Recently, the feminist blog Strong Girls picked up my post Where Sexism Begins, which focused on the need for us to to examine the culturally defined, gender-based roles that we play in our most important relationships—with our partners and other family members. Strong Girls asked its readers whether they felt that their family’s opinions and gender roles affected their stand on gender, saying: “Yes, we all are victims to tradition, but this is a new day and age where men are beginning to be granted parental leave when their child is born and more than 50% of women are now working outside the home.”
I appreciate the blog’s authors promoting our site—even if we might have a slight difference of opinion about how far we’ve come (or the effect of family influence). In the post that they linked to, I wasn’t challenging the idea that women have made great strides, for example, that they are working outside the home in greater numbers than in times past. Rather, the post (I hope) emphasized the importance of what women (and men) do inside the home, keeping in mind that children tend to model what we do, not simply do what we say.
I wrote that post because while I value the gains that the feminist and progressive movements have achieved, I also know how much more remains to be done before true gender equality exists around the globe. The week that the post was picked up, in fact, a visitor to our site submitted a sexist joke about women (which we, of course, declined to post). Meanwhile, women running for elected office or being appointed to positions of power (think Kagan), female athletes, and others in the public eye continue to be battered by a seemingly never-ending array of sexist commentary. So much for how far we’ve come.
Which raises for me again the issue of maintaining a balanced perspective about social change. It seems to me that while it is critical to honor all that we have accomplished, we cannot lose sight of the mountains yet to be climbed.
Even the results of our most recent poll, which asked, “How often do you respond directly to sexist remarks?,” provide evidence of what we have achieved and the need for change that remains. Seventeen percent of the people who responded to the poll said that they addressed every sexist remark they encountered, and 35 percent said that they did so most of the time. On the other hand, 22 percent of respondents said that they did not respond to sexist comments very often, 17 percent said they did so occasionally, and 9 percent said they never respond to sexist remarks. While 52 percent of our readers responding to sexist comments at least most of the time is pretty darn good, 48 percent of such remarks are still being addressed on a hit-or-miss basis.
That so many of us continue to feel uncomfortable speaking up in response to sexist comments (and that those comments still exist) might suggest we still have a ways to go toward achieving equity for women. Perhaps what keeps us silent are the responses we typically receive when we respond to sexist remarks. Let us know what you think by taking the new poll on this page: When you’ve addressed sexist remarks, what has been the most typical response of the people who made them?
When each of us better understands what makes us uncomfortable about addressing such comments—for example, anticipating a particular type of response—we can develop new strategies for overcoming our discomfort. We then have a better chance of speaking collectively to stop sexist remarks.
Cynthia
