We deny women any agency when it comes to their clothing. We assume that if they dress in particular ways they either secretly desire unwanted attention, or that they’re too stupid to realize that they’re dressed like walking billboards for sex and therefore need other people to carefully guide them through the rocky shores of life. At the same time, we never acknowledge a) men’s role in not assaulting women (something that the vast majority of them seem capable of doing) and b) that men dress just as much to attract attention, but are given the unique advantage of being allowed to choose whose attention they want to reciprocate.
Young women today grew up believing that their sex would not hinder their ability to accomplish their goals in life. As their feminist consciousness emerged, these women began to realize that the idea of “having it all” was a myth. They recognized that society still constrained women by saying “of course you can work, but you still have to be a wife and mother”.
—  Erchull, Liss, Wilson, Bateman, Peterson & Sanchez 2009


Benevolent sexism is disarming. Not only is it subjectively favorable in its characterization of women, but it promises that men’s power will be used to women’s advantage, if only they can secure a high-status male protector. To the extent that women depend on men to be their protectors and providers, they are less likely to protest men’s power or to seek their own independent status.
—  Glick and Fiske, Hostile and Benevolent Sexism as Complementary Justifications for Gender Inequality (2001)