gervais and hillard also looked at the effect of benevolent sexism and hostile sexism and how these affected the perception of clinton and palin in regards to gender norms. benevolent sexism is a sort of chivalrous attitude where men believe that women are in need of saving and must be looked after because they are unable to do it themselves. this type of sexism was positively associated with voting likelihood for sarah palin due to the prominent feminine nature of her appearance, and negatively associated with hillary clinton due to the more masculine nature of her appearance. hostile sexism is defined simply as negative attitudes toward women. both palin and clinton were evaluated negatively by hostile sexists, but they were still more likely to vote for palin than clinton because palin is stereotypically more feminine and this falls better in line with her expected gender norms. in general, benevolent sexists will praise palin for her femininity and hostile sexists will penalize clinton for her rejection of feminine gender norms.