This has been explained several times in this thread by ladyfoxfyre, Johanna, and myself.
If you’re not interested in understanding, that’s on you
Let me put it this way:
If someone were to ask me whether a white person could experience racism, I’d say yes of course.
Or if a young person could experience ageism. Or if a member of the majority religious denomination could experience religious intolerance.
Yes in all cases.
It seems strange to me to come up with special arbitrary rules for sexism so as to rule out one gender.
So whatever discrimination a man might hypothetically experience, he can’t call it sexism because, you know, he’s a man.
People who actually study and discuss racism in an academic way DO say that whites can’t experience racism.
I think this is turning into pointless nitpickery. These words can mean different things depending on who’s using them. Just like the word “theory” means different things depending on whether you are using the word in a scientific context.
People who study sexism and racism use those words in a different way than the general populace does. Men can experience sex based discrimination, but they cannot experience sexism by that definition. I don’t really understand why this bothers people so much; there are lots of words used in an academic context that have different meanings then they do for laymen.
Do you have a cite? I mean really, I would find that interesting.
In various threads on the Dope I have pointed out the difference between being in the majority group and minority or oppressed groups, and why it’s less wrong, less of an issue, to make fun of whites than blacks, say.
But I would never go so far as to say racism cannot apply to someone of a particular skin colour. That…would be a racist position.
I can’t get you a cite right now, although I will look for one when I get home. I have this stuff bookmarked there.
But, basically, I feel like you aren’t really hearing what I’m saying. Ok, if you can, clear your head of your preconceptions. Just… hear me out here, ok? Now, racial or sexual discrimination is something that can occur in any direction; Black on White, White on Asian, men on women, women on men. In any of those cases, someone can be discriminated against because of their (perceived) race or gender. Indisputable, right? Saying that, for example, black people cannot be prejudiced against whites would be ludicrous, and obviously false. No one disagrees with this.
However, racism or sexism are the long term, systematic structures and ideas that place one race or gender above another. It’s the entire social structure that creates and upholds the concepts, and reinforces them. Do you kinda see what I mean? Sexism is the system that values men over women. It’s the dominant paradigm. Do you see now how a man cannot be a victim of sexism, but he can be a victim of sexual discrimination, by this definition? And, do you see that it isn’t defined this way in order to exclude men, but to have a set of words that are useful when we study these structures?
Now, I know in everyday life you don’t use the words that way. That’s ok. Since we are talking about the study of these long term systems and how they work, though, we are using words in a different way. Part of the reason for that is because, in a sexist society (for example) when there is discrimination against men it’s fundamentally different from prejudice against women. Which isn’t to say it isn’t bad! But, like in the draft issue above, it’s important to recognize the underlying sexist structures that caused/maintain the discrimination if we have any hope of fixing it. By pretending that there isn’t a long backdrop of enforced female inferiority, we can misunderstand (and subsequently, be unable to fix) what is causing these ideas. That doesn’t help anyone.
I wanted to clarify that I personally don’t care if you use the words sexism and racism that way, but I wanted to help you to understand what others mean when they do. It’s isn’t done to slight men in any way.
Speaking as a man, I think the (vastly greater) employment opportunity the military offers to men offsets the requirement that one register for Selective Service. Apart from anything else, the odds that we will get into another war big enough to require a draft in our lifetimes is slim.
OK, I’m with you now miss elizabeth.
I would still personally prefer to use the standard definition; the definition of “sexism” that most dictionaries give. There are other ways of describing what you’re describing; patriarchal oppression or whatever.
But anyway, it does just seem to be semantics at this point. I was shocked before because the way it came across was “Ok, men might experience discrimination, but it’s not true discrimination – that can only happen to women”.
Or maybe you could read any of the many posts in which I explain my understanding of the difference between the two theories instead of sitting aghast at the statement.
Ha! Riiiight. It’s so terrible for women that they, too, aren’t rounded up and sent to die for their country. How sexist to think that women couldn’t do a good job of meeting an early, violent death.
You’re overlooking a gigantic distinction. The people in the military are there by choice. Restricting women of the choice to get into the military is sexism. The draftees are there by force. Restricting men of the choice to not be in the military is also sexism.
That last part was the whole reason I posted what I did. The whole “chances are slim” angle is invalid. The chances of a woman in this thread having their vagina sewn shut or sold to a husband are slim, too. So what? Either “yeah, but that’s rare” disqualifies an injustice or it doesn’t. If feminists get to complain about a 1940s workplace, I get to complain about a 1940s draft. Or we both don’t. Gotta be fair.
You know the reason they are restricted is because of the belief that they are unsuitable and not qualified to fight, right? Or are you still not paying any attention to anybody’s words in this entire thread?
I think he is paying attention. I think you have some blinders on too. Let’s not make this about women’s issues. There are more than enough talk shows and charity walks for that. I too failed to follow some of the logic. What about men who are deemed inappropriate for some jobs like elementary school teachers or some types of medical jobs because we are all secretly perves or something? That is a legitimate example of ‘sexism’ even in your terms isn’t it?
In any case, feminists don’t get to dictate what and what isn’t a legitimate issue for everyone or get to redefine words as they see fit. That is a perfectly valid example of oppression against everyone who doesn’t closely align themselves with feminist theory yet speak plain English.
How on earth do you have a discussion about gender discrimination without discussing all of it? But it is refreshing for you to relegate the importance of women’s issues to “talk shows and charity walks”. :rolleyes:
It’s not a redefinition of the word, as many have explained. Sexism isn’t just discrimination by gender. Sexism is a historical institution of oppression of one gender by another. In every part of the world for most parts of history, that has been the oppression of women by men. The rationale is that there are inherent inferior characteristics that all women have that justify that oppression. Until that paradigm changes where men are being systematically oppressed, they are not victims of sexism, they are victims of gender discrimination. The example you cited is one I have quoted in my posts a half dozen times as being a legitimate case of gender discrimination. So no, by my own definition and the definition many others in here have been discussing, that is not sexism, it’s gender discrimination. Until men become the culturally inferior gender, it isn’t sexism, it’s gender discrimination.
You’re right, it is a perfectly valid example of discrimination based on gender. I am not closely aligned with feminist theory, I speak plain English, and I am having no difficulty understanding the difference between the concept of gender discrimination and the concept of sexism and how the two differ from a historical and institutionalized application.
If men are not allowed to comment on ways in which they are discriminated against in the USA, why are discussions of anti-female discrimination in the USA allowed without people talking about how much they should cry for the poor American woman who has it better than well over 80% of the planet (including men)? I’m seeing a double standard. I think all discrimination based on sex should end, and we should be against the discrimination based on it’s severity, not on the sexes of the victims.
The point is that both the forced induction of men and the bars on induction of women are based on sexism against women. It’s not as though men are allowed to serve because everyone thinks we’re only useful as cannon fodder. It’s because women- rightly or wrongly- are considered less able.
If women were allowed to serve in combat and still weren’t required to register for the draft, you might have a better argument.
Indeed, that was the exact rationale the Supreme Court adopted when it decided that the Selective Service Act did not violate the 5th Amendment:
For the record, though, I don’t agree with ladyfoxfyre’s definition of sexism. To say that discrimination must be universal or pervasive before it is problematic strikes me as unfair.
You took the bait hook, line, and sinker. It sounds idiotic to any rational person exactly like it should. How about we just go back to original goal and treat people as individuals with all semantics and made-up definitions stripped away? That is even the ultimate goal of feminism isn’t it yet you are obscuring that so badly through intermediate goals it is creating more division. I am confident you will be completely unable to see this point but others can.
So if you didn’t want to have a discussion about it, why are you here? If you just wanted to troll the thread, you should have said so earlier so I didn’t waste my time thinking you had a point to clarify or actually wanted to engage in discussion about the issue. The definition of sexism isn’t an intermediate goal of feminism. It just happened to be a discussion in this thread because someone brought it up. What a waste of time you are.
Bolding mine. At no point has anyone in this thread said anything of the sort. miss elizabeth said it really well in post 305. Please re-read that.
I said no such thing about discrimination. I have gotten exceedingly sidetracked with this unconventional discussion about the definition of the term ‘sexism’ that many have taken that discussion to mean that I believe those definitions to apply to all forms of discrimination. All discrimination is problematic. But not all discrimination is sexism.
Fuck it, I’m done with this line of discussion.
I’ve only read the last page, so maybe I missed something. Is this what you’re saying:
[QUOTE=miss elizabeth]
However, racism or sexism are the long term, systematic structures and ideas that place one race or gender above another. It’s the entire social structure that creates and upholds the concepts, and reinforces them. Do you kinda see what I mean? Sexism is the system that values men over women. It’s the dominant paradigm. Do you see now how a man cannot be a victim of sexism, but he can be a victim of sexual discrimination, by this definition? And, do you see that it isn’t defined this way in order to exclude men, but to have a set of words that are useful when we study these structures?
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure I agree with this either, but maybe I’m not understanding it. Is the point that sexism is the generalized belief that men are better, and gender discrimination is specific instances?