Some Things You Need To Understand #1a
Sexism = Prejudice + Power
Women cannot be sexist. Prejudiced, yes; sexist, no.
9 thoughts on “Some Things You Need To Understand #1a”
Comments are closed.
Sexism = Prejudice + Power
Women cannot be sexist. Prejudiced, yes; sexist, no.
Comments are closed.
Misogynist women can be sexist, as misogyny is supported by the status quo, certainly moreso than prejudice against men. They are also more likely to be taken seriously than misandrist women.
Anonymouse, did you not read The Rules of Engagement? Maybe you don’t care. In any case, until I see some ID, I shall not respond further to your trolling.
kthxbye
I apologise for the anonymous trolling. I posted the previous comment while this was on blogspot, and thought I was logged in.
That said, I did have a disagreement with your assertion that ‘women cannot be sexist’.
Indeed, you did. However, I still hold to that assertion because you’ve given me no evidence that I’m wrong.
There are probably misogynist women out there. And even though misogyny is supported by the status quo, that doesn’t mean that women have institutional power. The power any woman derives from being misogynist comes from the power that our male-dominated society parses out to her. Collectively, women do not have the systemic power to be sexist, though they may say sexist things and have prejudices.
Well yes. If you define the power required for an individual to be sexist as being something that must come from that individual and the individual’s status rather than the perceived support of society, then you’re right in your assertion.
I interpreted your term, power, as being the cultural support, acceptance and re-enforcement of sexism (against women), which makes sexism (against women) so ubiquitous and powerful.
As opposed to ‘reverse-sexism’ (against men), which has yet to exist.
Neither men nor women act as a collective. Any idividual who applies power, or incites the application of power to support, perpetuate, create or administer gender bias; is acting sexistly – whatever their gender.
As for an example of institutional sexism: in much of the U.S. and Canada, men are subject to gender selective penalties in cases where domestic abuse is suspected (before they’re even tried). Institutional gender bias against men not only exists, but is common place. Often supported, louded, or simply ignored by women. Of course, man are as capable of misandry as women are, or perhaps that’s only the misandry parsed out by our collective mothers.
Central: Normally I would just tell you that you’re wrong on many counts, starting from your first sentence and moving on down. (you still are – wrong, that is – but I have a different response today) Check out the Monday Debate. The topic is Racism, but your argument about sexism fits in (you’ll see why when you read the post). I invite you to start this conversation there.
I personally believe that both arguements are correct in their own right.
Because Kitty is right in the sense that because woman are human and do have opinions they can also be prejudiced towards men therefore thay can also be sexist.
Although i also think that ABW is correct because women being the fairer sex aren’t at a position to be sexist to the extremities that males are.
So perhaps what ABW should have said to better illustrate her point was that “Women can’t be sexist,” -in the same way that men can- “they jus can’t”.
i do believe this is the case, but apparently bell hooks disagrees, perhaps just on a semantic level, but still. and she’s ptobably far smarter than i am about these things.