of personality and social psychology, 49(3), 607.

Thalmayer, A. G., Toscanelli, C., & Arnett, J. J. (2021). The neglected 95% revisited: Is American psychology becoming less American? American Psychologist, 76(1), 116–129.

Tilley, J. J. (2000). Cultural relativism.  Hum. Rts. Q. ,  22 , 501.

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Ethnocentrism by Elizabeth Baylor LAST REVIEWED: 19 November 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0045

Ethnocentrism is a term applied to the cultural or ethnic bias—whether conscious or unconscious—in which an individual views the world from the perspective of his or her own group, establishing the in-group as archetypal and rating all other groups with reference to this ideal. This form of tunnel vision often results in: (1) an inability to adequately understand cultures that are different from one’s own and (2) value judgments that preference the in-group and assert its inherent superiority, thus linking the concept of ethnocentrism to multiple forms of chauvinism and prejudice, including nationalism, tribalism, racism, and even sexism and disability discrimination. Ethnocentrism is a concept that was coined within anthropology and formed the cornerstone of its early evolutionary theory before becoming one of the discipline’s primary social critiques. It continues to both challenge and inspire anthropologists, shifting in meaning and application with theoretical trends and across the subdisciplines. For many anthropologists in the Boasian tradition, ethnocentrism is the antithesis of anthropology, a mind-set that it actively counters through cultural relativism, education, and applied activities such as cultural brokering. Physical anthropologists have tended to define the concept more generally as preferential cooperation with a defined in-group and to interrogate its potential evolutionary origins, while the postmodern trend has been a growing suspicion of the anthropologist’s own ability to transcend cultural bias in his or her analysis and presentation of the “other,” leading to an emphasis on reflexivity and subjective diversity. Outside of the discipline, ethnocentrism is a topic of study for biologists, political scientists, communication experts, psychologists, and sociologists, particularly in the areas of politics, identity, and conflict. Marketing has seized on the term to describe consumers who prefer domestically produced goods, and the derivative ethnocentric has become a common criticism in the era of globalization for those assuming their own cultural superiority.

General Overviews and Foundational Texts

It is difficult to identify a definitive text for the concept of ethnocentrism, given its shifting meanings and common usage as an implicit critique. Sumner 1906 provides the original formulation of the term, defining it as a “view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.” While Sumner is commonly credited with coining the term, ethnocentric was previously used in McGee 1900 to characterize what he termed the primitive mind-set. Levine and Campbell 1972 provides one of the most comprehensive and research-friendly definitions, drawing on the literature from anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics to create a set of twenty-three testable characteristics. Yet while Levine and Campbell 1972 combines in-group and out-group directed characteristics, many theorists have argued for a decoupling of these concepts, further problematizing the issue of defining ethnocentrism (see Definitions ). See Murdock 1949 for a classic formulation of ethnocentrism as a universal form of in-group consciousness and Herskovits 1948 for a standard reading of the term as a human cultural feature with an implied value judgment.

Herskovits, Melville J. 1948. Man and his works . New York: Knopf.

Classic definition of ethnocentrism as a feeling of superiority regarding one’s own culture or way of life.

Levine, Robert A., and Donald T. Campbell. 1972. Ethnocentrism: Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes, and group behavior . New York: Wiley.

The author draws on literature from anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics in this text to define ethnocentrism as a set of twenty-three characteristics, nine of which are attitudes toward a perceived in-group (e.g., perceptions of superiority and virtue, sanctions against murder and theft) and fourteen of which are toward a perceived out-group (e.g., blaming, distrust, fear).

McGee, William J. 1900. Primitive numbers. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report 19:821–851.

Early source predating the classic Sumner 1906 definition. In this work, McGee uses the term ethnocentric to describe the dominant orientation characterizing primitive thought and action.

Murdock, George P. 1949. Social structure . New York: Macmillan.

Provides a useful alternative understanding of the concept of ethnocentrism, defining it as a “tendency to exalt the in-group and to depreciate other groups” (pp. 83–84).

Sumner, William G. 1906. Folkways: A study of the sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores, and morals . New York: Mentor.

Publication credited with coining the term ethnocentrism .

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Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one’s own culture. Part of ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own race, ethnic or cultural group is the most important or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Some people will simply call it cultural ignorance.

Ethnocentrism often leads to incorrect assumptions about others’ behavior based on your own norms, values, and beliefs. In extreme cases, a group of individuals may see another culture as wrong or immoral and because of this may try to convert, sometimes forcibly, the group to their own ways of living. War and genocide could be the devastating result if a group is unwilling to change their ways of living or cultural practices.

Ethnocentrism may not, in some circumstances, be avoidable. We often have involuntary reactions toward another person or culture’s practices or beliefs but these reactions do not have to result in horrible events such as genocide or war. In order to avoid conflict over culture practices and beliefs, we must all try to be more culturally relative.

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding and valuing the practices of a culture from the point of view of that culture and to avoid making hasty judgments. Cultural relativism tries to counter ethnocentrism by promoting the understanding of cultural practices that are unfamiliar to other cultures such as eating insects, genocides or genital cutting. Take for example, the common practice of same-sex friends in India walking in public while holding hands. This is a common behavior and a sign of connectedness between two people. In England, by contrast, holding hands is largely limited to romantically involved couples, and often suggests a sexual relationship. These are simply two different ways of understanding the meaning of holding hands. Someone who does not take a relativistic view might be tempted to see their own understanding of this behavior as superior and, perhaps, the foreign practice as being immoral.

D espite the fact that cultural relativism promotes the appreciation for cultural differences, it can also be problematic. At its most extreme, cultural relativism leaves no room for criticism of other cultures, even if certain cultural practices are horrific or harmful. Many practices have drawn criticism over the years. In Madagascar, for example, the famahidana funeral tradition includes bringing bodies out from tombs once every seven years, wrapping them in cloth, and dancing with them. Some people view this practice disrespectful to the body of the deceased person. Today, a debate rages about the ritual cutting of genitals of girls in several Middle Eastern and African cultures. To a lesser extent, this same debate arises around the circumcision of baby boys in Western hospitals. When considering harmful cultural traditions, it can be patronizing to use cultural relativism as an excuse for avoiding debate. To assume that people from other cultures are neither mature enough nor responsible enough to consider criticism from the outside is demeaning.

The concept of cross-cultural relationship is the idea that people from different cultures can have relationships that acknowledge, respect and begin to understand each other’s diverse lives. People with different backgrounds can help each other see possibilities that they never thought were there because of limitations, or cultural proscriptions, posed by their own traditions. Becoming aware of these new possibilities will ultimately change the people who are exposed to the new ideas. This cross-cultural relationship provides hope that new opportunities will be discovered, but at the same time it is threatening. The threat is that once the relationship occurs, one can no longer claim that any single culture is the absolute truth.

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1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define the concept of ethnocentrism and explain the ubiquity of ethnocentrism as a consequence of enculturation.
• Distinguish certain forms of ethnocentrism in terms of their historical relationship to forms of empire and domination.
• Identify primitivism in European and American representations of African peoples.
• Identify orientalism in European and American representations of Asian and Middle Eastern peoples.

Have you ever known somebody who seems to think the world revolves around them? The kind of friend who is always talking about themselves and never asks any questions about you and your life? The kind of person who thinks their own ideas are cool and special and their own way of doing things is absolutely the best? You may know the word used to describe that kind of person: egocentric. An egocentric person is entirely caught up in their own perspective and does not seem to care much about the perspectives of others. It is good to feel proud of your personal qualities and accomplishments, of course, but it is equally important to appreciate the personal qualities and accomplishments of others as well.

The same sort of “centric” complex operates at the level of culture. Some people in some cultures are convinced that their own ways of understanding the world and of doing things are absolutely the best and no other ways are worth consideration. They imagine that the world would be a much better place if the superior beliefs, values, and practices of their own culture were spread or imposed on everyone else in the world. This is what we call ethnocentrism .

Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

We are all brought up in a particular culture with particular norms and values and ways of doing things. Our parents or guardians teach us how to behave in social situations, how to take care of our bodies, how to lead a good life, and what we should value and think about. Our teachers, religious leaders, and bosses give us instruction about our roles, responsibilities, and relationships in life. By the time we are in our late teens or early twenties, we know a great deal about how our society works and our role in that society.

Anthropologists call this process of acquiring our particular culture enculturation . All humans go through this process. It is natural to value the particular knowledge gained through our own process of enculturation because we could not survive without it. It is natural to respect the instruction of our parents and teachers who want us to do well in life. It is good to be proud of who we are and where we came from. However, just as egocentrism is tiresome, it can be harmful for people to consider their own culture so superior that they cannot appreciate the unique qualities and accomplishments of other cultures. When people are so convinced that their own culture is more advanced, morally superior, efficient, or just plain better than any other culture, we call that ethnocentrism. When people are ethnocentric, they do not value the perspectives of people from other cultures, and they do not bother to learn about or consider other ways of doing things.

Beyond the sheer rudeness of ethnocentrism, the real problem emerges when the ethnocentrism of one group causes them to harm, exploit, and dominate other groups. Historically, the ethnocentrism of Europeans and Euro-Americans has been used to justify subjugation and violence against peoples from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. In the quest to colonize territories in these geographical areas, Europeans developed two main styles of ethnocentrism, styles that have dominated popular imagination over the past two centuries. These styles each identify a cultural “self” as European and a cultural other as a stereotypical member of a culture from a specific region of the world. Using both of these styles of ethnocentrism, Europeans strategically crafted their own coherent self-identity in contrast to these distorted images of other cultures.

Primitivism and Orientalism

Since the 18th century, views of Africans and Native Americans have been shaped by the obscuring lens of primitivism . Identifying themselves as enlightened and civilized, Europeans came to define Africans as ignorant savages, intellectually inferior and culturally backward. Nineteenth-century explorers such as Henry M. Stanley described Africa as “the dark continent,” a place of wildness and depravity (Stanley 1878). Similarly, European missionaries viewed Africans as simple heathens, steeped in sin and needing Christian redemption. Elaborated in the writings of travelers and traders, primitivism depicts Africans and Native Americans as exotic, simple, highly sexual, potentially violent, and closer to nature. Though both African and Native American societies of the time were highly organized and well-structured, Europeans often viewed them as chaotic and violent. An alternative version of primitivism depicts Africans and Native Americans as “noble savages,” innocent and simple, living in peaceful communities in harmony with nature. While less overtly insulting, the “noble savage” version of primitivism is still a racist stereotype, reinforcing the notion that non-Western peoples are ignorant, backward, and isolated.

Europeans developed a somewhat different style of ethnocentrism toward people from the Middle East and Asia, a style known as orientalism . As detailed by literary critic Edward Said (1979), orientalism portrays peoples of Asia and the Middle East as irrational, fanatical, and out of control. The “oriental” cultures of East Asia and Middle East are depicted as mystical and alluring. The emphasis here is less on biology and nature and more on sensual and emotional excess. Middle Eastern societies are viewed not as lawless but as tyrannical. Relations between men and women are deemed not just sexual but patriarchal and exploitative. Said argues that this view of Asian and Middle Eastern societies was strategically crafted to demonstrate the rationality, morality, and democracy of European societies by contrast.

In his critique of orientalism, Said points to the very common representation of Muslim and Middle Eastern peoples in mainstream American movies as irrational and violent. In the very first minute of the 1992 Disney film Aladdin , the theme song declares that Aladdin comes from “a faraway place / where the caravan camels roam / where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face / it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” Facing criticism by antidiscrimination groups, Disney was forced to change the lyrics for the home video release of the film (Nittle 2021). Many thrillers such as the 1994 film True Lies , starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, cast Arabs as America-hating villains scheming to plant bombs and take hostages. Arab women are frequently portrayed as sexualized belly dancers or silent, oppressed victims shrouded in veils. These forms of representation draw from and reproduce orientalist stereotypes.

Both primitivism and orientalism were developed when Europeans were colonizing these parts of the world. Primitivist views of Native Americans justified their subjugation and forced migration. In the next section, we’ll explore how current versions of primitivism and orientalism persist in American culture, tracing the harmful effects of these misrepresentations and the efforts of anthropologists to dismantle them.

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Open Education Sociology Dictionary

ethnocentrism

Table of Contents

Definition of Ethnocentrism

( noun ) The tendency to view your own  society or  culture as superior and the standard by which other  societies and  cultures are judged.

Examples of Ethnocentrism

• Someone from the United States thinking that all people around the work practice Thanksgiving.
• The idea that democracy is the best political system.

Ethnocentrism Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification : eth·no·cen·trism

Audio Pronunciation

Phonetic Spelling

• American English – /eth-noh-sEn-triz-uhm/
• British English – /eth-noh-sEn-tri-zuhm/

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˌɛθnoʊˈsɛnˌtrɪz(ə)m/
• British English – /ˌɛθnə(ʊ)ˈsɛntrɪz(ə)m/

Usage Notes

• Term coined (along with folkways , in-group , mores, and out-group ) by William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) in Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (1906).
• Ethnocentrism can be positive or negative, an example of positive ethnocentrism is civic pride, and an example of negative ethnocentrism is belittling non-conforming minority groups .
• A type of bias .
• Type: naive realism
• Also called ethnocentricity .
• An ( noun ) ethnocentrist ( adverb ) ethnocentrically views the world from an ( adjective ) ethnocentric perspective.

Related Video

Related Quotations

• “ Cultures do not generally remain static. There are many forces working toward change and diversity. Some societies and  individuals adapt to this change whereas others suffer culture shock and succumb to ethnocentrism” (Kendall 2006:57).
• “ Empirical evidence suggests that a predisposition to favor in-groups can be easily triggered by even arbitrary  group distinctions and that preferential cooperation within groups occurs even when it is individually costly” (Hammond and Axelrod 2006:926).
• “Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and behaviors , typically including  in-group favoritism” (Hammond and Axelrod 2006:926).
• “Ethnocentrism is one of  sociology’s distinctive concepts. Comprehension of this concept is a major step in the acquisition of a  sociological outlook. Students of introductory  sociology are often left, at the end of the course, with a feeling that the term “ ethnocentrism ” denotes a flaw in human nature . Some of them may also be persuaded that their exposure to academic  sociology has helped to immunize them against this natural but supposedly lamentable tendency to react ethnocentrically to people in other societies ” (Catton 1960:201).
• “[Ethnocentrism] reflects our  tendency to judge other  people’s beliefs and behavior using values of our own native culture ” (Spradley and McCurdy 2008:5).

Additional Information

• Word origin of “ethnocentric” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Benson, Phil. 2001. Ethnocentrism and the English Dictionary . London: Routledge.
• Berreby, David. 2005. Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind . New York: Little, Brown.
• Forbes, Hugh Donald. 1985. Nationalism, Ethnocentrism, and Personality: Social Science and Critical Theory . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures . New York: Basic Books.
• LeVine, Robert, and Donald Thomas Campbell. 1972. Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group Behavior . New York: Wiley.
• Ore, Tracy E. 2014. The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality . 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Rutherford, Jonathan, ed. 1990. Identity: Community, Culture and Difference . London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Related Terms

• culture shock
• naïve realism

Catton, William R. 1960. “The Functions and Dysfunctions of Ethnocentrism: A Theory.” Social Problems  8(3):201–11. doi: 10.2307/798910 .

Hammond, Ross A., and Robert Axelrod. 2006. “The Evolution of Ethnocentrism.”  The Journal of Conflict Resolution: a Quarterly for Research Related to War and Peace  50(6):926–36. doi: 10.1177/0022002706293470 .

Kendall, Diana. 2006. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials . 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Spradley, James P., and David W. McCurdy, eds. 2008. Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology . 13th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

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Cite the Definition of Ethnocentrism

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “ethnocentrism.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Retrieved April 2, 2024 ( https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnocentrism/ ).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

ethnocentrism. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary . Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnocentrism/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “ethnocentrism.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Accessed April 2, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnocentrism/ .

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“ethnocentrism.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 2 Apr. 2024. < https://sociologydictionary.org/ethnocentrism/ >.

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Ethnocentrism in Psychology: Definitions, Examples, and How to Combat Biases

Rachael is a New York-based writer and freelance writer for Verywell Mind, where she leverages her decades of personal experience with and research on mental illness—particularly ADHD and depression—to help readers better understand how their mind works and how to manage their mental health.

Akeem Marsh, MD, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist who has dedicated his career to working with medically underserved communities.

dragana991/iStock/Getty Images

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own ethnic, racial, or social group is either superior or the norm against which all other groups should be compared. While it can sometimes be a conscious belief, such as believing foods or customs of cultures aside from your own are strange or inferior, it’s more often an unconscious process.

In psychology, that conscious or unconscious ethnocentrism can influence research, lead to misdiagnosis, and cause serious harm to the communities that are overlooked or pathologized as abnormal for not conforming to Western norms.

Why Ethnocentrism Occurs

In a 2010 review of psychological studies, researchers found that 96% of participants across all studies came from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. But these WEIRD societies represent just 12% of the global population. Studies also tended to skew toward White, middle-class, suburban communities within those WEIRD societies, making the sample size even less representative of the diversity of the human experience.

“Given that the social world is based on norms and mores of a group of people, oftentimes behavior that is seen as adaptive [or] maladaptive can be culturally informed as well,” explained Dr. K. Chinwe Idigo , a licensed psychologist who specializes in incorporating multicultural theory , social context, and social justice into her practice. “For example, customs, norms, and expectations of an immigrant family may differ from customs of a mainstream family living in the same community.”

This near-exclusive focus on the psychology of such a tiny sample size has led to the generalization of White, middle-class, suburban cultural values and ideas about mental health across the entire global population. The experience of a small subset of humanity is treated as the default or standard against which everyone else is compared—and when they don’t fit, they’re liable to be judged abnormal or unwell.

Clinical practice mirrors the ethnocentrism found in research. “Therapists are trained in colleges and universities where approximately 75% of faculty are White,” said Dr. Idigo.

Because the data and training are so heavily biased to such a small subset of the human population, it’s hard for mental healthcare providers to untangle that ethnocentrism in their own practice.

What Are Some Examples of Ethnocentrism?

There are many examples of psychological theories or concepts that have long been believed to be universal or unchanging that ultimately don’t work when applied to non-WEIRD societies. “This shows up in therapeutic modalities that are normed on White culture and identity and often fall flat when used with clients from the Global Majority,” said Maryam Elbalghiti-Williams , LCSW-C, LICSW, CCTP-11, a licensed therapist who applies a culturally-responsive and multicultural approach to treatment.

Attachment theory , for example, argues that children develop their attachment style—or model of relationships—within the first three years of their lives and largely on the basis of how they relate to their primary caregiver.

The theory is based entirely on studies of American infants and later cross-cultural research has shown that it doesn’t hold up well in more collectivist cultures where children are raised by an entire community, rather than just by their immediate biological parents. Nevertheless, this theory has been used to justify removing Indigenous children from their communities and placing them in non-indigenous foster families, under the assumption that a permanent nuclear family is the best situation for the child.

The concept of trauma in psychiatry has also been criticized as ethnocentric. It treats trauma as an individualized problem, ignoring the prevalence of collective or intergenerational trauma experienced by marginalized groups. Definitions of what constitutes trauma is likewise often limited to personal forms of trauma, like physical or sexual abuse, and exclude systemic or historical trauma like racism, genocide, or colonialism.

How Ethnocentrism Shows Up in Psychology

This ethnocentrism in psychological research can bleed into how healthcare providers approach care. “These biases can lead to misdiagnoses or incorrect treatments, as well as a lack of understanding of the patient's cultural experiences,” said Gary Tucker, Chief Clinical Officer and Licensed Psychotherapist at D’Amore Mental Health .

Dr. Idigo added, “It might inform the treatment goals we establish for a client, as our biases influence our idea of what wellness looks like.”

For example, the narrow understanding of trauma as isolated, personal experiences like child abuse or war not only misses the experience of other kinds of trauma but also limits the tools healthcare providers have for treating trauma.

Exposure therapy, during which patients are encouraged to talk about their traumatic memories as a way of confronting them, is one of the primary methods used to treat PTSD. Another widely-used method is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), during which patients are meant to unlearn negative thought patterns that cause them to always fear catastrophic outcomes or be hyper-vigilant about avoiding potential dangers.

But, as one academic paper pointed out, neither of these methods really apply to the case of refugees fleeing violence. For one, the threat of violence not over, as the risk of being denied asylum or being tracked down by those who want to harm them persists. So the idea that fearing that possibility is simply a “negative thought pattern” that needs to be unlearned isn’t accurate here.

Moreover, during the strict asylum claim process, refugees are often forced to describe their trauma in great detail, sometimes over and over again, in order to convince authorities that their asylum claim is legitimate. Because of that, the common approach of confronting one’s memories through exposure therapy may not have much of a therapeutic effect.

Why Ethnocentrism Is Harmful

As seen in the examples mentioned earlier, ethnocentrism can cause a lot of harm to the many, many people who are excluded from the research and clinical practice of psychology. Generalizations about how family dynamics should work can displace children. Narrow definitions of trauma can exclude people from treatment by failing to accurately diagnose their trauma or lead to inappropriate treatment plans. But it can also do harm in less overt ways.

“A key complaint I hear from clients who find me after several attempts at finding a therapist is that they felt unseen, like they couldn't show up fully as themselves with providers who lacked critical awareness of themselves and the impact of culture in the therapy room,” said Elbalghiti.

Even when a clinician isn’t overtly ethnocentric or consciously bias, then, this lack of awareness and training can render them unequipped to care for patients from historically marginalized and overlooked groups.

“This can leave certain populations without access to necessary services or treatments or make individuals from different backgrounds feel like their perspectives aren't accepted seriously,” said Tucker.

Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism refers to the awareness that your own culture is neither the norm nor the superior culture in the world. Instead of judging others according to your own cultural standards, you try to understand them through the lens of their own culture.

This awareness acts as an important counter to ethnocentric biases and assumptions, which can impact the way clinicians treat clients. For example, “Western Psychology's emphasis on individualism and individuation as a developmental imperative leads to pathologizing clients from collectivist cultures and labeling them as ‘enmeshed’ or lacking a sense of self,” said Elbalghiti.

Through the lens of cultural relativism, on the other hand, both researchers and clinicians would be better able to evaluate behavior and mental state according to the patient’s own terms. In Elbalghiti’s example, it would help them understand that the patient doesn’t necessarily lack a sense of self, but simply constructs that sense of self differently.

How to Recognize and Control for Our Own Biases

For those who want to get better at recognizing their own biases and providing more culturally sensitive care, the best thing you can do is educate yourself. “Mental health providers need to prioritize investing their time and financial resources in depth-oriented trainings and learning communities led by BIPOC clinicians that focus on raising critical consciousness about race and culture over one dimensional cultural competence trainings,” said Elbalghiti.

Talk to colleagues with different backgrounds. Seek out research from BIPOC scholars. Enroll in continuing education courses or training led by BIPOC mental health experts. “Educating yourself about diverse cultures can help you understand different perspectives to better provide culturally competent care,” said Tucker.

In addition to broader education and training, experts recommend critically examining your views and assumptions. “Evaluate your beliefs regularly and question whether those thoughts are based in fact or come from a biased perspective,” said Tucker. The more education and training you get, the easier it will be to recognize potential biases.

Even with regular education and reflection, ethnocentrism is so pervasive in psychology that it’s hard to catch every instance of it in your practice. So it’s important to account for that when caring for patients.

According to Dr. Idigo, “A collaborative approach to treatment can help mitigate the effects of unconscious biases on treatment.” That collaboration includes encouraging clients to participate in establishing treatment goals and checking in with clients regularly to find out if the treatment is considerate of their cultural and personal values.

Instead of making assumptions based on their background or identity, ask questions and engage with clients to shape a treatment plan that makes sense for that individual. 

Amir D, McAuliffe K. Cross-cultural, developmental psychology: integrating approaches and key insights . Evolution and Human Behavior. 2020;41(5):430-444. Doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.06.006

Choate P, Tortorelli C. Attachment theory: a barrier for indigenous children involved with child protection . IJERPH. 2022;19(14):8754. Doi:10.3390/ijerph19148754

Thambinathan V, Kinsella EA, Wylie L. Decolonizing trauma studies: A critically reflexive examination of epistemic trauma and intergenerational memory, and its implications for conflict-fleeing migrant diaspora communities . SSM - Mental Health. 2023;3:100225. Doi:10.1016/j.ssmmh.2023.100225

By Rachael Green Rachael is a New York-based writer and freelance writer for Verywell Mind, where she leverages her decades of personal experience with and research on mental illness—particularly ADHD and depression—to help readers better understand how their mind works and how to manage their mental health.

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ethnocentrism

Definition of ethnocentrism

Examples of ethnocentrism in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ethnocentrism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1906, in the meaning defined above

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Cite this Entry

“Ethnocentrism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethnocentrism. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.

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Module 2: Culture and Society

Reading: ethnocentrism and xenocentricism, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

Despite how much humans have in common, cultural differences are far more prevalent than cultural universals. For example, while all cultures have language, analysis of particular language structures and conversational etiquette reveal tremendous differences. In some Middle Eastern cultures, it is common to stand close to others in conversation. North Americans keep more distance and maintain a large “personal space.” Even something as simple as eating and drinking varies greatly from culture to culture. If your professor comes into an early morning class holding a mug of liquid, what do you assume she is drinking? In the United States, it’s most likely filled with coffee, not Earl Grey tea, a favorite in England, or Yak Butter tea, a staple in Tibet.

The way cuisines vary across cultures fascinates many people. Some travelers pride themselves on their willingness to try unfamiliar foods, like celebrated food writer Anthony Bourdain, while others return home expressing gratitude for their native culture’s fare. Often, people in the United States express disgust at other cultures’ cuisine and think that it’s gross to eat meat from a dog or guinea pig, for example, while they don’t question their own habit of eating cows or pigs. Such attitudes are an example of  ethnocentrism , or evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s own cultural norms. Ethnocentrism, as sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906) described the term, involves a belief or attitude that one’s own culture is better than all others. Almost everyone is a little bit ethnocentric. For example, Americans tend to say that people from England drive on the “wrong” side of the road, rather than on the “other” side. Someone from a country where dog meat is standard fare might find it off-putting to see a dog in a French restaurant—not on the menu, but as a pet and patron’s companion. A good example of ethnocentrism is referring to parts of Asia as the “Far East.” One might question, “Far east of where?”

A high level of appreciation for one’s own culture can be healthy; a shared sense of community pride, for example, connects people in a society. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures and could cause misunderstanding and conflict. People with the best intentions sometimes travel to a society to “help” its people, because they see them as uneducated or backward—essentially inferior. In reality, these travelers are guilty of  cultural imperialism , the deliberate imposition of one’s own cultural values on another culture. Europe’s colonial expansion, begun in the sixteenth century, was often accompanied by a severe cultural imperialism. European colonizers often viewed the people in the lands they colonized as uncultured savages who were in need of European governance, dress, religion, and other cultural practices. A more modern example of cultural imperialism may include the work of international aid agencies who introduce agricultural methods and plant species from developed countries while overlooking indigenous varieties and agricultural approaches that are better suited to the particular region.

Ethnocentrism can be so strong that when confronted with all of the differences of a new culture, one may experience disorientation and frustration. In sociology, we call this  culture shock . A traveler from Chicago might find the nightly silence of rural Montana unsettling, not peaceful. An exchange student from China might be annoyed by the constant interruptions in class as other students ask questions—a practice that is considered rude in China. Perhaps the Chicago traveler was initially captivated with Montana’s quiet beauty and the Chinese student was originally excited to see a U.S.-style classroom firsthand. But as they experience unanticipated differences from their own culture, their excitement gives way to discomfort and doubts about how to behave appropriately in the new situation. Eventually, as people learn more about a culture, they recover from culture shock.

Culture shock may appear because people aren’t always expecting cultural differences. Anthropologist Ken Barger (1971) discovered this when he conducted a participatory observation in an Inuit community in the Canadian Arctic. Originally from Indiana, Barger hesitated when invited to join a local snowshoe race. He knew he’d never hold his own against these experts. Sure enough, he finished last, to his mortification. But the tribal members congratulated him, saying, “You really tried!” In Barger’s own culture, he had learned to value victory. To the Inuit people, winning was enjoyable, but their culture valued survival skills essential to their environment: how hard someone tried could mean the difference between life and death. Over the course of his stay, Barger participated in caribou hunts, learned how to take shelter in winter storms, and sometimes went days with little or no food to share among tribal members. Trying hard and working together, two nonmaterial values, were indeed much more important than winning.

During his time with the Inuit tribe, Barger learned to engage in cultural relativism.  Cultural relativism   is the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one’s own culture. Practicing cultural relativism requires an open mind and a willingness to consider, and even adapt to, new values and norms. However, indiscriminately embracing everything about a new culture is not always possible. Even the most culturally relativist people from egalitarian societies—ones in which women have political rights and control over their own bodies—would question whether the widespread practice of female genital mutilation in countries such as Ethiopia and Sudan should be accepted as a part of cultural tradition. Sociologists attempting to engage in cultural relativism, then, may struggle to reconcile aspects of their own culture with aspects of a culture that they are studying.

Sometimes when people attempt to rectify feelings of ethnocentrism and develop cultural relativism, they swing too far to the other end of the spectrum.  Xenocentrism   is the opposite of ethnocentrism, and refers to the belief that another culture is superior to one’s own. (The Greek root word xeno , pronounced “ZEE-no,” means “stranger” or “foreign guest.”) An exchange student who goes home after a semester abroad or a sociologist who returns from the field may find it difficult to associate with the values of their own culture after having experienced what they deem a more upright or nobler way of living.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for sociologists studying different cultures is the matter of keeping a perspective. It is impossible for anyone to keep all cultural biases at bay; the best we can do is strive to be aware of them. Pride in one’s own culture doesn’t have to lead to imposing its values on others. And an appreciation for another culture shouldn’t preclude individuals from studying it with a critical eye.

Overcoming Culture Shock

During her summer vacation, Caitlin flew from Chicago to Madrid to visit Maria, the exchange student she’d befriended the previous semester. In the airport, she heard rapid, musical Spanish being spoken all around her. Exciting as it was, she felt isolated and disconnected. Maria’s mother kissed Caitlin on both cheeks when she greeted her. Her imposing father kept his distance. Caitlin was half asleep by the time supper was served—at 10 p.m.! Maria’s family sat at the table for hours, speaking loudly, gesturing, and arguing about politics, a taboo dinner subject in Caitlin’s house. They served wine and toasted their honored guest. Caitlin had trouble interpreting her hosts’ facial expressions, and didn’t realize she should make the next toast. That night, Caitlin crawled into a strange bed, wishing she hadn’t come. She missed her home and felt overwhelmed by the new customs, language, and surroundings. She’d studied Spanish in school for years—why hadn’t it prepared her for this?

What Caitlin hadn’t realized was that people depend not only on spoken words but also on subtle cues like gestures and facial expressions, to communicate. Cultural norms accompany even the smallest nonverbal signals (DuBois 1951). They help people know when to shake hands, where to sit, how to converse, and even when to laugh. We relate to others through a shared set of cultural norms, and ordinarily, we take them for granted.

For this reason, culture shock is often associated with traveling abroad, although it can happen in one’s own country, state, or even hometown. Anthropologist Kalervo Oberg (1960) is credited with first coining the term “culture shock.” In his studies, Oberg found that most people found encountering a new culture to be exciting at first. But bit by bit, they became stressed by interacting with people from a different culture who spoke another language and used different regional expressions. There was new food to digest, new daily schedules to follow, and new rules of etiquette to learn. Living with this constant stress can make people feel incompetent and insecure. People react to frustration in a new culture, Oberg found, by initially rejecting it and glorifying one’s own culture. An American visiting Italy might long for a “real” pizza or complain about the unsafe driving habits of Italians compared to people in the United States.

It helps to remember that culture is learned. Everyone is ethnocentric to an extent, and identifying with one’s own country is natural.

Caitlin’s shock was minor compared to that of her friends Dayar and Mahlika, a Turkish couple living in married student housing on campus. And it was nothing like that of her classmate Sanai. Sanai had been forced to flee war-torn Bosnia with her family when she was fifteen. After two weeks in Spain, Caitlin had developed a bit more compassion and understanding for what those people had gone through. She understood that adjusting to a new culture takes time. It can take weeks or months to recover from culture shock, and it can take years to fully adjust to living in a new culture.

By the end of Caitlin’s trip, she’d made new lifelong friends. She’d stepped out of her comfort zone. She’d learned a lot about Spain, but she’d also discovered a lot about herself and her own culture.

Experiencing new cultures offers an opportunity to practice cultural relativism. (Photo courtesy of OledSidorenko/flickr)

Further Research

In January 2011, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America presented evidence indicating that the hormone oxytocin could regulate and manage instances of ethnocentrism. Read the full article here .

Think It Over

Do you feel that feelings of ethnocentricity or xenocentricity are more prevalent in U.S. culture? Why do you believe this? What issues or events might inform this?

1. The belief that one’s culture is inferior to another culture is called:

• ethnocentrism
• nationalism
• xenocentrism
• imperialism

2. Rodney and Elise are U.S. students studying abroad in Italy. When they are introduced to their host families, the families kiss them on both cheeks. When Rodney’s host brother introduces himself and kisses Rodney on both cheeks, Rodney pulls back in surprise. Where he is from, unless they are romantically involved, men do not kiss one another. This is an example of:

• culture shock
• universalism

Show Glossary

Self-Check: Defining Culture

You’ll have more success on the Self-Check, if you’ve completed the three Readings in this section.

• Self-Check: Defining Culture. Authored by : Cathy Matresse and Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Introduction to Sociology 2e. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/02040312-72c8-441e-a685-20e9333f3e1d/Introduction_to_Sociology_2e . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]

Ethnography: Ethnocentrism Concept Analysis Essay

Introduction, theoretical explanation of ethnocentrism, different types of ethnocentrism, my experience with the concept of ethnocentrism, works cited.

In general view, ethnocentrism is a concept that one ethnic group or nation thinks that their cultural heritage is better than other groups or nations. It is observed that each a particular nation, group, the area has thousands of norms and beliefs especially for that community only. It is observed that if one is not aware of these, one will have to face problems while mingling with another group of people.

Ethnocentrism is defined by Haviland as “ the belief that one’s own culture is superior in every way to all others” (Haviland, 1991/2001).” (McNair).

This definition clearly goes to show that it is a trend to look at the world from one’s own cultural perspective and judge all others obviously as low degree to themselves. This judgment will be on the basis of language, color, religion etc. Any country or people may experience the merits and demerits of this phenomenon. There are many types of ideologies that evolved in association with this concept.

But in present day’s modern world the man’s life and beliefs are crossing the barriers of culture and country. In today’s world of globalization where invention of advanced telecommunication and mass media have influenced the lives of the people as never before, this concept appears to have been pushed to a low degree of profile. But still Ethnocentrism exists and it is possible that one comes across it in different parts of the world in different forms.

In a general way, in any society, family culture is the basic tool to analyze and judge others’ ways of life and customs. The common phenomenon of all societies is to judge other cultures in terms of their way of life and customs inherited from their own family customs and values.

“Ethnocentrism is very much associated with a sociological theory called cultural relativism. This theory explains that this concept is socially constructed and varies cross- culturally. Ethnocentrism and values are like the spine of cultures. It separates culture from culture and how we look at each other. Ethnocentrism and values can bring good and bad effects and it may manifest itself in attitudes of superiority or hostility toward members of other groups and is sometimes expressed in discrimination or violence. (Chun-Yan).

It is assumed that Ethnocentrism is a natural process of observation of one individual who can cope with similar views and similar ideas of another culture. Many scientific studies revealed that a human being is a product of both nature and nurture. It is evident that an individual is born to a particular culture and grows with values and beliefs of that culture normally. Obviously, that individual will analyze and form a viewpoint on another culture according to his/ her socio-economic situation and customs in which they will mold rather than another culture’s view. As a result, he will observe another culture with some degree of errors than admitting the merits of other cultures.

“It was assumed that Ethnocentrism would result from two mental mechanisms: social identification and social contra-identification. Social identification was defined as the selective perception of predominantly positive characteristics of the in-group, while social contra-identification was defined as the selective perception of predominantly negative characteristics of out-groups.Both mechanisms would contribute to the reinforcement and/or maintenance of a positive social identity. These theoretical ideas were operationalized by Eisinga and Scheepers (1989). Tests confirmed the existence of the expected structure of the ethnocentric body of ideas in The Netherlands and Belgium.” (Para: Ethnocentrism : concept and theory: HTML version of the following site)

Hence, it is clear from the above statement that the attitude and values of ancient generation will influence to form a mindset on the particular culture than the personal traits or experience of an individual.

There are different types of ethnocentrism ideas that developed in the world from European Countries too. Asian Countries like,

• Afro centrism- it is practice of viewing world from the perspective of African people ‘black people
• Americentrism- it is practice of viewing world from the perspective of Americans.
• Eurocentrism – Practice of viewing world from the concept of European culture
• Sinocentrism – Practice of viewing world in the view of Asian Countries.

In general, it is cohesive group having common attitudes, believes and community feelings.

Recently on my visit to India I observed the positive effects and ill effects of the concept called Ethnocentrism. India is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic country with strong nationalism. India has a very ancient culture of Hinduism and its different forms.

Different forms of rituals, festivals and ceremonies were seen in different parts of the country. In the interior part of the country caste system was prevalent in full force. The upper caste ‘Brahmanas’ were dominant over the lower caste people. People of different castes follow ascribed culture from their own ethnic group. I visited one of the rural areas of Orissa state of India where we can see the worst form of Ethnocentrism. The upper caste persons think that their culture is supreme to all other cultures.

They treat lower caste people as second-class citizens. They were allocated special geographical locations, beliefs and norms, very low income-generating jobs and they are slaves in the eyes of upper caste people. They were physically and mentally abused by upper caste people. The backward caste and religious minorities have to live under the shadow of the upper caste. On the other hand many of the lower caste people are trying to adopt upper caste people’s culture, religion and beliefs. So here we can see the integration of the theory and practical Ethnocentrism concept.

During my visits I met different people who have very optimistic and positive mindsets towards foreigners. Upper caste people were saying that they were following the culture which they received by birth. Through their thoughts and way of life they try to show that they are the supreme people in the world. During our interaction with few upper caste people they criticized the encroachment of foreign cultures to their country. They argued that people’s behavior, attitude and way of life have changed due to the westernization of the Indian culture. In their view people are adopting the negative points of western culture to a great extent than the merits of the foreign culture. They also pointed out that people of India are very generic and caring and willing to accept the positive part of the lifestyles of the foreign people.

Ethnicity means a collection of group that has common origin and shared beliefs. In India, there are multi caste and religious groups but they have common belief of ‘Hindutva ‘. On the other hand the lower caste people are willing to subscribe to the culture and beliefs of upper caste or other religious minorities. It shows the assimilation of culture of ethnic groups. In certain aspects, our team also expressed willingness to follow some aspects of Indian culture. This ethnic culture is formed from the ancient culture of India. It is passing on to the various generation and they got the present form. During our interaction about the differences of both cultures people of India always advocate to impart their cultural features to us instead of listening to our viewpoint.

In my understanding the ethnocentrism has good and bad effects. As a nation, India can stand united with a solid nationalism concept. The common culture and beliefs of the people promote feeling of oneness among community as well as the individual. The people were broad-minded and have developed an attitude of helping each other. This concept has helped very much in the economical and social growth of India as a country. But the negative effect is that we tend to make false judgments and assumptions against other cultures and customs. If a society is very small in its geographical location then this concept will help the people there to evaluate and analyze crucially the other culture in accordance with our own culture. But in a highly populated country with larger geographical locations the concept of ethnocentrism is not likely to have too much influence on the life of the people.

To sum up, it is observed that every culture has its own positive side and negative side. In today’s world, the distance between the countries and people is reduced due to the advancement in the science and technology. It is said that many traditional cultures are disappearing and new systems are evolving. But it is the need of the hour is to protect and preserve the positivism of our ancient culture and values. For this we have to develop an international network to exchange our ideas, values with others so that they can understand other cultures in a broad way. Each country’s tourism department can play a vital role in this process. So we need to promote the positive part of our culture and mitigate the negative impacts by adopting the merits of other cultures. In developed countries we can see the common identity and nationalism within the nation. But in the case of developing countries hundreds of minority groups have their own culture and entity to follow. So for national integration and positive growth we need to adapt and cope up with other cultures with an optimistic view.

Barger, Ken. Ethnocentrism: What is it? Why are People Ethnocentric? What is the Problem? What Can We do About it. 2008. Web.

Chun-Yan, NI. Analysis Of Ethnocentrism. 2008. Web.

Ethnocentrism. Answers.com. 2009. Web.

McNair, Joseph. What is Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism as Defined by Havilland. 1998. Web.

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Meaning of ethnocentrism in English

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• His observations were coloured by ethnocentrism and ignorance .
• What students experience is not ethnocentrism, they say, but inherent cultural differences .
• Political opponents often accuse traditionalists of ethnocentrism and xenophobia .
• Anglocentric
• discriminate
• discrimination
• discriminative
• discriminatorily
• discriminatory
• one-sidedly
• one-sidedness
• the old school tie
• the old-boy network idiom
• tokenization

ethnocentrism | American Dictionary

Examples of ethnocentrism, translations of ethnocentrism.

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peanut butter (= a soft food made from crushed peanuts) and jam (= a soft sweet food made from fruit and sugar), or a sandwich with these inside. PB&J is short for peanut butter and jelly.

Sitting on the fence (Newspaper idioms)

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ethnocentrism noun

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What does the noun ethnocentrism mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun ethnocentrism . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

How common is the noun ethnocentrism ?

How is the noun ethnocentrism pronounced, british english, u.s. english, where does the noun ethnocentrism come from.

Earliest known use

The earliest known use of the noun ethnocentrism is in the 1900s.

OED's earliest evidence for ethnocentrism is from 1906, in the writing of William Sumner.

ethnocentrism is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: ethno- comb. form , ‑centrism comb. form .

Nearby entries

• ethno-, comb. form
• ethnoarchaeology, n. 1879–
• ethnobiology, n. 1935–
• ethnobotanic, adj. 1895–
• ethnobotanical, adj. 1896–
• ethnobotanically, adv. 1926–
• ethnobotanist, n. 1898–
• ethnobotany, n. 1896–
• ethnocentred | ethnocentered, adj. 1962–
• ethnocentric, adj. 1861–
• ethnocentrism, n. 1906–
• ethnocide, n. 1968–
• ethnocultural, adj. 1899–
• ethnodicy, n. 1854–89
• ethnogenesis, n. 1862–
• ethnogenic, adj. 1864–
• ethnogeny, n. 1854–
• ethnogogue, n. 1888–
• ethnographer, n. 1825–
• ethnographic, adj. 1805–
• ethnographical, adj. 1800–

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Meaning & use

Pronunciation, entry history for ethnocentrism, n..

Originally published as part of the entry for ethnocentric, adj.

ethnocentrism, n. was revised in March 2014.

ethnocentrism, n. was last modified in July 2023.

oed.com is a living text, updated every three months. Modifications may include:

• further revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
• new senses, phrases, and quotations.

Revisions and additions of this kind were last incorporated into ethnocentrism, n. in July 2023.

Earlier versions of this entry were published in:

A Supplement to the OED, Volume I (1972)

• Find out more

OED Second Edition (1989)

• View ethnocentric, a. in OED Second Edition

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Citation details

Factsheet for ethnocentrism, n., browse entry.

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Days After U.N. Cease-Fire Resolution, Has Anything Changed in Gaza?

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Here’s a closer look at where the situation stands.

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By Matthew Mpoke Bigg

• March 29, 2024

Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether ​i​t ​w​ill have a concrete effect on the war or prove merely to be a political statement.

The measure, Resolution 2728, followed three previous attempts that ​t​he United States ​had blocked. It passed by 14 votes, after the United States abstained from voting and did not employ its veto.

The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and the end to barriers to humanitarian aid.

Israel’s government condemned the vote, and early indications are that the U.N.’s action has changed little on the ground or spurred diplomatic progress.

Days after the vote, here’s a look at what has changed and what might happen next:

Has the resolution affected fighting?

Senior Israeli officials said that they would ignore the call for a cease-fire, arguing that it was imperative to pursue the war until it has dismantled the military wing of Hamas, the militant group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Since Monday, there has been no apparent shift in the military campaign . Israel’s air force continues to pound Gaza with strikes, and Hamas is still launching attacks.

Israel’s military is pressing on with a raid at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, the territory’s biggest medical facility, as well as its offensive in Khan Younis, the largest city in the south, where fighting has been fierce.

If Israel doesn’t heed the resolution, what can the U.N. do?

The Security Council has few means to enforce its resolutions. The Council can take punitive measures, imposing sanctions against violators. In the past, such measures have included travel bans, economic restrictions and arms embargoes.

In this case, however, legal experts said that any additional measure would require a new resolution and that passing it would require consent from the council’s five veto-holding members, including the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

There may be legal challenges as well. While the United Nations says that Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, legal experts debate whether all resolutions are binding on member states, or only those adopted under chapter VII of the U.N. charter , which deals with threats to peace. The resolution passed on Monday did not explicitly mention Chapter VII.

U.N. officials said it was still binding on Israel, but some countries disagreed. South Korea said on Monday that the resolution was not “ explicitly coercive under Chapter VII,” but that it reflected a consensus of the international community.

Crucially, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, maintained that the resolution was nonbinding . The United States, which holds significant power on the Security Council because of its permanent seat, likely views the passage of the resolution as more a valuable political instrument than a binding order, experts said.

The U.S. abstention sends a powerful signal of its policy priorities even if, in the short term, the Security Council is unlikely to take further steps, according to Ivo H. Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO.

“Neither Israel or Hamas is going to be swayed by a U.N. resolution,” Mr. Daalder said.

What about aid?

Israel controls the flow of aid into Gaza, and after five months of war, Gazans are facing a severe hunger crisis bordering on famine, especially in the north, according to the United Nations and residents of the territory.

Aid groups have blamed Israel, which announced a siege of the territory after Oct. 7. They say officials have impeded aid deliveries through inspections and tight restrictions.

Israel argues that it works to prevent aid reaching Hamas and says that its officials can process more aid than aid groups can distribute within the territory. Growing lawlessness in Gaza has also made the distribution of aid difficult, with some convoys ending in deadly violence.

Little has changed this week. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza on Tuesday from the two border crossings open for aid roughly matched the average daily number crossing this month, according to U.N. data. That figure, about 150 trucks per day, is nearly 70 percent less than the number before Oct. 7.

How has the resolution affected diplomacy?

Israel and Hamas appear to still be far apart on negotiations aimed at brokering a halt in fighting and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

Mediators have been in Qatar to try to narrow the gaps. But late Monday, Hamas rejected Israel’s most recent counterproposal and its political leader, on a visit to Tehran this week, said the resolution showed that Israel was isolated diplomatically.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has argued that the resolution set back negotiations, emboldening Hamas to hold out for better terms.

The biggest sticking point in the cease-fire talks had recently been the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released, in particular those serving extended sentences for violence against Israelis, U.S. and Israeli officials have said.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a correspondent covering international news. He previously worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief for Reuters and did postings in Nairobi, Abidjan, Atlanta, Jakarta and Accra. More about Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for early elections to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . Many of them believe he has put his political survival  ahead of the broader interests of the Israeli people.

Israeli soldiers withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City  after a two-week raid in which they killed around 200 Palestinians and arrested hundreds of others, the Israeli military said.

Netanyahu’s cabinet is divided about whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should retain their longstanding exemption from military service .

Internal Roil at TikTok: TikTok has been dogged for months by accusations that its app has shown a disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic content to users. Some of the same tensions  have also played out inside the company.

Palestinian Detainees: Israel has imprisoned more than 9,000 Palestinians suspected of militant activity . Rights groups say that some have been abused or held without charges.

A Hostage’s Account: Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, is the first former hostage to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted  during captivity in Gaza.

A Power Vacuum: Since the start of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has done little to address the power vacuum that would appear after Israeli forces leave Gaza. The risks of inaction are already apparent in Gaza City .

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• The Case for Marrying an Older Man

A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.  But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

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That Viral Essay Wasn’t About Age Gaps. It Was About Marrying Rich.

But both tactics are flawed if you want to have any hope of becoming yourself..

Women are wisest, a viral essay in New York magazine’s the Cut argues , to maximize their most valuable cultural assets— youth and beauty—and marry older men when they’re still very young. Doing so, 27-year-old writer Grazie Sophia Christie writes, opens up a life of ease, and gets women off of a male-defined timeline that has our professional and reproductive lives crashing irreconcilably into each other. Sure, she says, there are concessions, like one’s freedom and entire independent identity. But those are small gives in comparison to a life in which a person has no adult responsibilities, including the responsibility to become oneself.

This is all framed as rational, perhaps even feminist advice, a way for women to quit playing by men’s rules and to reject exploitative capitalist demands—a choice the writer argues is the most obviously intelligent one. That other Harvard undergraduates did not busy themselves trying to attract wealthy or soon-to-be-wealthy men seems to flummox her (taking her “high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out” to the Harvard Business School library, “I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence”). But it’s nothing more than a recycling of some of the oldest advice around: For women to mold themselves around more-powerful men, to never grow into independent adults, and to find happiness in a state of perpetual pre-adolescence, submission, and dependence. These are odd choices for an aspiring writer (one wonders what, exactly, a girl who never wants to grow up and has no idea who she is beyond what a man has made her into could possibly have to write about). And it’s bad advice for most human beings, at least if what most human beings seek are meaningful and happy lives.

But this is not an essay about the benefits of younger women marrying older men. It is an essay about the benefits of younger women marrying rich men. Most of the purported upsides—a paid-for apartment, paid-for vacations, lives split between Miami and London—are less about her husband’s age than his wealth. Every 20-year-old in the country could decide to marry a thirtysomething and she wouldn’t suddenly be gifted an eternal vacation.

Which is part of what makes the framing of this as an age-gap essay both strange and revealing. The benefits the writer derives from her relationship come from her partner’s money. But the things she gives up are the result of both their profound financial inequality and her relative youth. Compared to her and her peers, she writes, her husband “struck me instead as so finished, formed.” By contrast, “At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self.” The idea of having to take responsibility for her own life was profoundly unappealing, as “adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations.” Tying herself to an older man gave her an out, a way to skip the work of becoming an adult by allowing a father-husband to mold her to his desires. “My husband isn’t my partner,” she writes. “He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did.”

These, by the way, are the things she says are benefits of marrying older.

The downsides are many, including a basic inability to express a full range of human emotion (“I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that constrains the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him”) and an understanding that she owes back, in some other form, what he materially provides (the most revealing line in the essay may be when she claims that “when someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them”). It is clear that part of what she has paid in exchange for a paid-for life is a total lack of any sense of self, and a tacit agreement not to pursue one. “If he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive,” she writes, “but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials.”

Reading Christie’s essay, I thought of another one: Joan Didion’s on self-respect , in which Didion argues that “character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.” If we lack self-respect, “we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us.” Self-respect may not make life effortless and easy. But it means that whenever “we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously un- comfortable bed, the one we make ourselves,” at least we can fall asleep.

It can feel catty to publicly criticize another woman’s romantic choices, and doing so inevitably opens one up to accusations of jealousy or pettiness. But the stories we tell about marriage, love, partnership, and gender matter, especially when they’re told in major culture-shaping magazines. And it’s equally as condescending to say that women’s choices are off-limits for critique, especially when those choices are shared as universal advice, and especially when they neatly dovetail with resurgent conservative efforts to make women’s lives smaller and less independent. “Marry rich” is, as labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards put it in Bloomberg, essentially the Republican plan for mothers. The model of marriage as a hierarchy with a breadwinning man on top and a younger, dependent, submissive woman meeting his needs and those of their children is not exactly a fresh or groundbreaking ideal. It’s a model that kept women trapped and miserable for centuries.

It’s also one that profoundly stunted women’s intellectual and personal growth. In her essay for the Cut, Christie seems to believe that a life of ease will abet a life freed up for creative endeavors, and happiness. But there’s little evidence that having material abundance and little adversity actually makes people happy, let alone more creatively generativ e . Having one’s basic material needs met does seem to be a prerequisite for happiness. But a meaningful life requires some sense of self, an ability to look outward rather than inward, and the intellectual and experiential layers that come with facing hardship and surmounting it.

A good and happy life is not a life in which all is easy. A good and happy life (and here I am borrowing from centuries of philosophers and scholars) is one characterized by the pursuit of meaning and knowledge, by deep connections with and service to other people (and not just to your husband and children), and by the kind of rich self-knowledge and satisfaction that comes from owning one’s choices, taking responsibility for one’s life, and doing the difficult and endless work of growing into a fully-formed person—and then evolving again. Handing everything about one’s life over to an authority figure, from the big decisions to the minute details, may seem like a path to ease for those who cannot stomach the obligations and opportunities of their own freedom. It’s really an intellectual and emotional dead end.

And what kind of man seeks out a marriage like this, in which his only job is to provide, but very much is owed? What kind of man desires, as the writer cast herself, a raw lump of clay to be molded to simply fill in whatever cracks in his life needed filling? And if the transaction is money and guidance in exchange for youth, beauty, and pliability, what happens when the young, beautiful, and pliable party inevitably ages and perhaps feels her backbone begin to harden? What happens if she has children?

The thing about using youth and beauty as a currency is that those assets depreciate pretty rapidly. There is a nearly endless supply of young and beautiful women, with more added each year. There are smaller numbers of wealthy older men, and the pool winnows down even further if one presumes, as Christie does, that many of these men want to date and marry compliant twentysomethings. If youth and beauty are what you’re exchanging for a man’s resources, you’d better make sure there’s something else there—like the basic ability to provide for yourself, or at the very least a sense of self—to back that exchange up.

It is hard to be an adult woman; it’s hard to be an adult, period. And many women in our era of unfinished feminism no doubt find plenty to envy about a life in which they don’t have to work tirelessly to barely make ends meet, don’t have to manage the needs of both children and man-children, could simply be taken care of for once. This may also explain some of the social media fascination with Trad Wives and stay-at-home girlfriends (some of that fascination is also, I suspect, simply a sexual submission fetish , but that’s another column). Fantasies of leisure reflect a real need for it, and American women would be far better off—happier, freer—if time and resources were not so often so constrained, and doled out so inequitably.

But the way out is not actually found in submission, and certainly not in electing to be carried by a man who could choose to drop you at any time. That’s not a life of ease. It’s a life of perpetual insecurity, knowing your spouse believes your value is decreasing by the day while his—an actual dollar figure—rises. A life in which one simply allows another adult to do all the deciding for them is a stunted life, one of profound smallness—even if the vacations are nice.