Discussion: Racism vs. Sexism

[dnno1]

What the heck? Bringing up a 5 year old thread to post a nearly 3 year-old video is kind of pathetic. Looking at who did it doesn't surprise me in the least either.

More like 3 years old... and I don't think anything's changed much since. Given that, we are on the verge of having the supreme court overturn part of the Voting Rights Act because they think it is no longer necessary. I just wanted to remind all of you that it still exists.

 

[Schlosser85]

I don't think anyone needed you to remind them that racism exists.

 

[Bathead]

I don't think anyone needed you to remind them that racism exists.

I disagree. I think it useful to get a reminder now and again. Some of the American public do tend to forget and can become complacent about racism. There are still some who think just because Obama was elected (twice now), that racism is a thing of the past, and we all (here at least) know that isn't true.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

I disagree. I think it useful to get a reminder now and again. Some of the American public do tend to forget and can become complacent about racism. There are still some who think just because Obama was elected (twice now), that racism is a thing of the past, and we all (here at least) know that isn't true.

But to bump a 5-year old thread is kind of lame in doing it, especially on here.

 

[Cosmic]

5 years is too long for a bump. It would've been better to start a new thread, and provide a link to the old thread if you want people to refer back to that discussion.

 

[SV Fan]

It still exists fellas.

All I have to say is hurray for the old couple who tried to stop the white guy. Young people suck

 

[The Question]

I feel this article is very insightful in regards to sexism in modern America:

http://opineseason.com/2013/06/03/m...buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

“Men’s Rights Activists” and the New Sexism

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

As an artist who talks a lot about gender issues, I’ve run across men’s rights activists (MRAs) here and there over the past few years, never giving them much thought. But last week, a video of poet Kait Rokowski’s darkly satirical poem “How to Cure a Feminist” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BCvPJ00t7U&feature=youtu.be) that I host on my YouTube channel went viral, and suddenly my inbox was inundated with comment notifications. I read all of them. A few examples:

”Sorry I’m pro equality, but feminism is a Rockefeller funded cult that hijacked the women’s rights movement. Trying to fight against peoples way of life is wrong.”

“Well it really depends what you mean by ‘feminism’. If you mean equality of rights for sexes then that’s great and that already happened in the west. If you mean dismantling patriarchy and rape culture and so on then it quickly verges on bunk.”

”Chauvinism is an ugly part of the human condition regardless of the perpetrators gender.”

“In some sense I find this poem to be sexist against men as it suggests most men express negative feelings towards all women.”

I realize that YouTube comments are the lowest form of human communication, but these are still fascinating. This is what sexism looks like in 2013: it’s not “Women sure are worthless and stupid” as much as it is “I’m a good guy who loves and respects women but feminism is evil because the systematic oppression of women doesn’t really exist.”

It’s a kinder, more well-intentioned sexism, but it’s just as harmful.

I’m sure there are all kinds of internal ideological struggles in the MRA movement (just like there are in feminism), but this is a consistent undercurrent. They believe in a kind of equality, but also that women’s movements have overreached—making men the new victims of sexism.

Women have made great strides in recent decades, after all, closing many gaps in higher ed graduation rates, improving media representation and earning more and more money. But has it been enough to compensate for centuries of inequality? Have these strides benefited all women equally? Have these strides translated into power? How many female presidents have we had? Congresspeople? Governors? Generals and admirals? CEOs and billionaires? Which gender is still stereotyped as strong, assertive, responsible and tough, and which is still stereotyped as passive, nurturing, dependent and overly emotional? I don’t need to quote statistics here—sexism saturates our culture; it’s everywhere.

“My female boss is mean to me at work” is not the same thing as centuries of institutionalized, systemic discrimination. If “beautiful women can get whatever they want,” then why haven’t we elected one president yet? “Sexism against both genders is wrong” betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what sexism is. Any individual of any gender can be prejudiced or discriminate on a face-to-face level, but only one gender faces the glass ceiling, the ongoing, legalized regulation of their bodies, the significant wage gap for doing the same type of work, the deeply-engrained and consistently reinforced stereotypes about their being less aggressive, less capable and less intelligent, and countless other obstacles.

And the thing is, men are hurt by sexism. Rigid gender roles, for example, aren’t healthy for anyone. But it is not the same kind of “hurt,” and feminism definitely isn’t the enemy—it’s an invaluable analysis, a frame through which we can start to work toward real liberation for people no matter their gender identity.

The first step, however, is acknowledging that sexism—as in the historical and institutional economic, cultural and psychological oppression of women—is real. If we can’t start there, then we are working with band-aids, individual solutions to complex, large-scale social problems.

The lesson here is not that we should all go pick fights with MRAs; they’re an easy target. It’s that we should challenge ourselves to understand sexism (and racism, and homophobia, etc.) in this larger sense—it’s not just individual acts of harassment or discrimination, and the solution to it has to be bigger than “being better” on an individual level.

I realize that this is a can of worms and that there’s much more to be said. For some really good further reading, check out:

Stephanie Fairyington at The Atlantic: The Lonely Existence of Mel Feit, Men’s-Rights Advocate
(http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/ar...ence-of-mel-feit-mens-rights-advocate/267413/)

Jessica Valenti at The Nation on “Could the Facebook Win Be Feminism’s Tipping Point?”
(http://www.thenation.com/blog/174583/could-facebook-win-be-feminisms-tipping-point)

Many good links at Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog, including this one on the myth of “reverse sexism.”
(http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/faq-arent-feminists-just-sexists-towards-men/)

 

[Pink Ranger]

I'd have more recognition of the so-called for the "men's rights" activists if they weren't so consistently made up of jerkwads who are deadbeat fathers, selfish ex-husbands, sexually frustrated losers and/or lazy, failing bums who can't take responsibility for the way their own lives have ended up.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

That is a fantastic article The Question. Thank you for posting it. It seems quite true that as systematic oppression is combated, a more subtle form of prejudice often emerges when it is no longer acceptable to simple say things like "women are not as smart as men." It is frightening to me that people can look at the various feminist movements that have pulled women out of the mire of the status of second-class citizen, and feel the need to demean and ignore it.

If your cause requires you to tear down another cause, then you need to re-evaluate the legitimacy of your cause. Recognising and taking steps to remove a problem that really exists for men is not the same as being in an oppressed class, nor gives you the right to couch your position in the rhetoric of the discriminated.

 

[Handsome Rob]

Shelby Steele in a good opinion piece in the WSJ:

The Decline of the Civil Rights Establishment

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=hp_opinion

The civil-rights leadership rallied to Trayvon's cause (and not to the cause of those hundreds of black kids slain in America's inner cities this very year) to keep alive a certain cultural "truth" that is the sole source of the leadership's dwindling power. Put bluntly, this leadership rather easily tolerates black kids killing other black kids. But it cannot abide a white person (and Mr. Zimmerman, with his Hispanic background, was pushed into a white identity by the media over his objections) getting away with killing a black person without undermining the leadership's very reason for being.

The purpose of today's civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This idea of victimization is an example of what I call a "poetic truth." Like poetic license, it bends the actual truth in order to put forward a larger and more essential truth—one that, of course, serves one's cause. Poetic truths succeed by casting themselves as perfectly obvious: "America is a racist nation"; "the immigration debate is driven by racism"; "Zimmerman racially stereotyped Trayvon." And we say, "Yes, of course," lest we seem to be racist. Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason.

It is long past the time we relegate race-hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson to the dustbin of irrelevance. The day when either one of them calls a press conference and no one shows up will be a truly good day for the country.

 

[SV Fan]

It is long past the time we relegate race-hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson to the dustbin of irrelevance. The day when either one of them calls a press conference and no one shows up will be a truly good day for the country.

The whole idea that people never talk about black on black crime is a bunch of BS. I think a large part of the putting more restrictions for instance on buying guns(ie background checks) is an idea to try slow down black on black crime(and I have seen it stated as much by people who supported back ground checks).

I also think anybody who feels that Black people many times aren't unfairly targeted(see the war on drugs for instance or New Yorks stop and check program) for their skin color is fooling themself. In the case of Trayvon, I ask if Zimmer was Black and Trayvon was white and we had the exact same evidence do people honestly believe Black Zimmerman would have been given the same leeway by a jury(or would they view it as a crime that a Black man shot a white kid)

 

[Ant-manic]

Shelby Steele in a good opinion piece in the WSJ:

The Decline of the Civil Rights Establishment

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=hp_opinion



It is long past the time we relegate race-hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson to the dustbin of irrelevance. The day when either one of them calls a press conference and no one shows up will be a truly good day for the country.

i'm not sure who i respect less; black conservatives or the closeted homosexuals pretending to be anti-gay republicans.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I thought this was kind of interesting. Not sure I buy it, but it's interesting.

Why men need women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/why-men-need-women.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[SV Fan]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...te-people-shouldnt-feel-guilty-about-slavery/

If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery it’s Caucasians. The White race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world. [...]

Despite all that, no other race has ever fought a war for the purpose of ending slavery, which we did. Nearly 600,000 people killed in the Civil War. It’s preposterous that Caucasians are blamed for slavery when they have done more to end it than any other race and within the bounds of the Constitution to boot. Yet white guilt about slavery is still one of the dominating factors in American politics.

 

[Thundercrack85]

To be fair, saying the Union fought the South to end slavery is kind of a half-truth. Slavery was arguably the biggest issue that brought about the war (since it helped create the huge divide), but most people fighting in the Union Army weren't abolitionists, and a few of the Union states were even slave states. Ending slavery wasn't even an official goal until years into the war. It's sort of like saying America went into Iraq to bring about democratic reform.

 

[SV Fan]

To be fair, saying the Union fought the South to end slavery is kind of a half-truth. Slavery was arguably the biggest issue that brought about the war (since it helped create the huge divide), but most people fighting in the Union Army weren't abolitionists, and a few of the Union states were even slave states. Ending slavery wasn't even an official goal until years into the war. It's sort of like saying America went into Iraq to bring about democratic reform.

I actually think States rights was the big issue(basically Southern states felt the Northern states were screwing them over in terms of taxing and such and wanted to have more say into how they run things), but even if we go under the theory of slavery being the reason for the war, wouldn't that mean half the country was fighting to free the slaves and the other half weren't(so how exactly is that great for whites when it comes to slavery). I would also love to see his top 5 lists of the worst offenders of using slavery.

I am guessing going with Rush's revisionist views of history since a Republican in 1860s was good for civil rights, the Republicans remain the party that is pro-Black and absolutely nothing has changed since then how either party works

 

[Thundercrack85]

Slavery is a relative term. Most states had their own forms of slavery. For example, in Europe (I'm including Russia), some serfs had less rights than American slaves. Not to mention the Ottoman Empire, South Asia, and Africa, which had their own forms of slavery.

In East Asia things weren't much better. Samurais ruled over their peasants, and treated them like slaves. Hell Tibet didn't abandon serfdom until the 50's.

In most cases though, it wasn't entirely racially motivated like it was in America, which does set American slavery apart a bit (but it's hardly unique).