and disorienting. Women sometimes describe their first recognition of sexism as a moment of realization, a "click" in which many previously disparate experiences, problems, reports, and issues become unified. What seemed previously to be simply one's own experiences, become a woman's experiences. What seemed previously to be personal problems, become women's problems. What were reports about others, or issues concerning others, become stories and issues about women like oneself. The recognition of sexism thus involves both a new way of conceptualizing experi ence and an identification with other women. It is also, un surprisingly , a bewilder ing recognition (Bartky, 1990). For once made it is difficult to determine which of one's reactions are, and which are not, the result of one's own idiosyncrasies. As the world of personal experience fades and the pervasiveness of sexism becomes more clear, few aspects of one's life remain in place. Fear, anger, and resentment at being insulted or threatened (however subtly) can no longer be regarded as simply personal reactions to personal affronts. They may, and often are, better appre hended as part of a system of oppression, in which individual perpetrators, perhaps even unknowingly, reaffirm the boundaries resulting from sexism.
The recognition of sexism for men is and has been both a slower and seemingly quite different process (Segal, 1990). Few men report the recognition of sexism as a "click." It is more likely to take the form of a ploddingly arduous reconstruction of their own experience, which will require that they take responsibility for participa tion in sexist practices, and re-evaluate many of their beliefs and desires. Forms of male social interactions (e.g. jokes, chiding) come to be recognized as a mutual devaluing of women. Aspects and images of masculinity come to be recognized as compelling yet inconsistent with an aspiration for both inclusive social justice and uncoerced interpersonal cooperation. The recognition of sexism can thus also be transformative. As it is accompanied by an awareness that by forgoing forms of power and privilege the exercise of which determines one's relative social standing, the transformation carries considerable personal risk. As it is accompanied by a realization of complicity the intentional nature of which is not always clear, it carries considerable moral risk. Different accounts of sexism will affect the degree of moral risk men face and the degree of personal risk which they ought to undertake.
Though the dynamics may be different, what is clear for both men and women is that the recognition of sexism, and its corresponding personal transformation, is a prerequisite for social transformation. Sexism, as noted above, works at a number of different levels whose interaction is, again, in need of further clarification.
Levels of Sexism
Sexism can be seen as a force responding to and molding human interactions. As a force, it can be seen, roughly, to operate at three levels: institutional sexism, which works on and through the level of social institutions; interpersonal sexism, which works on and through interactions among individuals who are not explicitly mediated by institutional structures; and unconscious sexism, which works at the personal level of the cognitive and affective processes of individuals. It is helpful to