Lots of sexist things drive me crazy:
- being expected to set up meetings and take notes, even when I'm the guest expert doing a presentation as a favor for someone else
Context please, is this a culture at a particular organization that expects this of one gender but not the other? I've been in that situation before and hated it so much. One of our employees was a Powerpoint wizard who could do that stuff infinitely better and faster than I could, but our boss was a dick and wouldn't let us have her make the presentations because they were too "effeminate". How the hell is Powerpoint ever going to be "effeminate!?" But that wasn't the only reason that particular job sucked...
- that when I walk past a meeting of high mucky mucks at work it is invariably a sausage party in there
This one confuses me, how is it sexist that other people are male? I don't mean to be facetious I'm genuinely missing something here. Why is it a problem these people are male?
- being interrupted
Context please, this is certainly rude but inferring the poster is female, I assume there's some tendency to interrupt women as opposed to men being remarked on here. Is it in general or is it associated with the first item, a particular organization's culture? It's sexist either way of course but I'm genuinely curious. I've read studies that in an average conversation women say more than men and that women speak more words per day then men on average, so it intrigues me this would be true.
- the fact that 25% of women in America have been sexually assaulted
I take issue with calling this a "fact" based on scholarly criticism of the original study. While sexual assault of any person is almost always inherently sexist (unless your assaulter is some kind of pansexual where they would literally assault any person with equal probability) because the victim is targeted because of their sex, this is a common figure you hear often that's just not reliable.
This is based old data gathered by Mary Koss in 1985 and for Ms. Magazine, so right away we're in decades old data and a sample that probably isn't truly random with regard to the entire female population. Christina Hoff Sommers has criticized this survey because of the following question: Have you had sexual intercourse you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?
Sommers explains what is wrong with that question better than I ever could, but I will attempt to paraphrase. Essentially the question is flawed in its design. Clearly it's intended to measure instances of chemically induced rape, but it allows for the ambiguity of having a consensual sexual encounter that was later regretted, and it's a self fulfilling prophecy that the misuse of recreational drugs or alcohol lead to sexual encounters one later regrets.
Additionally only 27% of the women Koss reported as victims identified themselves as rape victims in their responses. It's true that there are more forms of sexual assault then rape, but this should give one pause to consider the data collection and reporting here is highly questionable. Considering this was for a magazine and citing something that isn't exciting or shocking will not sell issues, Koff had incredible incentive to overstate.
Sommers' criticism and retabulation of the data places the assault figure closer to 1 in 14, which has some rough parity with estimates that about 5 or 6 percent of men are rapists (and a good number of them tend to be serial rapists, so the female victimization rate should be a little larger than the rate of male rapists assuming heterosexual rape is the bulk of crimes committed). The question then becomes whose methodology do you believe?
While I don't think any reasonable person male or female should dismiss the experiences reported by the respondents, it's prudent to be very skeptical of the 1 in 4 citation.
- the sexualization of little girls
Wholeheartedly agreed. I have cousins who take "glamour shots" of their six year old! UGh so creepy!
What in the deep blue hell are people thinking? I mean seriously you see this crap sometimes in general interest media and you feel sick just looking at it, every part of you knows it's wrong, how do people not realize this!?
Okay I'm getting mad about something I can't change. Next topic!
- the wage gap
The problem with the idea of the gender pay gap is it depends on bias to perceive it as correct or incorrect. Many critics of this figure point out the erroneous nature of comparing total earnings without correcting for the different types of jobs typically held, the number of hours worked by either sex is different, men are more likely to specialize in some careers, self employed women earn less than self employed men, etc.
Even the Department of Labor published a document, "An Analysis of Reasons for Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women", that concludes "This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."
The problem is, people who see themselves or a group of people has having no agency or control of their circumstances is going to see a wage gap based on sexism. They are going to assume causation, essentially.
People who believe individual choices and actions have bearing are going to look deeper and read in causations of their own besides gender, and consequently are going to believe there is no such gap. It really bugs me then when people belt that fact out like it's objective and absolutely true without qualifying it's based on a raw earnings comparison.
I've always been skeptical of it because if it were true, no man would have a job perhaps outside of men who might work as actors or models where you need maleness as a requisite for the job. You'd fire them all and hire women and get the same benefit cheaper.
Despite that, I'm not judging here, because while I think it leads you to a better life to believe that your personal actions that you control do matter, at least more than your race, gender, etc., because even if you are wrong you will still accomplish more this way, the absolute truth of the matter is unknown to me personally.
I for one find it tragic we debate the gender pay gap rather than explore the deeper reasoning here and try to somehow accurately understand what an individual's locus of control is. Exploring the reasoning behind why men and women make these choices would probably reveal all kinds of sexism for both. That's the discussion I wish we were having.
Incidentally, I've always found it interesting that the Census Bureau numbers indicate never married women earn at the same levels as men (and interestingly men who are married earn more, I wonder if they earn more because they're married or if they're married because they earn more), and a number of studies point out that for adults under 35, women out-earn men. This makes sense to me considering how much culture has shifted, the cultural values associated with marriage at least in my mind, and how men aren't attaining education at the same levels, but it's always intrigued me all the same.
- the fact that I'm sure there's someome who's reading this and getting annoyed because they are a dude and don't experience these types of sexist behaviors and therefore they don't exist
A person can be annoyed with certain items listed for reasons other than the one listed, but I'm now so worked up about the baby sexualization issue I'm going to take a break after saying one more thing in two parts:
1. Sexist things effect everyone. Just because the effect is different doesn't mean you're "immune".
2. As long as there is one objective physiological difference between the genders, there's always going to be at least some clearly defensible context where they have to be treated differently. A clear example of this is in medicine. The question of how far that extends is pretty murky, so while I don't agree with some of these items I do not mean to mock or belittle anyone's concern that they might be true. Rather I'm only pointing out that we have to look at things comprehensively and have strong arguments that phenomena are clearly attributable to one gender being treated differently for no other discernible reason than gender. There are plenty of examples even under this strict criteria!
