is sexism more tolerated that racism?

VictoryGin

Thecure wrote:

lets try not to try this tread into a another joke which will get shut down. here is my questions to you all. if Hillary did a speech on gender like Obama did on racism what would people think?

zora's not a joke, for reals. black women certainly have the worst of all in terms of racism and sexism.

and yes, i would have felt differently about clinton's campaign. i felt she was afraid of alienating voters if she would have made a big issue out of it. i wish she did.

Thecure

VictoryGin wrote:

zora's not a joke, for reals. black women certainly have the worst of all in terms of racism and sexism.

and yes, i would have felt differently about clinton's campaign. i felt she was afraid of alienating voters if she would have made a big issue out of it. i wish she did.

I might be losing my sense of humor, i though that person was trying to be funny and ruin what i consider an important topic. you see i think that Hillary didn't make it an issue because people would say that she was just trying to win votes. look what happen when she started to cry on TV, people all over where saying that she was just doing that to win the womens vote. it made me sick.

VictoryGin

Thecure wrote:

I might be losing my sense of humor, i though that person was trying to be funny and ruin what i consider an important topic. you see i think that Hillary didn't make it an issue because people would say that she was just trying to win votes. look what happen when she started to cry on TV, people all over where saying that she was just doing that to win the womens vote. it made me sick.

i guess in that way, hillary was in a no-win situation. she didn't start that dialogue, which upset me. but if she did, others may call her pandering, or too aggressive, or something else.

i obviously don't know what was going on with her, but to me, it seemed like when she cried, that was an actual honest moment we had from her. she was just f'ing tired. tired of so many things i'd bet. i don't think we got to see too many honest moments from her because of all her advisors and whatnot. maybe if she did what she wanted in the campaign, we would have heard a good speech about gender.

MattyJoe

What my personal experience has been is that with women gaining more rights and higher places in society, some men are reacting more and more with what would be considered "sexist" behavior, behavior which goes beyond just using these terms.

I have always had high respect for women that many people I know don't share. Most of my close friends do, but outside of that I know plenty of guys who aren't like that. In fact many girls even find it odd these days. They don't expect respect from guys, they expect the mild kind of abuse which they receive from men threatened by the changing role of women in society who have to regain dominance. These kinds of guys make me angry. These guys kinda view women as puppets almost who are meant to please them. It pervades the way they talk about women, how they treat women, and how they expect women to act.

However, I think it's also important for women to be sensitive to the fact that it's a guy's nature to hold a position of authority (not in a negative or abusive kind of way, in a very respectful and loving way). I don't really know how to describe it, and I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but I also know many girls who are a little too headstrong and independent at times. This can really intimidate a guy and make him uncomfortable and, therefore, cause him to react to regain dominance, so to speak.

Please, no one get offended by what I'm saying. These are just my personal observations. In no way do I mean to accuse or criticize either guys or girls. I'm just trying to address the issue and explain it the way I've come to understand it.

keeponrockin

I'm not a Bush supporter, but how many times have you heard him called an asshole, dickhead, bastard, etc.. Is that sexism? Hell no.

MattyJoe

keeponrockin wrote:

I'm not a Bush supporter, but how many times have you heard him called an asshole, dickhead, bastard, etc.. Is that sexism? Hell no.

However, it IS bias. I can't tell you how many people I've encountered who know almost NOTHING about Bush except what they've been told to believe by the media.

Believe me, I'm not a Bush fan either, but I am willing to acknowledge that there has been tons of bias against him in the media. Not just on the news but on sitcoms, talk shows, game shows, etc. I also think a lot of that is what has caused so much ill feeling about Bush. It's not about the issues, it's about what attitude is accepted by society. There's a lot of negative labeling and association in society as far as people who support Bush. It's no longer an acceptable position.

VictoryGin

MattyJoe wrote:

However, I think it's also important for women to be sensitive to the fact that it's a guy's nature to hold a position of authority (not in a negative or abusive kind of way, in a very respectful and loving way). I don't really know how to describe it, and I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but I also know many girls who are a little too headstrong and independent at times. This can really intimidate a guy and make him uncomfortable and, therefore, cause him to react to regain dominance, so to speak.

what do you mean it's a guy's nature to hold a position of authority? are you saying men are the biologically dominant gender and women shouldn't try to hold a position of authority because it can intimidate a guy and make him uncomfortable?

this is some fun reading (and it brings race into it too, yay!):

'Women's Liberation' Aims to Free Men, Too

The Washington Post
Sunday, June 7, 1970
By Gloria Steinem

THIS IS THE YEAR of Women's Liberation. Or at least, it's the year the press has discovered a movement that has been strong for several years now, and reported it as a small, privileged, rather lunatic event instead of the major revolution in consciousness�in everyone's consciousness, male or female�that I believe it truly is.

It is a movement that some call "feminist" but should more accurately be called humanist; a movement that is an integral part of rescuing this country from its old, expensive patterns of elitism, racism and violence.

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior: these are preconceptions imbedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.

Unfortunately, authorities who write textbooks are sometimes subject to the same popular wisdom as the rest of us. They gather their proof around it, and end by becoming the theoreticians of the status quo. Using the most respectable of scholarly methods, for instance, English scientists proved definitively that the English were descended from the angels while the Irish were descended from the apes.

It was beautifully done, complete with comparative skull measurements, and it was a rationale for the English domination of the Irish for more than 100 years. I try to remember that when I'm reading Arthur Jensen's current and very impressive work on the limitations of black intelligence, or when I'm reading Lionel Tiger on the inability of women to act in groups.

It wasn't easy for the English to give up their mythic superiority. Indeed, there are quite a few Irish who doubt that they have done it yet. Clearing our minds and government policies of outdated myths is proving to be at least as difficult, but it is also inevitable. Whether It's woman's secondary role in society or the paternalistic role of the United States in the world, the old assumptions just don't work any more.

Part of living this revolution is having the scales fall from our eyes. Every day we see small obvious truths that we had missed before. Our histories, for instance have generally been written for and about white men. Inhabited countries were "discovered" when the first white male set foot there, and most of us learned more about any one European country than we did about Africa and Asia combined.

I confess that, before some consciousness-changing of my own, I would have thought that the women's history courses springing up around the country belonged in the same cultural ghetto as home economics. The truth is that we need Women's studies almost as much as we need Black Studies, and for exactly the same reason: too many of us have completed a "good" education believing that everything from political power to scientific discovery was the province of white males.

We believed. for instance, that the vote had been "given" to women in some whimsical, benevolent fashion. We never learned about the long desperation of the women's struggle, or about the strength and wisdom of the women who led it. We knew a great deal more about the outdated, male supremacist theories of Sigmund Freud than we did about societies where women had equal responsibility, or even ruled.

"Anonymous," Virginia Woolf once said sadly, "was a woman."

A Black Parallel

I DON'T MEAN to equate our problems of identity with those that flowed from slavery. But, as Gunnar Myrdal pointed out in his classic study "An American Dilemma," "In drawing a parallel between the position of, and feeling toward, women and Negroes, we are uncovering a fundamental basis of our culture."

Blacks and women suffer from the same myths of childlike natures; smaller brains; inability to govern themselves, much less white men; limited job skills; identity as sex objects,and so on. Ever since slaves arrived on these shores and were given the legal status of wives � that is, chattel� our legal reforms have followed on each other's heels �with women, I might add, still lagging considerably behind.

President Nixon's Commission on women concluded that the Supreme Court sanctions discrimination against women � discrimination that it long ago ruled unconstitutional in the case of blacks�but the commission report mains mysteriously unreleased by the White House. An equal rights amendment now up again before the Senate has been delayed by a male-chauvinist Congress for 47 years. Neither blacks nor women have role-models In history: models of individuals who have been honored in authority outside the home.

As Margaret Mead has noted, the only women allowed to be dominant and respectable at the same time are widows. You have to do what society wants you to do, have a husband who dies, and then have power thrust upon you through no fault of your own. The whole thing seems very hard on the men.

Before we go on to other reasons why Women's Liberation Is Men's Liberation, too �and why this incarnation of the women's movement is inseparable from the larger revolution � perhaps we should clear the air of a few more myths � the myth that women are biologically inferior, for instance. In fact, an equally good case could be made for the reverse.

Women live longer then men. That's when the groups being studied are always being cited as proof that we work them to death, but the truth is that women live longer than men even when the groups being studied are monks and nuns. We survived Nazi concentration camps better, are protected against heart attacks by our female hormones, are less subject to many diseases, withstand surgery better and are so much more durable at every stage of life that nature conceives 20 to 50 per cent more males just to keep the balance going.

The Auto Safety Committee of the American Medical Association has come to the conclusion that women are better drivers because they're less emotional than men. I never thought I would hear myself quoting the AMA, but that one was too good to resist.

I don't want to prove the superiority of one sex to another: that would only be repeating a male mistake. The truth is that we're just not sure how many of our differences are biological and how many are societal. What we do know is that the differences between the two sexes, like the differences between races, are much less great than the differences to be found within each group.

Chains of Mink

A SECOND MYTH is that women are already being treated equally in this society. We ourselves have been guilty of perpetuating this myth, especially at upper economic levels where women have grown fond of being lavishly maintained as ornaments and children. The chains may be made of mink and wall-to-wall carpeting, but they are still chains.

The truth is that a woman with a college degree working full time makes less than a black man with a high school degree working full time. And black women make least of all. In many parts of the country � New York City, for instance�a woman has no legally guaranteed right to rent an apartment, buy a house, get accommodations in a hotel or be served in a public restaurant. She can be refused simply because of her sex.

In some states, women get longer Jail sentences for the same crime. Women on welfare must routinely answer humiliating personal questions; male welfare recipients do not. A woman is the last to be hired, the first to be fired. Equal pay for equal work is the exception. Equal chance for advancement, especially at upper levels or at any level with authority over men, is rare enough to be displayed in a museum.

As for our much-touted economic power, we make up only 5 per cent of the Americans receiving $10,000 a year or more, and that includes all the famous rich widows. We are 51 per cent of all stockholders, a dubious honor these days, but we hold only 18 per cent of the stock�and that is generally controlled by men.

In fact, the myth of economic matriarchy in this country is less testimony to our power than to resentment of the little power we do have.

You may wonder why we have submitted to such humiliations all these years; why, indeed, women will sometimes deny that they are second-class citizens at all. The answer lies in the psychology of second-classness. Like all such groups, we come to accept what society says about us. We believe that we can make it in the world only by "Uncle Tom-ing," by a real or pretended subservience to white males.

Even when we come to understand that we, as individuals, are not secondclass, we still accept society's assessment of our group � a phenomenon psychologists refer to as internalized aggression. From this stems the desire to be the only woman in an office, an academic department or any other part of the man's world. From this also stems women who put down their sisters�and my own profession of journalism has some of them.

Inhumanity to Man

I DON'T WANT to give the impression, though, that we want to join society exactly as it is. I don't think most women want to pick up briefcases and march off to meaningless, depersonalized jobs. Nor do we want to be drafted�and women certainly should be drafted; even the readers of Seventeen magazine were recently polled as being overwhelmingly in favor of women in national service� to serve in a war like the one in Indochina.

We want to liberate men from those inhuman roles as well. We want to share the work and responsibility, and to have men share equal responsibility for the children. Probably the ultimate myth is that children must have fulltime mothers, and that liberated women make bad ones. The truth is that most American children seem to be suffering from too much mother and too little father.

Women now spend more time with their homes and families than in any other past or present society we know about. To get beck to the sanity of the agrarian or joint family system, we need free universal day care. With that aid, as in Scandinavian countries, and with laws that permit women equal work and equal pay, man will be relieved of his role as sole breadwinner and stranger to his own children.

No more alimony. Fewer boring wives. Fewer childlike wives. No more so-called "Jewish mothers," who are simply normally ambitious human beings with all their ambitiousness confined to the house. No more wives who fall apart with the first wrinkle because they've been taught that their total identity depends on their outsides No more responsibility for another adult human being who has never been told she is responsible for her own life, and who sooner or later says some version of, "If I hadn't married you, I could have been a star." Women's Liberation really is Men's Liberation, too.

The family system that will emerge is a great subject of anxiety. Probably there will be a variety of choices. Colleague marriages, such as young people have now, with both partners going to law-school or the Peace Corps together, is one alternative. At least they share more than the kitchen and the bedroom. Communes; marriages that are valid for the child-rearing years only�there are many possibilities.

The point is that Women's Liberation is not destroying the American family. It is trying to build a human compassionate alternative out of its ruins.

Simply Incorruptible

ONE FINAL myth that women are more moral than men. We are not more moral; we are only uncorrupted by power. But until the old generation of male chauvinists is out of office women in positions of power can increase our chances of peace a great deal.

I personally would rather have had Margaret Mead as President during the past six years of Vietnam than either Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. At least she wouldn't have had her masculinity to prove. Much of the trouble this country is in has to do with the masculine mystique: The idea that manhood somehow depends on the subjugation of other people. It's a bipartisan problem.

The challenge to all of us is to live a revolution, not to die for one. There has been too much killing, and the weapons are now far too terrible. This revolution has to change consciousness, to upset the injustice of our current hierarchy by refusing to honor it. And it must be a life that enforces a new social justice

Because the truth is that none of us can be liberated if other groups are not. Women's Liberation is a bridge between black and white women, but also between the construction workers and the suburbanites, between Mr. Nixon's Silent Majority and the young people it fears. Indeed, there's much more injustice and rage among working-class women than among the much publicized white radicals.

Women are sisters; they have many of the same problems, and they can communicate with each other. "You only get radicalized," as black activists always told us, "on your own thing." Then we make the connection to other injustices in society. The women's movement is an important revolutionary bridge, and we are building It.

Gloria Steinem is a free-lance writer and a contributing editor of New York Magazine. The accompanying article is excerpted from a commencement address at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Miss Steinem says that it "was prepared with great misgivings about its reception, and about the purpose of speaking at Vassar."

MattyJoe

VictoryGin wrote:

what do you mean it's a guy's nature to hold a position of authority? are you saying men are the biologically dominant gender and women shouldn't try to hold a position of authority because it can intimidate a guy and make him uncomfortable?

Yes, I am saying that because I believe it's true. Not that women shouldn't have jobs or positions of power, but that, from a relationship point of view, men are the protectors and women are the nurturers. So, therefore, I disagree with much of what Ms. Steinem has to say.

rebornFixer

jeffbr wrote:

Look in some of the Clinton threads and you'll see cunt used by the same people who would likely flame people for using the word nigger. I don't like or use either word, personally, but I've certainly seen a double standard in this forum by supposedly enlightened, left-leaning posters. I don't think those posters could be called progressive, though, since I think the use of the word cunt automatically excludes one from being thought of that way. At least in this country. I know it is more widely used and applied to either gender in the UK, so doesn't have the same impact that it does here.

So, yes, sexism is clearly more tolerated than racism.

Agreed ... Its a tad shocking, actually. Women are about 51% of the population? Blacks in the U.S., around 10%? Why does sexism linger more strongly??? Its rather odd.

acoustic guy

I would like to own a sexy black woman and dress her in a mini skirt with pumps and a tight bra...then have her clean my house and make dinner.

Talk about sexism and racism WOW. LOL
My wife AND my black friend would probably slap me for that one hahahaha

MattyJoe

reborncareerist wrote:

Agreed ... Its a tad shocking, actually. Women are about 51% of the population? Blacks in the U.S., around 10%? Why does sexism linger more strongly??? Its rather odd.

Because sexism is condoned by the media. Everything is dictated by the media.

Rhinocerous Surprise

Anyone else only paying attention to the male posts in this thread?

Heineken Helen

MattyJoe wrote:

Yes, I am saying that because I believe it's true. Not that women shouldn't have jobs or positions of power, but that, from a relationship point of view, men are the protectors and women are the nurturers. So, therefore, I disagree with much of what Ms. Steinem has to say.

I actually agree with you and this is something I've been saying for a while and that many women are afraid to say for fear of looking like we live in the middle ages. There are many many women who are natural leaders and would make the world a much better place if given the chance.

One such woman who I personally look up to and believe is a fantastic role model for women, is Mary Robinson, former Irish president... she took the job and made it her own... but never did she have to do it the mans way. She was graceful, had integrity, was a calm and composed speaker, she never backed down from what she believed in (note, I'm sure she still has all these qualities). She really changed things for women in Ireland and for the job of the president.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Robinson

the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish senate (1969–1989). She defeated Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan and Fine Gael's Austin Currie in the 1990 presidential election becoming, as an Independent candidate nominated by the Labour Party, the Workers' Party of Ireland and independent senators, the first elected president in the office's history not to have the support of Fianna Fáil.[2]

She is credited by many as having revitalised and liberalised a previously conservative political office. She resigned the presidency four months ahead of the end of her term of office to take up her post in the United Nations. Robinson has been Honorary President of Oxfam International since 2002, she is Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. Robinson is also one of the European members of the controversial Trilateral Commission.

She serves on many boards including the GAVI Fund. Robinson’s newest project is Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which promotes equitable trade and development, more humane migration policies and better responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa. The organization also promotes women's leadership and supports capacity building and good governance in developing countries. She is Chancellor of the University of Dublin. Since 2004, she has also been Professor of Practice in International Affairs at Columbia University, where she teaches international human rights. Robinson also visits other colleges and universities where she lectures on human rights.

In 2004, she received Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for her work in promoting human rights.

I really believe a woman can be a leader and yet still be a woman... when they try to do it the mans way is where they fail.

catefrances

Heineken Helen wrote:

I really believe a woman can be a leader and yet still be a woman... when they try to do it the mans way is where they fail.

and by fail you mean?

Heineken Helen

catefrances wrote:

and by fail you mean?

Don't get respect.. get called bitch/slut/whore... don't win whatever it is they're running for.

Pacomc79

Thecure wrote:

i understand what you are saying but does saying the N word make a person a racist or just anger.

It really depends on the person, one would have to be an absolute fool to think there is some kind of supremacy eminating from simply skin pigmentation or the lack there of. Words are words and many people who use them are not thinking rationally. I believe many people are predjudiced against a particular culture without being racist.

I would imagine the same goes with sexism. Women and men are inherently different which is quite a good thing really. Being a huge fan of choice in general in all aspects of life, equal pay for equal work is just obvious. I tend to believe due to the nature of the sexes and their passions the numbers are more skewed than they should be. I generally don't understand the she has do to it the mans way or that kind of comment but some industries are heavilly weighted towards a particular sex over the other, in as such the basic attitude will take on either the male atmosphere or the female atmosphere. For instance a hair salon will be different than a barber shop.

What I'm all about is choice. Obviously society has it's norms or what it perceives as norms and they change on racial ethnic class and religious lines to name a few.

Are there ideas that women can't do a specific job... sure. Are they warrented... hell no. Sex organs don't make you who you are... your brain does.

Ok so there are inherent differences... but by nature working toegther we learn to use them effectively. In some cases men take on traits more often exibited by women and vise versa.

I think the perceptions currently are worse than reality. The idea that you have to act "manly" to get ahead is a fallacy... what is manly when it comes to politics for instance? There's certainly a difference in style from man to man as there is from woman to woman.

The idea that you cannot perform a task if you are black or have female sex organs is utterly preposterous and has been proven time and time again.

Everyone even men and women vary in thier hopes dreams and desires. Outside of common traits certain individuals are going to be better at a particular task whether they are male or female. I don't typically think having or not having skin pigmentation or having a Vagina or Penis altoegther amount for much... it's always the content of your character no matter if you are treated fairly or unfairly. The response to the unfair is almost always more indicative of character than true fairness.

With this all being said I still recognise that there are laws in place that are draconian and prohibitive as VG has already stated. Hell, as I stand on the footsteps of marriage, I realize how lucky I am to not have to go through the ridiculousness to change my name. She will have to spend a full day of work without pay going through the various governmental hoops to change her name to add mine to fulfill this cultural norm.... to basically file taxes toegther and make us family in the eyes of government. Hell you can't even get that if you're homosexual. There's a long way to go certainly.


Perhaps sexism is more pervasive because it goes across all racial ethnic social and religous lines It's rooted in culture in general.

Heineken Helen

Pacomc79 wrote:

I believe many people are predjudiced against a particular culture without being racist.

I agree completely.. I think the R word gets thrown around way too easily... rather than people actually discussing the PROBLEM! And once you're painted with the R brush, your opinion is therefore invalid and not worth discussing... so you'll be stuck with these prejudiced views and nobody to help you out or answer your questions or tell you WHY they're prejudiced.

elmer

Thecure wrote:

why is it that we have no problem calling women sluts, bitches and tramps but the N word is look very down upon among what is considerdered polite society.

Because of Emmeline KLAUS Pankhurst and her dogwhipping brigade.

In 'polite society' they would seldom call women sluts, bitches and tramps, it'd be more like,"that coarse, unrefined chambermaid is rather like an exposed deformity I say, her incursions into our conversation are very foolish and cast a gloomy shadow over our higher object at hand, quite upsetting. Don't you agree Adela?" --Pankhurst overheard at lunch, Connaught Place.1904--

rebornFixer

As much as I am not all that fond of Hillary herself, I was quite pumped by the possibility of a female president of the U.S. (no sexual connotation meant ...

angelica

jeffbr wrote:

Look in some of the Clinton threads and you'll see cunt used by the same people who would likely flame people for using the word nigger. I don't like or use either word, personally, but I've certainly seen a double standard in this forum by supposedly enlightened, left-leaning posters. I don't think those posters could be called progressive, though, since I think the use of the word cunt automatically excludes one from being thought of that way. ...

So, yes, sexism is clearly more tolerated than racism.

I totally agree. I think the "c" word gets used in Courtney Love threads, too. And still, it remains not progressive in the least...and imo, it's regressive.