The concept of gender does not only refer to biological characteristics. This concept also appears as a social category. Sexism is discrimination based on the gender of individuals and it generally includes negative attitudes and behaviours towards women. According to the ambivalent sexism theory developed by social psychologists Glick and Fiske, sexism consists of two layers: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism and benevolent sexism also benefit from three main elements: patriarchy, gender differentiation and heterosexuality. Along with this theory, it has been revealed that attitudes and behaviors that seem to be positive towards women can also cause sexism. In this study, Turkish proverbs were examined according to the ambivalent sexism theory. It is aimed to determine to what extent Turkish proverbs contain sexism towards women. In order to carry out this analysis, the words “mother”, “daughter”, “female”, “bride”, “woman”, “wife”, “lady” were determined as keywords. 132 proverbs containing these keywords have been identified. It was determined that 76,5% of these proverbs exhibit sexist attitudes towards women. It has been seen that the most common themes in proverbs containing sexism for women are marriage, motherhood and honor.

Ambivalent sexism, proverbs, hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, woman.