Or they may be neither, and the statements are true. Or they may be both, and the statements are true.
I understand that completely. Your point is wrong, for the reasons stated.
Regards,
Shodan
Nonsense. Just being a woman gets her all sorts of “privileges”. For example, she’s less likely to be investigated for a crime, as well as less likely to be arrested or convicted if she’s guilty, and even if convicted will probably get a lesser sentence.
Of course the usual feminist argument against things like that is “it doesn’t count!” Something is only a “privilege” if a man has it - and it’s even a “privilege” if it’s detrimental to men. “Privilege” rhetoric is very convenient that way.
OK then. Whatever you say. Apparently the only reason I follow the game is because of an autonomic response generated by my testicles which causes me to be fascinated by this particular sport. No woman likes the game and all men do.
Salutations,
Larry Borgia.
She’s confusing (or conflating) sexism with patriarchy.
Sexism means, or should exclusively mean, a pattern of ascribing different characteristics (outcomes, behaviors, tastes, etc) to the sexes, or of interpreting the same ones to have different meanings or implications for the different sexes. In short, an unfairness, which may range from trivial to oppressive.
Patriarchy is a specific pattern of social organization, historically rooted, specifically oppressing women, in which men run things. Or, to be a bit more literal-minded, since it translates as father rule, the rule of older men over their wives and their children.
Women not being allowed to retain credit ratings acquired during marriage when they divorce while men do? Sexist AND oppressively patriarchal.
Men being assumed on the basis of being male to have an interest in football games? Sexist, but not oppressively patriarchal.
If you, personally, don’t like these definitions, you are welcome to propose OTHER words to correctly convey the separate meanings but we should have two terms we can all use, one of which refers to the historically existent pattern of male domination and female oppression that the feminist movement exists in opposition to, and one of which refers simply to not treating people the same regardless of sex.
I said exactly the opposite of this.
:shrugs:
Regards,
Shodan
I say, sexism is prejudice based on sex. Racism is prejudice based on race. Indeed, these things have far more serious implications depending on the context, but to me, that doesn’t change the definition.
You’ll have to come to terms with your wife’s choice of words and how they differ from yours.
Just as a white person shouldn’t call a black person a nigger, a black person shouldn’t call a white person a honkey. But is one worse than the other? I’d say yes. The N-word represents a lot more pain and suffering, and is clearly more hurtful. Your wife is pulling this significance into her definition for sexism. It’s an important distinction (though one where I wouldn’t know where to draw the line, so I don’t, but that’s me). I suggest you find a way to respect her usage, even if you disagree. However, she should also respect your usage.
Great post.
I think you meant “And yet, people still consider them racist.” Good point.
In any case, I say that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, even though one might be far tastier (or nastier) than the other. Yes, the distinction your wife is drawing is an important one to consider, but it’s not what I use as criteria for applying the word. I see “Of course you like football, you’re a man” equivalent to “Of course you like shopping, you’re a woman.”
BTW, there’s a big difference between calling something someone says sexist than calling someone sexist. One should take care to use the latter very, very carefully, with lots of evidence.
Wonder why they lost? I suspect it’s because the mainstream who rejected the power components of both of these words were powerful and influential enough to do so and, therefore, were able to shape the words into something that they felt more comfortable with. Funny how that works. Especially since the ones who did not have significant mainstream numbers or ‘power’ were the exact ones trying to describe how racism and sexism impacted their daily lives. Minus the power component, racism and sexism have very little impact. Even the emotional and psychological effects can be overcome, but the real life impact of racist and sexist power to deny employment, housing, education, etc. is where all of the harm really lives. For the mainstream to ignore ‘power’ in the definition of these words is mighty convenient. Without it, it’s definition is watered down and can then be more easily connected to things like reverse racism and reverse sexism (which are really just reactions to real racism and sexism, imo).
Personally, I’m very careful to differentiate racism (based on power) from prejudice, which I find most people count as being the same. And even in cases where prejudice is clear, there’s still a difference between prejudice ‘just because’ and prejudice as a ‘reaction’ to an historical and systematic mistreatment.
I guess it’s not a stretch to imagine that I side with the OP’s wife on this one.
Actually, they lost because they attempted to change the meanings of words that already had established meanings and they failed to make a persuasive case to the majority of speakers of the language. They failed to persuade a majority of people, including blacks, that people like Louis Farrakhan could not be racist. They failed to persuade a majority of people, including women, that a woman* proclaiming that “All sex is rape” is not sexist.
“Powerful” and “influential”? It was just ordinary people who rejected the changes. I have encountered any number of speeches and college classes in which the changes were proposed or encouraged. I do not ever recall encountering an “authority” rejecting such definitional changes. (I am not claiming that Allan Bloom or William F. Buckley or similar persons never wrote on the topic, only that I have never encountered any opposition to the change from such pundits or even from the mainstream media.) Basically, confronted with the claim that one needed to wield power to be racist, the typical American looked at the likes of Louis Farrakhan and said “That makes no sense.”
Your claim that the “powerful and influential” people “shaped” the words is directly counter to history. The words already had meanings. The meanings did not include the necessity that racists or sexists had to be powerful enough to impose their will on others. The words originally meant any person who exalted or denigrated a group based on perceived race or sex. Adding “wielding power” to the definition was the change. It was the neologists who wanted to “shape” the words and they simply failed to make their case.
There is also the problem that adding the “power” component deprives us of words that serve a specific purpose. Prejudice does not serve. Prejudice generally indicates a specific personal response to a specific situation or phenomenon. It fails to identify an underlying world view that results in actions carried out across the breadth of society.
Those who want(ed) to add “wields power” to the definitions of racism and sexism should have simply coined genuine new words to express that idea rather than attempting to hijack the meaning of words that already conveyed specific ideas.
- (Catherine MacKinnon never made such a statement, but when anti-feminists made up that claim about her, a number of women defended it.)
Of course you can be racist when you are not the race “in power.” One of my black students came to me with mixed feelings. She had received scholarships to one school that was traditionally black and another to Vanderbilt. The guidance counselors told her to go to the traditionally black school so that she wouldn’t face prejudice. She asked me what she should do.
I told her that I couldn’t tell her what to do, but that for the rest of her life she would probably have to deal with some prejudice anyway. The traditionally black school had low entrance requirements. Vanderbilt was hard to get into, but had an excellent academic reputation. If she went to Vanderbilt, she would have that degree to reassure her for the rest of her life. And I added that she was quite capable of doing the work at Vandy.
She didn’t tell me her choice, but about four years later, I received a graduation invitation to Vanderbilt with her card inside. There was no return address, but there was a note written: “And I’m going to graduate school too!”
There are many excellent primarily or traditionally black colleges and universities. But her choice was limited to those two schools near her home. One with high expectations and one with low. It wasn’t the student who was racist. It was the guidance counselors who encouraged her to take the easy way out. I really don’t think they felt a sense of empowerment with their race and didn’t understand what it can do.
BTW, the traditionally black school has raised its standards and improved its reputation over the time when this happened in the 1970s.
It’s a semantic argument.
People passionately involved with the causes of fighting racism/sexism tend to use those ‘ism’ words in the sense of the societal systemic discrimination that women and people of color face.
Most people use the words, more commonly, to mean ‘a prejudice based on race/gender.’
The passionate ones are aware of that more common definition and reject it … for some reason. I suspect many of them just want to have an excuse to get into arguments on a regular basis.
Yes, women can be sexist against men, in that they can hold prejudices biased against the male gender. They can’t be sexist against men in the societal sense, since men hold societal power.
My cite is dictionary.com.
I just clicked in to say that the thread title sounds like a Comedy Central special.
Unfortunately, to many people, “sexism” is defined as “prejudice based on sex,” so you’ll have difficulty communicating with those people.
There is definitely a difference between prejudiced based on sex with and without the social aspects that make it hurtful. It’s just a semantic argument whether we include that in our definition of sexism.
The same applies to race.
Regardless, is it really OK for someone who is not a sexist to use a statement that would be sexist if it were turned around? Can a feminist object to “You like to shop because you’re a woman” turn around and say “You like football because you’re a man” without being a hypocrite?
I say, “no”. If you set up rules for fair behavior you need to follow them. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Is the penalty for violating the rule different depending on the power factor? Hell yes. I should expect to get a lot more grief for saying “Hey nigger” than a black man saying “Hey honkey” to me. But they’re both wrong, for the same reason: because they’re racist.
So, saying the OP’s facebook friend’s post is sexist does not mean that it’s as bad as all other sexist statements.
Would the whole conversation have been different if the OP had said “That’s sexual prejudice” instead of “sexist”? Perhaps, but if so, IMHO that’s based on an unfortunate (and minority) definition of sexism.
Feminists who say sexist things deserve to be called out for it. Maybe with a wink and a smile. But they need to be willing to do what they’re (rightfully) asking others to do. Hopefully, some day this issue will be such a thing of the past that people can say things like that and nobody will care: it’ll just be a silly overgeneralization.
Right, but there’s also the ethical question: is it OK to say things based on sexual prejudice and not expect to be called out for it (regardless of the terms used, but hopefully, with the appropriate sternness, which in this case would be a smile and a “tsk tsk”.)
Or is it completely OK for women to say and do the things that men do to women, to which women (rightly) object, and it’s OK simply because men are the priviledged class?
The problem with defining racism purely in terms of relative power is that relative power hierarchies are not static, and fluctuate wildly in context. Five black guys who really hate white people in a nation of 300 million white people have very little power. Those same black guys locked in a room with one white dude have a lot of power.
This formulation of bigotry also breaks down entirely in examining relationships between groups where neither party is white. If a Mexican guy calls a Chinese guy a chink, exactly how do we determine if that’s racist or not? It also tends to erase other unequal power relationships. I’m a queer, white atheist. Do I rank higher or lower in the power hierarchy in this country than a black minister?
There’s a common fallacy in discussions of race relations, where someone will say, “Blacks don’t have it worse than whites. I was the only white guy in an intercity high school, and people were racist to me all the time!” It’s incorrect to say that, because of stories like that, racism on a national level doesn’t exist. But it’s equally incorrect to say that, because of racism on a national level, individual stories like that don’t exist.
Of course not. Sexism is sexism, and it should be corrected wherever and whenever it occurs.
One thing I’ve found that unites the sexes : regardless of gender, they all get pissy when you point out they’ve said something sexist.
I’d like to hear from those who think that prejudice based on sex isn’t necessarily sexism.
Yeah, no kidding. Decades ago, though, I learned to at least try not to get pissy, and listen, and maybe learn. After that, I learned a lot.
There’s a bit more at work here, and I think two subtle but important points are getting muddled together. Making a statement such as “Men like football” is a generalized observation that, in the US, more men like it than don’t and that men are much more likely to be football fans than women. This is undisputable fact, so labelling it as sexist, biased, or prejudiced is ridiculous. It is fundamentally different from a statement like “He likes football because he’s a man”. This is applying a stereotype, and in my opinion, it is sexist, because it is belittling to both football fans, male or female, and to men as a whole. Admittedly, it’s harmful in any articulable way. What makes it sexist is that it takes a stereotype or generalization, which may or may not have a basis in observable fact, and reverses the observation, it’s logically invalid and it glosses over the actually nature of the correlation and assumes a causal relationship, based entirely on sex.
I think it’s culturally dangerous to make distinctions on this, saying that one is okay because it’s harmless and one is wrong because it’s harmful, because we’re training our minds to ignore the logic of the situation, which makes it difficult to make those distinctions when they’re more difficult to discern. This is true even for generally positive racial associations. And, worse, it can hurt our ability to make reasonable judgments that actually DO have reasonable associations with race, like health issues.
So, the way I see it, sexism is sexism, it’s a form a bias or prejudice based on sex, that certain incidences of sexism are worse than others, or that some forms are systematic rather than personal, shouldn’t be a reason to say it’s not what it is. And this applies equally to racism or any other form of prejudice.
I think the key sticking point is the word “because”. Maybe Doug didn’t like sports for the first 20 years of his life at all, then Barry Bonds randomly pulled him from a burning car on the freeway and saved his life, and Doug has been a huge Giants fan ever since, and follows baseball in general avidly. It seems quite clearly wrong to say that he likes baseball “because he’s a man”. (Granted, there’s no really compact way of saying “your interest in baseball doesn’t surprise me, because you are a member of a group that does, in general, tend to like baseball, although that’s just a statistical likelihood, and there are exceptions in both directions”.)
On the other hand, if you’re advertising a product for men, it’s certainly not sexist for you to decide to run your ads during sporting events, or to run ads for a product for women during gardening or cooking shows, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise.
I wonder how the OP’s wife would react to the statement
“She doesn’t like football because she’s a woman”
Most sexist/racist statements can be reversed in this way:
“He’s black so he must be good at basketball”
vs.
“White guys can’t jump”
Both say basically the same thing and both are racist.
So it’s be hard to argue such statements are only racist in one direction.