Disclaimer: Now, I’m no scholar, or philosopher, or political scientist, and I don’t consider myself well-broached in topics beyond Feminism 102 stuff, so the claims I am about to make about sexism maybe are not accurate. I welcome clarification and correction from people who actually do know about it, and hope that I get my point across even if I misuse terms or flat-out miss important arguments in the global conversation about sexism.
There are two phrases you often hear in these long, complicated, heated discussions within comments sections and discussion boards about sexism:
1. The patriarchy hurts men.
2. Sexism hurts men.
I agree with the first. The patriarchy, by creating and policing gender roles and punishing the people who defy them, does hurt men. But these damaging aspects of the patriarchy have not resulted in an underrepresentation of men in the active skeptical community, so I will leave this conversation for someone else to conduct.
I disagree with the second. Sexism does not hurt men.* Sexism hurts women, full stop. There is no special kind of shit that magically rolls uphill, even if the patriarchy hurts men too. Sure, maybe there are individual men who receive negative treatment or are victims of individual, prejudiced women, but that’s not sexism. There’s no social sanction for it, and the very next woman that man encounters is not very likely to repeat the behavior (unless he’s stumbled into a coven of manhaters who have taken over the whole town). Suffering a personal insult from one person is not suffering from sexism. Earning less money than a female coworker at the same position is not sexism against men. A selection committee making extra effort to schedule women speakers at a conference is not being sexist against men. Until men are being harmed as a group and can prove it, with laws of averages and stuff backed up by surveys and data from longitudinal studies and evidence like that, and can frame it as a coherent narrative with lots and lots of quotes from women that reveal how they consider men an underclass and why there are perfectly rational (perhaps biological) reasons to perpetuate the difference in political power between the two groups, stop claiming that sexism hurts men. Bad things happen to men, sure, but when a woman treats a man badly for no other reason than that he is a man, she is prejudiced. Someone being mean to a man does not signal systemic oppression.
*Racism does not hurt white people, either, and classism doesn’t hurt rich people. Homophobia doesn’t oppress straight people, undocumented residents aren’t displacing citizens, and the disabled are not successfully shoving their accommodationist agenda down abled people’s throats.
Don’t collect personal anecdotes of all the times women have been mean to you to argue about the validity of women’s experiences of sexism, particularly when they are explaining their experiences of sexism within the skeptical community as a deterrent to membership after you’ve asked them what’s holding them back from active participation. Don’t try to shut them up by calling them hypocrites because regular sexism is just as bad as reverse sexism, and thus all people within skepticism are on an equal footing and women demanding special treatment are being unreasonable. There is no reverse sexism. And if individual people have been mean to you, deal with it when they are being mean to you and move on. Either brush it off and forget about it because you don’t really care what strangers say to you, or call them out for it because you are fed up or relish confrontation, but don’t nurse the grievance as ammunition you can use to shoot down arguments of the people trying to dismantle the status quo. If you really cared about how the patriarchy was really hurting men (cared more about that then how the patriarchy mostly benefits men, that is), you’d acknowledge that fighting one-way sexism is one strategy for dismantling the patriarchy.
Racism does hurt white people. And, homophobia and classism are not the same as racism as sexism. The suffix of -ism does not automatically ascribe them to the same category.
Sexism is discrimination, or prejudice of any kind based on sex (gender). Male or female. It is not confined to the collective. It is created by individual instances, which form to a collective.
This article sounds more like you are trying to wish really, really hard that sexism for men doesn’t exist. Instead of just admitting it does, so we can try to bring about equality for all people. Humanism. Equalism. Equality for all, regardless of gender, race, beliefs, et cetera.
Also, it was a bad idea to include:
“Earning less money than a female coworker at the same position is not sexism against men.”
Not only does it make you look stupid, but it makes you look like a hypocrite since this is feminism’s biggest argument.
Good day, and please wake up.
Hi Justin, sexism and racism work against oppressed groups of people, not against dominant groups of people. It is far more likely that privileged groups of people are blind to social issues where oppressed groups of people can see them because people in oppressed groups must deal with the consequences of these issues. A once-off instance of a man earning less money working the same position as a woman does in a climate of men being more employable and forming the majority in high-power, high-paying positions does not constitute sexism.
Here are some neutral websites and articles i’ve found that you might not know about, They are things like a state study of men vs women pay rates don’t by the state and the labor department that show women get paid more than men, Also a state study that shows domestic abuse is 45-50 percent women to men abuse, to where because of shelter laws men can not take children to escape even though it is 50/50 against them and really if anything the children shouldn’t suffer. Also I’ve included a 3rd party look at how feminist legislators have geared laws toward letting women have children after the divorce whether they are fit or not and letting them blackmail the children back to the husband for money. Just some common myths about oppression women go through that once they are taken out of feminist organizations and the studies are done by a state firm show very different results. I hope in the spirit of honest and teaching people the truth about things you can show how today is a brave new world for the new interdependent women of the new generation and old myths should be put to bed.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/measuring.htm
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=5013
http://family-law.lawyers.com/visitation-rights/Parental-Alienation-Syndrome.html
Bob, that’s nice. You have posted some links from “neutral” places on topics that have nothing to do with the content of my post (which does not address partner violence in any way). Just read above where I said that the patriarchy hurting men too is not sexism, and go read the “About” page, where I explain that the purpose of this blog is for other people to listen to–and not argue with–what the experiences of this woman in skepticism are are like, so that they may learn something about another person. You have not done this at all. If you are not interested in making the skeptical community more welcoming for women based on my advice, just move along.
Karen I’m very sorry that you feel I meant any of that in an unwelcoming way, I know it is hard to hear these things coming from a man but I the information wouldn’t be any different if I was a woman. The single most important thing I want to do is provide people with the information needed to create an equal, loving and safe environment. If you don’t believe that showing places were men are being hurt by laws and social prejudice set forth against men as being relevant to an article that is titled “Stop complaining about “reverse sexism.” It doesn’t exist.”. No offense but people come and see blogs like these where the general theme is the discrimination against men is ok. By changing Webster’s definition of sexism from discrimination and prejudice because of someone’s sex to the sole discrimination against women it can open up doors that any sexism is ok. I just fear that without access to actual studies done and no opinions and made up statistics people form judgments that can be very harmful to society and the legislation that is pushed forward by people believe age old myths. I did read the blog and the parts where you you talk about being a welcoming skeptical community and part of any welcoming skeptic should be being open to all information available. Information that shows sexism toward men have set forth terrible precedence in the legal systems and in general that thinking is ok to be sexist toward anyway is just horrible. This isn’t my blog and I do applaud you for at least publishing the links, which are not from any men’s rights websites or blogs but actual studies conducted. I have also read the part where you mention that you are no scholar and I hope people take this for what it is, opinions without factual basis.I know I will not sway your mind but these are facts, sexism toward anyone is bigotry and promoting that is hate speech. I hope these are not things you stand by.
Bob rouse, I’m sure that Karen forgives you for the feelings that you think that she’s feeling. Perhaps, seeing as you’re interested in the topic of the sex-based treatment of people in skepticism, then you could start your own blog documenting abuses of men to women in the community, and those of women to men, ensuring that you report the figures to be equal? That way, you could be sure that you’re not misrepresenting facts, because everything is equal.