Stop Sexist Remarks

On the news the other night, a local female television anchor presented a segment on how First Lady Michelle Obama is raising her two daughters in the White House. From what I saw, Obama is teaching her children about the joy of learning and the need for responsibility and accountability (no television please until that homework is completed), while balancing those lessons with spirited fun and the occasional indulgence (think dessert). She is a wonderful role model for mothers (parents, actually) around the country if not the globe. 

So imagine my surprise when the anchor summed up the segment with, “Oh boy, and my kids think I’m mean.” I am not sure when it became mean to teach your children the value of balancing discipline and indulgence in everyday life—but I do know that we are quick to judge mothers, and not in a good way. 

The “mean mother” and the “shrewish mother-in-law” are staples of our culture (and far too many comedic routines). Mothers are blamed for a host of ills, many of which stem from their primary role as family caregivers. Once while hiking, I saw the father of a two-year-old watch as his child toddled dangerously close to the edge of a steep ravine. When the mom came running over to grab the child, he smirked and called her overprotective, a common complaint about mothers. 

Let’s see, overprotective versus concerned (and in the case above, correct about the somewhat unbalanced toddle of a two-year-old), meddlesome or the family planner, over involved or genuinely interested? Isn’t it curious how often we lean toward the negative option when talking about mothers (women)? 

The fact is that Michelle Obama sounds like a wonderful mother to me. Do I suspect that she might be tough if you left your clothes in a pile on your bedroom floor? Sure, but probably rightfully so, and I have also seen her hula hoop with a group of kids; plant a garden to help refocus Americans about what they should be feeding their children; and read, laugh, and sing with youngsters from an array of backgrounds and neighborhoods. She is America’s mother and, from my vantage point, one who is doing us proud. 

So with Mother’s Day approaching, let’s be watchful of the language that we use to describe the Moms of the world. Stopping sexist remarks about them is one sure way to honor mothers and to create a world where the roles women play—whether in the home or on the job—are valued and spoken about with respect. 

Cynthia

Several months ago, someone posted a comment on our site expressing frustration with the reactions of other women and men to her attempts to address sexist remarks. She felt she was the only one speaking up in response to these comments and that the people around her failed to offer support; on the contrary, they told her that she shouldn’t say anything.

I sympathize. It’s easy to feel defeated when you’re taking risks to do what is right but don’t perceive that anyone is with you, even those who should be on your side.

As we’ve written elsewhere, whenever we stand up to an injustice, there often are bystanders who agree with us but aren’t willing to take action themselves. Often they have valid reasons for not doing so. If it’s a work setting, they could be in a precarious financial or employment situation. They may have had a bad experience when they tried to speak up to a sexist or bigoted remark in the past. Maybe they find the costs of speaking up too great for now and have decided to wait for a time and place in which the risks aren’t so high.

Given those realities, it’s important to be deliberate about how we interact with people who are not ready to join us in addressing sexist remarks. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind in gaining the support of “bystanders”:

Take the high road. The demeanor we adopt in confronting a sexist remark matters a great deal. I once saw a television debate between two people on an issue that I care about. The person whose point of view I shared continually interrupted the other, breaking in on his answers six times during a 10-minute interview, by my count. The host of the program warned her repeatedly to let her opponent finish. She won the substance of the argument but lost on grace, making her opposition sound moderate and reasonable.

People are more prone to like those who are polite and respectful, a guideline that would be banal were it not routinely ignored. Those qualities are seen as signs of confidence, maturity, and a well-thought-out position. Noelle Nelson, a longtime consultant to trial lawyers and author of several books on persuasion, writes that in studies and reports of how the great trial lawyers work, the words ‘polite’ and ‘respectful’ are repeatedly mentioned. If people like you, you will be more able to persuade them. Being polite does not mean abandoning your argument or tolerating mistreatment. It means being assertive respectfully, whenever that’s possible. (Of course, if you’ve tried to politely stop sexist remarks and a person continually ignores those requests over a period of time, you might decide that a different approach is called for.)

Assume you have allies, not enemies. Unless you have reason to think otherwise, treat people who don’t take action as potential allies, rather than as fence-sitters or enemies. If you suspect that someone may be on your side but isn’t speaking up, you can consider asking them (privately and confidentially), what they think.

You could begin by inquiring how they felt about a specific incident involving a sexist remark or about the issue generally. Listen closely, paying attention to how they feel about sexist comments and how they think it is best to address them. Hearing what they think is critical to establishing common ground and identifying areas of difference (the currency of persuasion). Respond by agreeing with their content to the degree that you can while still being truthful, and acknowledge how they feel. Once you understand them, share why you handle sexist comments in the way that you do. Once a person feels acknowledged at a basic level, they are more willing to listen to your perspective.

Respect what other people are able to contribute. Let people take whatever role they are comfortable with in addressing sexist remarks. If that’s no more than being willing to support you privately, accept that for the moment, and realize that once people get invested in an issue, they tend to become more involved, not less.

***

Those who choose to address injustice know that often we have to take the long view. To that end, we need to be more open to people’s ideas and issues and less dogmatic and disapproving than those who defend sexism. Our approach to persuading people that sexist remarks matter should be rooted in some principles inherent to the idea of greater equality—like empathy, honesty, and respect for differences—because those values are at the heart of what we stand for.

Steve

Last May, I decided that I was going to write a post in response to Elizabeth Edwards’ comments about Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom her husband, John Edwards, admitted to having an affair. At the time, Elizabeth was making the circuit promoting her new book, which included a description of her reaction to the affair. I was distressed by early reports that Elizabeth’s comments regarding Hunter, whom she chose not to name in the book or during interviews, were harsh. I opted not to finish that post then because I did not want to sit in judgment of Elizabeth during such a difficult time in her life. 

After the recent flurry of stories about famous men caught cheating on their wives—and therefore the media’s (and the public’s) fascination with those wives (and mistresses)—I decided to revisit my earlier post. I felt a need to address the very public and sexist re-victimization of the women involved with men who cheat—a process, by the way, that begins before the media ink documenting the man’s confession is even dry. 

In each case, the focus on the women involved is different, yet similarly critical. During the early phase of the Edwards situation, Elizabeth’s words and actions were analyzed and challenged in every venue imaginable, her motives were questioned, and her ambition was referenced. She was called a tragic victim, a power-seeking spouse living vicariously through her husband, and a mean-spirited feminist who should know better than to trash the other woman. Eliot Spitzer’s wife was chastised for standing by her man while he resigned from office after paying a prostitute for sex. Tiger Wood’s wife continues to be stalked by the paparazzi while taking her children to school or running errands. Meanwhile her husband resumes his career under the protective umbrella of the Masters’ organization. 

And wow, the fallout that awaits the other women. The story of Hunter as an “evil seductress” to John Edward’s innocent, “old-fashioned” man doesn’t ring true for me. More recently, the women involved in affairs with the likes of Woods and Jessie James have had their personal lives trampled and their character assassinated. 

So why do we judge these women so much more harshly than we judge the cheating men? What drives much of the public response to men who cheat is power and money (which most of these men have far greater access to than the women with whom they chose to cheat). The golf industry suffered financially while Tiger was down, and they are thrilled to have him back. According to some sources, the moneyed supporters of John Edwards found it easier to pay to hide his paramour than to lose their candidate. 

As for the women, we question their choices (should she stay or should she go?) on the basis of snippets of information about their lives and circumstances. We parse their every word, looking for absolute meaning in complex situations. We judge them, applying tough standards, while knowing little of their lives or their hearts. 

What strikes me most in all of this is how judgmental we all have become. You see, I believe that no one wants to be the other woman, any more than we want our hearts to be broken by infidelity. People cheat (and lie, and otherwise hurt each other) for myriad reasons—none of us are perfect. And women forgive their men for reasons that most of us will never understand because marriage is complicated—as are all relationships and life in general. 

Moreover, shining the light of public scrutiny on the women involved with men who cheat is just sexist—and the language used to describe them is the worst form of sexist remarks. So starting today, let’s try not to judge the wives for not “behaving” perfectly in the aftermath of their husbands’ infidelity, which undoubtedly caused them great pain and embarrassment. And let’s stop judging the women who get involved with married men because we know little about why they found themselves making bad choices with such publicly difficult results. 

Cynthia

The study that Cynthia posted about last week indicates the harmful effects of sexist remarks on women who are “bystanders” when those comments are made. This post concerns legal options that may exist for women who are the indirect targets of sexist comments and behavior in the workplace.  

In January, the U.S. 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that women who work in a place where gender-derogatory words and conduct are used have grounds for asserting that their work environment is hostile, even when the behavior at issue is not directed specifically at them.  

In the case before the court, a female employee working in a male-dominated field was subjected to her coworkers blasting sexually explicit radio shows in shared workspaces, displaying pictures of naked women on computers, and using derogatory terms to refer to women generally. Even though the coworkers never directly insulted or threatened the plaintiff (at least not in her presence), the Court held that their actions created an objectively hostile work environment for any woman. 

The 11^th Circuit is not alone; many circuit courts now have held that a hostile work environment may be created even when a woman is not individually targeted by sexist remarks and behavior. If you are exploring with your company’s management team how to stop sexist remarks in the workplace, you might share these legal precedents. Because as this case shows, it is in a company’s best interest to put into place policies and training that prevent sexist remarks. 

Steve

Witnessing a sexist interaction harms more than the intended target of a sexist remark. That may be something you already knew, but it has been confirmed by two researchers at the University of Connecticut.

Stephenie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn’s goal was to determine how women felt when they observed—but were not the direct recipient of—a sexist comment. The research team asked 114 female undergraduate students to watch a video and imagine themselves as bystanders to a situation in which a man either greeted another woman (no sexist language involved) or directed a sexist catcall at a woman. The participants then completed a survey regarding their feelings of identification with the woman in the video and their anger or fear toward men, and as a result, whether they were likely to “move against or away from” or men.

Turns out that women (again, no surprise here) consider themselves part of a gender group and don’t particularly like it when men direct sexist remarks to other women. In other words, the participants in the study viewed the situation as something that was harmful to women in general—not just the woman who was the victim of the sexist catcall.

In essence, the study showed that sexist comments hurt all women, including those who are the targets and those who just happen to be in the room, so to speak. And as some who reviewed the study have pointed out, if sexist remarks result in women feeling that men are harmful to women in general, then those comments hurt men as well.

The study findings got quite a bit of media play here and across the pond (thank goodness) after being published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research (which according to its publisher, Springer, is an “interdisciplinary behavioral science journal offering a feminist perspective”). The findings are a great tool for women and men who want to stop sexist remarks in the office, so file this away for that moment when you decide to take action at your place of work. Because any smart business owner, corporate executive, or human resources manager will need to consider the implications of this study’s finding when dealing with sexist comments in the work place.

Cynthia

You wouldn’t think it would still be considered risky to challenge traditional gender boundaries. Sadly, it turns out it is—and there are myriad ways that those resisting change try to punish gender role transgressors. 

One of those was documented in a 2007 study in the Journal of Applied Psychology. “Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women” looked at whether sexual harassment (the study defines sexist comments as a subset of sexual harassment) is primarily directed toward women (1) whom harassers find sexually desirable or (2) who are perceived to break traditional gender roles. What makes this study interesting is that it’s commonly believed that male desire is at the root of sexual harassment and that men harass women they find attractive. 

The study’s researcher found that it is women who break traditional gender roles who are the most likely to be harassed. She showed that women with personality traits traditionally defined as masculine (measured using a well-respected instrument for assessing traits defined as traditionally masculine or feminine) were more likely than others to be sexually harassed at school, among friends, or at work. Another part of the study indicated that women who violated gender roles by working in male-dominated occupations experienced more sexual harassment than did women in female-dominated ones. (The research controlled for the lower proportion of men in the second setting.) So men in male-dominated professions, which are higher paid than those in which woman predominate, appear to use harassment and sexist comments to protect their disproportionate access to power. 

So if traditional boundaries are to be redefined so that women have equal access to opportunities, those of us who want to build something better will need to provide a little leadership. An organizational development specialist friend of mine says that in any group “leaders are by definition those who set the boundaries” (which includes redefining existing boundaries). In this sense, leadership is an informal role—it can be adopted by anyone who chooses to take it on. Addressing sexist comments, in part, is boundary setting—helping to define for a group what is acceptable behavior. When we challenge sexist comments, we are doing far more than standing up for ourselves or someone else; we are creating the future.   

The risks of boundary setting can be high—being criticized, being perceived as too harsh and rigid, losing standing, status, and opportunities—and so we have to decide, in each setting, whether we’re willing to take on that leadership role. But one thing is likely: when we’re setting boundaries regarding sexist remarks, we are making it a little easier for those who come after us, both women and men. 

Steve

One summer night soon after I had graduated from college oh so many years ago, I settled into my favorite chair to talk by phone with the man I was seeing. We were in the final throes of summer, the weather was warm, and light had begun fading a little earlier each evening. The windows of the small house I was renting were open, the shades flapping gently with the breeze. As dusk descended, I glanced up from our engaging conversation to see what looked like a man staring in one of my windows.

My friend told me to hang up, call the police, shut all the windows and then call him back; he would stay on the phone with me until the police arrived. The lone male officer who showed up did a quick tour of the perimeter of my property and returned to my front door to report that he hadn’t seen anyone and if there was someone at the window, they must have moved on. As he was leaving, he turned around and said, “You probably shouldn’t sit around your house wearing shorts like those.”

I was startled then and I am angry now when I think about that remark. If a man broke into my home, was I to believe that I caused him to do so because I was wearing running shorts in the privacy of my living room? Was I not allowed to leave my curtains open because to do so was an invitation to others to come onto my property to watch what I was doing? (It should be noted that you could not see into my living room from the street.) When I think about that comment, it reminds of the importance of the work we are doing to stop sexist remarks.

The messages that we send to women by suggesting that they adjust their behavior in light of the potential actions of others is dangerous. It establishes boundaries that women must live within to be safe or acceptable and therefore—oh so subtly—sets limits on almost all the life choices they will make.

I wish that I could say that times have changed and that those types of messages were a thing of the past—but they are not. We hear them daily, and they seep into our consciousness—the judge who calls attention to the clothing of a young girl who was victimized, the scholar who suggests that girls aren’t good at math or science, and the pundits who describe a woman politician as not attractive enough (or the female newswoman as too attractive). They rob us of our freedom to be who we are, to make the most of our talents, and to select from an array of options when deciding how we want to live our lives.

Sexist comments are not harmless “slips of the tongue” or teasing remarks that we need to “get over.” Sexist comments are serious messages about women that help to define our culture, and we ignore them at our own risk.

Cynthia

Here’s a sexist notion that you can get ready to challenge next time you hear it: women aren’t as good as men as math, and it’s because of biological differences. You may remember then-Harvard President Larry Summers’ suggestion to that effect at a Harvard conference back in 2005. After being confronted with contrary evidence and the anger of faculty and donors, Summers eventually admitted he was wrong on the science. But the overriding media myth is that he was the victim of “political correctness” for speaking the truth (for example, see this column by the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus). 

Maybe we can dispel that myth forever. In January, Science Daily reported on an international study of boys and girls’ performance on math tests and attitudes toward math. It turns out that girls around the world are not worse at math than boys. On average, there were only small gender differences in the test results between boys and girls. 

But the size of the differences between boys and girls varied a great deal depending on what country they were from. For example, in countries that had more women in research-related positions, the girls were more likely to do better in math and feel more confident of their math skills. And the study indicated that despite overall similarities in math skills, boys felt significantly more confident in their abilities than girls. The study’s lead author said the study “shows us that while the quality of instruction and curriculum affects children’s learning, so do the value that schools, teachers and families place on girls’ learning math. Girls are likely to perform as well as boys when they are encouraged to succeed.” 

With that in mind, a healthy skepticism is probably the best response to bigoted remarks wrapped in the guise of science. At a recent Thanksgiving dinner, a guest said he thought that urban poverty was largely explained by an article on intelligence differences between whites and African Americans that he’d read in Slate magazine; it suggested that white advantages were related to their higher intelligence. When I asked the guest whether he’d looked at any of the substantial evidence countering that idea, he hadn’t. A week later, a devastating rebuttal appeared in Slate that showed that the original author’s sources were members of a white supremacist group. Both the author and Slate’s editor apologized. 

When people trot out “evidence” that supports male privilege, we should be ready to ask tough questions. “Have you considered the arguments on the other side?” is a place to start. Time and again, “facts” about male superiority are found to be based on an author’s worldview rather than a dispassionate look at the data. 

Steve

Movements are often borne of passion—launched as the result of an injustice that teaches us to raise our voices in protest and to argue our cause with great emotion. It is that passion that both energizes and sustains us as movements ebb and flow. 

For any movement to create change, however, it obviously must be based on logic and reason. Despite understanding this obvious sensibility, I confess to being stirred by passionate voices. I have long believed that helping people to understand a new issue or to reconsider a long-held belief required passionate appeals that grabbed them by the throats and jump-started their hearts. That is until now. 

The “aha” moment happened to me on an airplane reading “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” by Theodore B. Olson, which appeared in the January 18, 2010, issue of Newsweek. Some of you will remember Olson as the lifelong Republican who argued for George W. Bush during Bush v. Gore (and won, sending Bush to the White House)—he seemed an unlikely advocate for gay marriage. He has in fact stunned the conservative community by teaming with David Boies, his friend and former adversary in the 2000 Presidential case, to argue on behalf of two gay couples. Perry v. Schwarzenegger is the Federal case challenging Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative making same-sex marriage illegal in that State. (The first stage of the case is over, and final arguments are expected to begin in March.) 

I was surprised to find Olson involved in the case, and I was curious why someone I never considered an ally was suddenly taking on his own political party regarding one of the most emotion-laden, rhetoric-driven issues of this decade. Our political leaders understand too well how fear drives elections and passion sells—which is exactly why it is so critical that we learn from Olson’s involvement in this case. This post is not about gay marriage—but rather about the calming effect that occurs when public debate of this or any issue is predicated on asking questions (which Olson did of his many friends and colleagues), examining real-life experiences, and exploring and then sharing the facts. 

I cannot adequately convey the sense of peace that came over me when reading Olson’s article. Certainly the fact that a distinguished legal scholar could not find a single convincing argument against gay marriage (even among his conservative friends and colleagues) gave me hope that justice would prevail in the California case. But it was more than that—it was the very deliberate manner in which Olson struck down each of the so-called arguments against gay marriage. His reasoning is straightforward and without angst or hang wringing. When I finished the article, I felt better—about my own perspective, about our ability to work together to address critical issues, and about our chances for making positive change for the right reasons. 

The Washington political players could take a page from Olson as they wrangle over health care reform this week. As might those of us who are trying to convince others that sexist remarks have no place in our culture. Olson’s basic principles are easy. Believe in equality and justice, keep an open mind, ask questions, listen, and then present your case in terms that resonate with others not because of your passion but because of your dispassionate logic and simple truths. 

Cynthia

Surely there must be some aspect of American culture unaffected by our unease with people who blur traditional gender roles. Let’s say . . . your choice of mixed drinks—what could that have to do with gender? 

A lot, unfortunately, it turns out. 

According to an article in online entertainment magazine The Insider, in a man’s mixed drink, “You can’t have anything that looks even remotely pastel or pink,” sugar and syrup “have absolutely no place in a man’s drink,” and “manly drinks” don’t come with straws or maraschino cherries, ever. The blog “Man’s Take” shares these pearls: “if the drink is made with grain alcohol, it’s manly” and “you can turn a Black Russian into a White Russian by adding some milk, but . . . then you’d be a drinking a girly drink instead of a manly drink.” Perhaps worst, former Cosmopolitan fashion editor-turned-bartender Ty Wenzel, in her 2004 memoir Behind Bars, chronicles her attitudes toward men who dared order gender-bender drinks. “There is nothing quite so disheartening for me as to see a rugged hulky man swagger in, take a seat, and grab the girly-drink menu.” After delivering a “girly” cocktail to one male customer,  Wenzel “made it known to him that I have no regard for him as a man.” 

How do we say no to the gender role police who are watching what we drink? The best policy, if someone comments on how your mixed-drink choice relates to your gender, seems to be to take the remark as seriously as it is meant—not as a joke. As trivial as they appear, commentaries like, “Wow, a guy drinking a margarita, that’s a new one,” and “That pina colada’s going to affect your testosterone” are meant to limit our freedom to stray beyond traditional gender roles and to remind us that our fitness as a member of our gender is continually being assessed. 

So if these asides arise, you can smile and ask, “Why?” or “What do you mean by that?” or “Do you really think that?” With any luck, you’ll get to some better understanding of the source of the other person’s stereotype, and they will learn more about your determination not to be hemmed in by sexist boundaries. Or, if you’re really not in the mood, “Geez, what century do you live in?” might do too. 

After all, if Jimmy Buffett can take a trip to Margaritaville, then so can the rest of us men (minus the wasting away). 

Steve  

How Often Do You Encounter Sexist Remarks? The Results of Our First Poll

Recently, we checked the stats for our Question of the Month (which truthfully has been running longer than a month). As of this week, 60 percent of those who took the poll reported that they encounter sexist remarks nearly every day. An additional 19 percent encounter sexist remarks once a week and 12 percent have that experience monthly. 

We know that our poll is not a representative sample; only a small percentage of visitors to the site actually responded to the Question of the Month, and those who visit our site likely are looking for support in dealing with sexist comments. But the fact that respondents to the survey encountered sexist remarks so frequently is astounding. 

We also suspect that other women face sexist remarks just as often and that many women have learned (out of necessity) to adapt to the sexism around them—much of it articulated via teasing or jokes on the job or in social settings, subtle jabs at professional women’s appearance or performance, and the television commercials we all passively sit through during each year’s Super Bowl. 

All we can say is WOW—we have our work cut out for us. So the new Question of the Month is “How often do you respond directly to sexist remarks?” Add your response to the new poll (above right), and then share more about your experiences by adding a comment under this post. Tell us: 

• How you got in the habit of responding to sexist remarks, or
• How we (and our readers) can help you respond to such remarks more often 

Because if we aren’t addressing the sexist remarks that we encounter, we are not creating the change we need through everyday conversations. If each of us speaks up more regularly when faced with sexist comments, it becomes more likely that others will feel comfortable doing so. 

Let’s begin by sharing our own experiences and supporting each other in more clearly and effectively speaking up about sexist remarks—every time that we encounter them. 

Cynthia

You’ve probably heard the idea, sometimes offered by people who give work advice, that women’s best strategy in dealing with sexist comments is just to ignore them and move on (especially at work). That’s certainly understandable. We’ve written about the importance of carefully considering how to address sexist comments at work and the risks of confronting them.

A few weeks ago, a former Philadelphia TV news anchor, Larry Mendte, weighed in on the issue of whether women running for office should learn to adapt to the sexism they will confront. He was responding to a December article by Washington Post writer Anne Kornblut with advice for women candidates. Two of Kornblut’s suggestions were that woman candidates should prepare their families to be the target of criticism because, unlike the families of male candidates, they are considered fair game. She also suggested that “attractive” women candidates should “expect them to hate you because you’re beautiful.” Kornblut’s tips are well intentioned but, like so much advice for women that appears in the media, leave out the other part of the equation. Mendte points this out on his blog:

“. . . women candidates should not change the way they are to appease a sexist electorate and media. Instead, the electorate needs to change to respect female candidates, and the media should lead the charge by treating both men and women candidates equally.”

Mendte knows of what he speaks. His wife, a former Fox news anchor, is considering a run for office, and already she’s been subject to a sexist slur by a law professor who is a columnist on a popular local blog.

When we hear the suggestion that women need to adapt to the reality of sexism if they’re going to succeed, we may want to offer an alternative solution regarding just who or what needs to change. (Here’s an earlier post from Cynthia about this issue as well.) Had we followed similar advice in dealing with racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws, “separate-but-equal” schools, and poll taxes might still be alive and well.

Steve

Lindsey from the blog “Starting Out in Your 20s and Beyond” had an interesting post recently about an issue that we took on last year: how to respond when a person about to make a sexist remark announces in advance what they’are going to do. This takes forms like “Some of you women are going to find this sexist. . .,” “I’m not trying to be sexist but . . .,” or “Ok, I’m going to say something sexist but . . .” That introduction is designed to shift the burden from the speaker to the listeners: if they find what is said offensive, the problem is theirs, not the speaker’s. 

Lindsey suggests that when someone says “I know I shouldn’t say this, but . . .,” we might just interrupt to say, “Then I don’t want to hear it. No, really, if it’s going to make me mad, don’t say it.” Another response might be “Since you recognize that what you’re going to say might be offensive, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say it.” Both of those approaches are in keeping with Cynthia’s suggestion two weeks ago that when confronted with sexist comments, we might just nicely tell people what we want. 

Those statements quickly shift responsibility right back to the speaker where it belongs. As Lindsey says about people who make these remarks, “They know better than that; they admitted it themselves.” By speaking up, you are giving them the chance to stop long enough to choose their better selves. 

Steve

Comedian and political satirist Bill Maher has a segment on his show called “New Rules,” in which he simply declares something like, “Californians need to learn how to drive in the rain,” or “Just because a country elects a smart president doesn’t make it a smart country.” The subsequent analysis is both insightful and funny as hell. Well today I am taking a page from his book and declaring some new rules. 

New Rule #1: Do not support any politicians who make or ignore sexist remarks on the campaign trail. An incident during the recent Massachusetts Senate race brought back memories of the 2008 Presidential campaign, during which too many political leaders ignored the (sometimes horrific) sexist comments made about candidate Hillary Clinton, then a sitting U.S. Senator and now Secretary of State. 

In case you missed this latest instance of sexism on the campaign trail, it took place during a rally for now Senator-elect Scott Brown, who was running against Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. In the middle of Brown’s campaign stump speech, during which he was calling Coakley’s negative campaigning “malicious,” someone yelled “Shove a curling iron up her butt!” According to numerous accounts of the incident, Brown smiled and returned to his campaign cheer, “We can do it.” (It should be noted that the remark was a reference to the charge that Coakley’s office failed to aggressively prosecute a sexual abuse case involving a curling iron. You can read the Boston Globe for more information on that story. But let’s be clear: disagreeing with Coakley’s approach in the case is fine—using vulgar and violent language to attack her is not.) 

Brown later told reporters that he didn’t hear the remark, that it was “inappropriate,” and that he would have “said something” had he heard it. I have watched a video clip of the rally, and the audio isn’t completely clear to me—so I can’t fault Brown for not responding immediately. But I am disturbed that when given a chance to address the issue after the fact, he chose not to do more than call the remark inappropriate—particularly given its violent nature and Brown’s stated distate for negative campaigning. 

So, New Rule #2: It is no longer sufficient for politicians to say that they “didn’t hear” their followers (or staff) make a sexist (and in this case, violent) remark about a professional colleague (or that they misunderstood it, etc.). When politicians are told that such comments have been made in connection to their campaign, they should quickly, publicly, and specifically repudiate the remarks. They need to lead by example, including using campaign events as teachable moments through which they can inspire and inform. In this instance, Brown should have talked about how sexist and violent attacks on women are not merely “inappropriate;” they are way out of bounds and lead to a culture of inequality—something I am sure he doesn’t want for his two daughters. 

Which brings us to New Rule #3: In the future, women and progressive men should support only those political parties that mount candidates willing to run campaigns that focus on the issues and avoid using (or capitalizing on) negative gender-based campaign strategies and sexist remarks. 

We can put this final rule into play today by telling the leadership of the major political parties that our continuing support (including financial contributions) will be based on their willingness to set boundaries with regard to how women candidates will be talked to and about during future political campaigns. Call or write them at the numbers/addresses noted below. 

Let’s make 2010 the year in which we take a stand against sexist campaign strategies.

Cynthia

Democratic National Committee 

Mailing Address:
430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Telephone: 202-863-8000
E-mail: http://www.democrats.org/contact.html 

Republican National Committee 

Mailing Address:
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Telephone: 202-863-8500
E-mail: info@gop.com

I love good advice, and recently a visitor to our site reminded me of a fairly straightforward way of dealing with sexist remarks. She was discussing a difficult work situation with her son—one in which the term “guys” was often used to refer to groups that clearly included women. He suggested that she consider redirecting people by telling them what she wanted. In other words, if you want people to stop referring to you as a guy, then tell them what you want to be called instead. 

It’s a simple act—telling people what we want or need—but one that clearly eludes a lot of us in many situations. Yet it works, so maybe we need to stop trying so hard to come up with a great retort to sexist jokes or comments and focus instead on calmly—without emotion or exaggerations—telling the people involved what we want. 

If you find yourself socializing with people who make inappropriate comments about women, for example, nicely tell them that you would prefer that they not share their sexist jokes when partying with you. If someone is calling you “honey” in a setting that makes you uncomfortable—quietly tell the person that you would prefer to be called by your name. 

Will some people react badly? Sure they will, but as I heard Oprah say recently, maybe it is time to start believing what people tell you about themselves. When friends and colleagues are unwilling to honor our clear and specific requests about how we prefer to be treated, their behavior is the problem, not ours. 

So make it easy on yourself in 2010. Rather than trying to come up with the perfect response to every possible type of sexist remark that you might encounter—simply ask the people making those comments to stop. 

Cynthia

Here’s an encouraging sign for those of you looking for examples of the type of unambiguous policy about sexist remarks that we should expect from our colleges and universities. Last month, the University of North Dakota established a fan code of conduct for events in its sports arena. The rules are the school’s response to sexist and abusive comments hurled at a female news commentator and others traveling with an opposing team during a recent hockey game. One of the items on the list of prohibited activities reads as follows:

Abusive language or disorderly conduct is unacceptable and unwelcome. Profanity, racial or sexist comments or intimidating actions directed at the student-athletes, coaches or officials will not be tolerated.

Other good things apparently are happening at the university. Here’s the text of a 2006 speech to law students by Professor Jack Russell that explains in plain language why sexist and other hateful comments inhibit women students’ opportunity to get an education. (The speech was unrelated to the new policy for the university arena.) It’s his response to those who claim that school rules prohibiting hate speech (including racist and sexist remarks) stifle free speech. As he eloquently notes: 

When you cultivate hateful acts, you interfere with [your colleagues’] ability to get an education as well as your own because you contribute to an environment of alienation and fragmentation. In the school context, the right to respect, the right not be offended, trumps the right to free speech, because you are part of a voluntary association that promises an equal opportunity to education to all who join. And if you hide behind the veil of the “politically incorrect,” you are not only interfering with the rights of others, you are also doing it in a dishonest and cowardly way. You are being hateful and lacking the courage to admit it.

If you find the foregoing helpful in addressing sexist remarks on campus, you might also check out Taking Action in College and University Settings, which offers a range of ideas for administrators, staff, professors, and students for addressing sexist remarks.

Of course, our best resource is each other. Share what you’re doing to provide a campus environment for students that is free of sexist remarks so that we can pool our ideas about what works and support each other’s efforts.

Steve

As we say goodbye to 2009, it is a good time to reflect on the progress we’ve made with respect to sexist remarks. Although at a national level, our country experienced something of a reprieve this year from the relentless sexism that permeated 2008’s political campaign, sexist comments continued unabated on the air, in the office, and in social settings. 

The good news is that there appear to be more feminist bloggers who are countering sexist comments and suggesting new approaches for dealing with people who seek to keep women in their place. (Or maybe we are just more aware of feminist bloggers this year.) Their blogs provide a place where progressive women and men can jointly struggle with the challenges inherent in redefining our culture, and we are proud to count ourselves among them. 

Quite frankly, we launched Stop Sexist Remarks: Creating Change One Conversation at a Time because we were astounded at how sexist language remained so permissible during the last decade. We decided that we needed both a top-down and bottom-up approach to creating change in the way we talk about women and girls because no feminist organization, national or otherwise, could do this alone. Change really does begin with each of us—particularly with regard to redefining gender roles and opportunities by choosing new and more positive ways to interact with one another. 

Since the site’s inception in November 2008, we have posted our stories, your stories, and strategies for dealing with the sexist remarks that we all encounter in everyday life. People from more than 30 countries have stopped by the site, and we have a small but loyal following on Twitter (a special thanks to Jennifer, who has been with us since our early tweets). 

During the past year, we reached out to groups that share our vision of a culture that values women and men equally. The very sweet site helpothers.org, which calls itself a “portal dedicated to small acts of kindness,” agreed to include our strategies for stopping sexist remarks (more gently labeled on their site as “negative comments”) in their list of “kindness ideas.” And a contributing writer for BlogHer posted an article that shared our Top Three Things You Can Do to Stop Sexist Remarks. 

More recently, our post Setting Boundaries in 15 Words or Less was picked up by two feminist blogs in the United Kingdom (The f word: Contemporary UK Feminism, and the Penny Red Blogspot), the latter saying: “An exciting-looking new blog, Stop Sexist Remarks, is here to help, with tips to challenge bigotry and stop sexist jibes in their tracks.” More important, their readers left a trail of comments dissecting our strategies for responding to sexist remarks and suggesting new ones. 

We have learned in the past 2 years that we may not always agree with each other about what works in responding to sexist remarks—you need only take a look at the comments about our post on the f word blog to know that we approach life’s challenges in different ways. Yet we also know that each of us makes a difference every time that we question sexist comments, in whatever style works best for us in the moment. 

Which brings us back to where we started—the creation of Stop Sexist Remarks as a site where we can work together to figure out how to change the socially pervasive notion that it is all right to demean women through subtle humor (“Lighten up, I was just joking”), teasing (“Oh, don’t be so sensitive”), and directly offensive comments (with media personalities often being the worst offenders). As Steve pointed out last week, humor is not the intent of sexist jokes, and teasing generally is not intended to make people feel good. 

So resolve to speak up this year—forget about the feelings of people who don’t seem to be concerned about yours (you will never make everyone happy, and 2010 is as good a time as any to stop trying), and engage those who do care in a conversation about how to stop sexist remarks. Then come back and share your ideas with us. 

Thanks to everyone who visited our site this year—we hope that you will visit often during 2010. 

Happy New Year!! 

Cynthia and Steve

The Female Science Professor blog has a post this week that is must reading. 

Let’s just dispense with the obvious right away. Humor is not the intent of sexist “jokes.”  They have a few key (and malevolent) purposes–to draw a cordon around the in group (men), send a message that women do not belong, and make it difficult or impossible for women to succeed. (Of course, in the blog writer’s case, the “joke” turned into something much worse when it became clear that no one would stop the perpetrator.) 

As a result, if we decide to challenge a person telling a sexist joke, the most important step might be to reject the premise that it is a joke at all and to ignore claims that its intent was harmless. The best way that to do that might be to calmly say, “That isn’t a joke, and I don’t find it funny.” As appropriate, we can then simply move on. If the behavior continues, we might say something like, “If you’re not willing to interact in a professional way, I’ll take the steps needed to move forward with [the task].” If the behavior continues, simply leave. Following that, you might consider some of the ideas found here in question 4 of the “Answering Tough Questions” section of our blog. 

Why do sexist remarks and sexist jokes matter? This female science professor’s story shows why. Sexist expression is the point of the spear for a system designed to keep women out—out of male-dominated fields, out of leadership roles, and out of the networks where valuable connections are made. Left unchallenged, these remarks and jokes often do not go away—rather, they morph into open harassment and intimidation. When we stand up to the people making them, especially with a group of supportive colleagues, we have a chance of upending the whole sexist culture of a place. 

Steve

It’s time to acknowledge the obvious: liberals have a sexist remark problem. It started, of course, with the many sexist slurs directed at Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign by liberal commentators like Keith Olbermann and Maureen Dowd. Earlier this year, there was Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer praising then-Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe as someone who, “when there’s a bump in the road, he’s not going to cry like a girl and quit.” Then a few weeks ago, Olbermann was back, calling right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin “a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” (As Air America points out, once every 24 minutes in this country, a woman is killed as a result of domestic abuse, making Olbermann’s comment both sexist and macabre.) Finally, last week, New York Senator Chuck Schumer used the “b” word (to fellow New York Senator Kirsten Gillebrand, no less!) to refer to a female flight attendant who committed the sin of asking him to turn off his cell phone like everyone else on his flight. 

Political conservatives have deftly used these incidents to call liberals hypocrites on gender issues. (In fact, the Schumer episode was reported to the press by a Republican aide who was on the flight.) Of course, conservative leaders are the ones who banned funding for international family planning programs, support court decisions that uphold gender discrimination in the workplace (like the Supreme Court’s Lilly Ledbetter decision), and oppose laws requiring equal pay for equal work. And of course, the sexist comments from right-wing politicians and commentators directed at woman political leaders fly thick and fast (and are ignored by the same conservatives who decry liberal sexism). 

There’s a reason why sexist remarks are crossing party lines—our culture tolerates them. 

Stopping sexist remarks is not tangential to working for equality. It is critical to creating a world in which girls and women believe that they have the same opportunities to succeed as men because they don’t continually hear demeaning language directed at women. This is especially important for boys and girls growing up today, who are watching our example. 

We might all benefit from sustained training on responding to sexist remarks—so that our actions start to match our beliefs. (In fact, a recent research project found that children—both boys and girls—can learn to respond to sexist comments.) But until that kind of resource is widely accessible, we have to offer training in the moment, every day, by being willing to stand up to sexist remarks, especially those made by people who are on our side politically—whatever our political leanings may be. 

Steve

This week we’re linking to a story on another blog here about someone who confronted sexist (and otherwise insulting) remarks at her workplace. While people adopt different approaches to addressing sexist comments at work (or decide not to do so because their circumstances make it too risky), this story illustrates two lessons.

First, sexist remarks don’t go away when they are ignored—more likely, those making them feel emboldened, and the comments escalate. Second, people on the sidelines (in this case, also in management) often know that what’s happening is wrong, and when called on it, are willing to support women (and all) employees’ right to a workplace free of sexist comments.

We will be discussing more in a future post the issues involved in stopping sexist remarks in the workplace, so stay tuned.

Steve

One reason I watch sports is that occasionally it provides terrific unscripted theater. The end of the college football game on Saturday between the universities of Florida and Alabama provided one such moment. With a minute to go and the game out of reach for Florida, their brilliant quarterback Tim Tebow, a Heisman trophy winner who hadn’t lost a game in 3 years, broke into tears on the sidelines. 

Watching a star football player weep seems to be an invitation to many fans to hurl gender-based insults. After the game, web post-ers wondered why Tebow had“cried like a girl,” said he “didn’t take the loss like a man,” and called him a “drama queen” and worse. 

I certainly think there are better things to cry about than losing a football game. Losing your job, say, or losing a loved one, or even losing a Presidential election, especially if you worked hard for your candidate. So I understand the argument that Tebow’s response was overblown. Then again—a college football player’s life is football, and losing a big game really does mean fewer opportunities, from fewer endorsement contracts to less national exposure to a smaller salary when they turn professional. So a whole lot was at stake for Tim Tebow. 

There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that there are inappropriate times to cry. But the idea that it’s wrong (or girly) for men to cry is sexist and offensive. It’s time to discard the limited view that permits only a certain range of behaviors to men. So give Tim Tebow a break. After all, on the album 1970’s album Free to Be You and Me, the song “It’s All Right to Cry” was performed by none other than pro football star Rosy Grier.   

Steve

Last week, we were treated to Newsweek’s sexist photos of Sarah Palin (see Cynthia’s piece below). This week, a few media outlets have chosen Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat from Louisiana, as the target of a sexist attack. 

Forget about the fact that Premiere Radio Networks, which employs Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, took no action after those two hosts publicly labeled Landrieu a “high-class prostitute” (Beck) and “the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution” (Limbaugh) because she asked for more Medicaid funding for Louisiana in the health care bill in exchange for her vote to move the legislation to the Senate floor. Landrieu’s move is known as “logrolling,” in which legislators horse-trade their votes so that they each get something they want in bills; like it or not, it’s a practice as old as our political system and one of the ways that legislation gets passed. Of course, it’s perfectly legitimate for Beck and Limbaugh to criticize Landrieu’s bargain. But when they go after a female leader, it’s par for the course for them to use sexist language in doing so (for example, see Limbaugh’s sexist attack on Senator Olympia Snowe several weeks ago). 

No, what’s more disturbing is that Mark Halperin of Time picked up on Beck and Limbaugh’s slander and ran a doctored photo of Landrieu that is supposed to remind us of the Cameron Diaz character in the movie “There’s Something About Mary.” (In the movie, Diaz’ hair is held together with semen.) It’s a great example of what happens when the talk show media’s worst sexist offenders pay no price for repeatedly diminishing elected female leaders—it makes it safe for members of the mainstream media to get in on the action. 

Let’s tell those responsible for giving Limbaugh, Beck, and Halperin their platforms that we won’t tolerate their supporting media personalities or journalists who continue to demean woman leaders (and most important, that we won’t subscribe to their radio network or buy their magazine until they take action): 

1. Premiere Radio Networks: Contact Charlie Rahilly, President and Chief Operating Officer, Premiere Radio Networks: barker@premiereradionetworks.com
2. Time: letters@time.com 

Steve 

P.S. If you need any more encouragement to write to Newsweek in response to Cynthia’s post last week, just read Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s unapologetic official statement in response to the criticism.

By now, most of you have seen the cover of Newsweek on which Sarah Palin is depicted wearing running shorts. The photo was originally taken for the June 2009 issue of Runner’s World, for which shorts were the appropriate attire. As Palin has said, and I believe her, she would never have posed in shorts for a national news magazine. 

What possessed Newsweek’s editorial staff to approve this picture for the cover of their magazine is quite frankly beyond me. While some pundits on the right have suggested that the photo reveals Newsweek’s political partisanship (which is clearly possible), I don’t remember seeing Newt Gingrich or Bill Bennett’s thighs when they were out flacking their books. If the move was a partisan decision, it also was a stupid one, designed to alienate any thinking woman. 

It is clear that the Newsweek staff don’t think much of Palin, asking the question, “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” and letting us know that “she’s bad news.” And that is fine with me. Palin chose public life and is conducting a carefully orchestrated book tour full of interviews and book signings. She is fair game with regard to her experience, her political point of view, and even her apparent disinterest in taking responsibility for anything that happened during the 2008 presidential campaign (see any of her recent interviews for examples of how someone else is almost always to blame). So why was it necessary for Newsweek to take the low road when it came to selecting Palin’s cover photo? 

Since the cover first appeared, I have read any number of editorials and web postings by both men and women who suggest that the Newsweek cover photo of Palin is simply representative of the media’s current style of political coverage. I beg to differ—it smacks of sexism to me (albeit sexism as a means of inflicting political damage). Anyone who was awake during the 2008 presidential campaign knows that women leaders are judged differently—often on their looks, their voices, and their hair and clothing choices (although in this case, Palin’s choice of clothing was apparently made by the Newsweek staff). 

I must confess that I find it difficult to defend Sarah Palin when she is the target of sexist remarks (or photos) because in my experience she doesn’t appear to play for the feminist team—except perhaps when it serves her own purposes. She is, in my opinion, one more example of women who benefit from the tremendous gains made by feminist leaders and yet refuse to acknowledge the value of the movement.  

But defend her I will because sexism as a means of taking down your political opponents is still sexism. All is not fair in love and war, and winning electoral battles while ceding the moral ground is no victory at all. Sexism in political and professional settings, and as used by the media to undermine women in both arenas, is unacceptable in this day and age. Newsweek owes Palin (and the rest of us) an apology. 

Cynthia 

p.s. You may write to Newsweek to express your concern about the November 23, 2009, cover at: 

Newsweek Domestic Edition
Letters to the Editor for the U.S. print edition: Letters@newsweek.com

Mailing Address:
Newsweek
395 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10014

A few weeks ago, we received a post from Naomi, who noted that she is on a personal crusade to rid the world of the phrase “like a girl” used in a belittling way. She notes that people would never tolerate that type of language if it had to do with race. 

Naomi is right. Her post also made me start paying closer attention to similar sexist language that appears to now be considered acceptable, even among people who otherwise seem to care about equality. While two of the following three terms are considered vulgar, that’s not as important as the sexist stereotypes they convey: 

1. The offensive “pussy,” apparently the new “sissy,” used in otherwise progressive liberal venues to mean “weak, indecisive, lacking courage.” For example, last year on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart referred to Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives as “throwing a pussy party” after they voted to continue funding for the Iraq War.
2. “Having balls,” “being ballsy,” and variations apparently are meant to convey  boldness and staying power. Rush Limbaugh recently drew on similar terms to insult Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine after her vote with the Democrats on health care: “She is the voice of the new castrati, those who have lost all manhood, gonads, guts, and courage.” (Attacks like Limbaugh’s show how brave  Snowe’s vote actually was.)
3. Using “she” to refer to a man, intended as an insult. I saw Christopher Hitchens recently use this in a debate, referring to male moderator Jay Diamond: “I appreciate devious questions, but I wish she would have the guts to put some of those to my opponent . . .”

Language matters because it shapes attitudes and therefore behavior. What ideas do girls form about themselves when they hear both male and female anatomical references used to devalue women? So when we hear these terms, it might be time to ask people, “Why’d you say that? What does lack of guts or weakness have to do with women?” (And even, “Ever heard of Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, and Eleanor Roosevelt?”)  

Yes, this type of language is edgy. In fact, it’s so edgy that it’s over the line, and I’ve started calling foul when I hear it used.

Steve

While speaking up about sexist remarks can empower people around us, occasionally our attempt to intervene is rejected by the person targeted by the remark. What do you do when the woman targeted by a remark repudiates your help or becomes distant afterward? This week, we answer that question. 

Cynthia and Steve

Here’s an idea if you’re ever feeling discouraged or need inspiration about the importance of ending sexist remarks. Go back and listen to a few songs from “Free to Be You and Me,” the ground-breaking music album, storybook, and then television show put together by Marlo Thomas in 1972. She created the record to teach her then-young niece about life; specifically, Marlo wanted an entertaining way to show her and other children that the gender stereotypes in many children’s books do not represent the way life has to be. (At the time of a 1998 study, for example, books for kids still were frequently portraying girls as “sweet, naïve, conforming, and dependent” while boys were depicted as “strong, adventurous, independent, and capable.”) Though the primary audience of “Free to Be You and Me” is children, the album’s messages are at least as important for the adults who shape children’s behavior and outlook.

My siblings and I grew up with the songs on that old “Free to Be You and Me” LP. We didn’t know at the time that the message at the heart of those songs was truly radical: that liberty isn’t just about the freedom to assemble, to express opinions, and the like. It’s also freedom from gender stereotypes and gender roles—that if boys are so inclined, they should be encouraged to enjoy dolls and if girls are interested, they should pursue engineering. That both fathers and mothers are responsible for taking care of and spending time with children. That housework is the province of both men and women, girls and boys. On the album, star NFL defensive lineman Rosy Grier sings about it being all right for boys to cry. Diana Ross and Michael Jackson do a song about being comfortable with who you are, that boys don’t have to be tall and girls don’t have to be pretty. And the title track lays out the vision of a world of limitless possibilities: “There’s a land that I see where the children are free . . . And you and me are free to be you and me.”

“Free to Be You and Me” helps remind us what the effort to end sexist comments is all about. When we stand up to those remarks, we model for those around us, and our children, the kind of society we want to have—where gender is a component of a child’s makeup but should never constrain their choices or ability to express themselves. It’s often said that America is a place where people can achieve their dreams as long as they’re willing to work for it. Getting beyond sexist remarks and gender discrimination is a key piece of allowing our country to truly be a place where people’s potential is limited only by their imagination.

Since the album was released, I haven’t seen any products for children that have quite so clearly and entertainingly communicated a vision for a gender-bias-free society. (Though there are quite a few children’s books that depict strong girls and women—see the Women’s National Book Association’s annual list here.) So over the last few years I’ve been buying “Free to Be You and Me” for all of the children in my life—you can do so too by visiting the Free to Be You and Me Foundation’s website here.

Steve

Recently I came across a message that I wrote more than two decades ago to a group of advocates who were working to improve services to battered women. The message bears repeating today in relation to our work to end sexist remarks, promote gender equality, and create a safer world for women and girls. During October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we are printing an adapted version of the original text; it appears below.

Cynthia

It is difficult not to become frustrated with the apparently insurmountable tasks that lie ahead. The ideal world that we envision—where equality prevails and women and men live in partnership and mutual respect—seems so far away. The desire to bring about gender equality in our lifetime can be overwhelming, and despite all the changes we have seen, they are not enough. There is so much work to be done, and the need to continually challenge the entrenched attitudes and values that hold women back can sap our strength. In the final analysis, however, achieving our goals is both possible and profoundly necessary, and it is our idealism and hope that keep us going.

It is important therefore to remember that historically we have made significant strides. Women vote, go to college, and play vital roles in government, business, and industry, and men have become more involved in parenting and family life. Young girls are active in sports, watch their mothers achieve success in myriad arenas, and are taught that they have choices, many of which simply were not available to their grandmothers. Life will be easier for the young women of tomorrow because some of the toughest battles lie behind us.

This is not to say that we should become complacent, but during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we need to celebrate our achievements. We make a difference every time that we educate another person about how sexist remarks negatively affect women and girls. We change the status quo every time that we stand up for women who are the targets of sexist actions. We save lives when we encourage women to get the help they need to leave abusive partners and when we insist that the criminal justice system address domestic violence responsibly.

So this month, as Domestic Violence Awareness activities draw to a close for another year, take pride in what you do to stop sexist remarks, support gender equality, and end woman abuse—because remembering our accomplishments will give us the strength to tackle the challenges that remain.

Because men are nearly always those making (and benefiting from) sexist remarks, men who care about sexism have a particular obligation to respond to sexist forms of expression. But how can we do so in the way that best supports women? We address that question this week. 

Steve and Cynthia

We all would like the outcome of our efforts to address sexist remarks to be positive—for all parties to go away understanding why stopping sexist expression in everyday conversation matters and feeling respected and heard. How do we make a positive interaction more likely? This week we offer our perspectives on that question.

Cynthia and Steve

Have you ever received feedback from someone about your response to a sexist comment? This week we answer that question. We’re interested in whether you’ve had that experience and what you learned.

Steve and Cynthia

Have you ever been the beneficiary of someone’s intervention regarding a sexist remark? How did you and others react? If you’ve been the target of a sexist remark and were supported by someone else, we’d like to hear from you. This week we answer that question ourselves.

Cynthia and Steve

Erin Andrews of ESPN appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show last week in her “one and only interview” regarding the illegally filmed video of her that was posted on the internet earlier this year. Millions of people had flocked to an array of sites to watch the video of a naked Andrews getting ready for work in at least two different hotel rooms. 

Andrews was incredibly poised during the interview—especially given the circumstances—and yet also appeared somewhat anxious despite her years of on-camera experience. And who wouldn’t be after such an incredible violation of their privacy? As Oprah asked, how many of us would care to be filmed leaving the shower or bending over the bathtub during private moments? 

What happened to Ms. Andrews after the pictures were posted, however, was almost worse. Several networks showed pictures from the video, blurring out the more personal parts and yet provoking further interest. Female colleagues made inappropriate remarks about the situation, and some people suggested that Andrews staged the event to further her career. While woman media professionals often are expected to walk a fine line between beauty and substance, there is a profound distinction between someone capitalizing on their attractiveness and being stalked with a video camera. To suggest otherwise is simply tarring the victim, a game that we seem to play with ever-increasing fervor in the internet age. 

Ms. Andrews participated in the interview with Oprah to tell her side of the story and to announce that she would be resuming her role as sportscaster. She says that she is doing so as much for other young women as for herself. She is not going to let this horrifying experience beat her. 

So we are taking a break this week from posting answers to the tough questions about sexist remarks to salute Erin Andrews for her gracious performance on Oprah, her refusal to engage in the media frenzy that typically follows such incidents, and her courage in returning to the already tough (for women) field of sports journalism. Through these actions, Andrews will serve as a role model for all young women, and most especially those who find themselves violated by a culture that uses sex in myriad forms to demean women professionally and personally. 

As for the rest of us, the internet is and will remain a fact of life in this century, but how we use it says something about our nature and our character. I am sorry that so many people could not resist the urge to watch the illicit video of Andrews—taken and posted without her knowledge or consent. We need to do better. 

Cynthia

It’s never easy to predict what reaction you will get when you respond to a sexist remark. What do you do when things go badly? How do you repair the situation? This week we explore that question.

Steve and Cynthia

It’s one thing to have a plan for taking on sexist comments in a positive, constructive way and quite another to do so in even the toughest situations.

What are the hard choices related to sexist remarks that you run into? When do you find it most difficult to respond effectively? This week we tackle that that question.

Cynthia and Steve

Top performers in many fields often say that it’s not enough to want to succeed at what you endeavor—you have to prepare to succeed. That’s no less true in learning to respond well to sexist remarks, so this week we share how we prepare to do so.

Steve and Cynthia

How does one get started addressing sexist remarks? For example, are there particular types of situations in which it is easier to practice responding to such comments? Then, once you get started, what makes it possible to expand the circumstances in which you are willing to speak up? Read about how we got started responding to sexist remarks, and then share your experience.

Cynthia and Steve

Ever struggle with when to respond to sexist remarks and when to ignore them? Read about how we make those decisions under the question, How do you know when to respond to sexist remarks and when to let things slide? Then post your ideas.

Steve and Cynthia

Dealing with sexist remarks—or any negative or demeaning comment—is never easy. Whether those comments are made in the workplace or other community institutions, in the neighborhood, or at social events, they create tension and make people (especially the recipient) feel uncomfortable. 

Since launching this blog, we have witnessed firsthand the struggles that people face in deciding how (and perhaps whether) to deal with sexist remarks. We also have noticed that while the site has had a fair amount of traffic given that it is fairly new and not connected to a national organization, only a handful of people have left comments or ideas about how to respond effectively when confronted with a sexist remark. 

We realize that there are no simple answers to the tough questions about sexist remarks—dealing with sexist comments is not a one-size-fits-all type of strategy. Every time that you encounter a sexist remark, you are required to assess myriad issues fairly quickly. Those include the time and place, the overall circumstances, the people involved (and around you), your perception of the intent of the person making the comment, the odds that responding will generate some positive outcome versus the potential risks of speaking up (especially on the job), and your own style and level of comfort. 

The fact that it is challenging to deal effectively with sexist remarks is all the more reason for us to work together to do so. We therefore created a section of the blog called Answering the Tough Questions About Sexist Remarks and left the spaces for the answers empty. We had planned to post the responses to the questions provided by visitors to the blog, but to date no one has filled in the blanks. 

So beginning this week, we will share our initial thoughts about how we would answer the questions, beginning with number 1 and working our way through the current list. We will post an announcement on the main page as we answer each question, with a reminder that we have left a spot for each of you to do the same. Remember—there are no correct answers, so just share your experiences under the question that we are highlighting that week. Tell us about what has worked for you in dealing with sexist remarks, tell your stories, or simply raise related questions. 

Answering the tough questions about sexist remarks—toward the goal of ending sexist comments altogether—will be a little easier if we all work together. 

We look forward to hearing from you. 

Cynthia and Steve

In light of a recent poll, we have quite a distance to go in erasing sexist attitudes about women in leadership. In an August 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center, fully 21 percent of the U.S. public said that men make better leaders than women. Another 69 percent said that men and women make equally good leaders, and only 6 percent said that women make better leaders. 

Those findings are particularly surprising given recent episodes in our political and corporate cultures. In 2002 at Enron, it was a woman accountant, Sherron Watkins, who stood up to the company’s male leadership to point out that the company’s accounts were fraudulent. In the late 1990s, the female head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born, tried unsuccessfully to warn Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Arthur Levitt that the government’s failure to regulate the trading of collateralized debt obligations was a ticking bomb that could bring down the financial system. (The run on derivatives and resulting financial collapse of 2008 showed that she was right.) And last week, the Washington Post reported that a female lawyer at the SEC, Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to warn her male superiors that Bernard Madoff’s accounts did not make sense and that the agency should investigate.

We also now know that at least four of our male political leaders (Presidential candidate John Edwards, governors Elliott Spitzer and Mark Sanford, and Senator John Ensign) allowed their pursuit of extramarital liaisons to put their leadership responsibilities and the interests of their constituents at risk.

Keep those episodes in mind next time that you hear (as I have) suggestions that men are better natural leaders than women, that women who disagree with the conclusions of their male colleagues are just “having a bad day” (and cruder suggestions), that men should not be supervised by women, and other such remarks. 

In light of recent events, the idea that men are better leaders than women turns out to be not just untrue, but dangerous to our nation’s economic well-being and governance. There are many ways to support our country, and it’s not a stretch to say that challenging remarks that deride women’s leadership and decisionmaking abilities is a small act of patriotism. The nation is well served when we stand up and confront misguided notions about women’s capacity to lead. 

Because if our country is to get back on course, we need fewer yes-men and more talented leaders—women and men—whose decisions are based on reality and not on ideology, personal interest, or short-term gain. 

Steve

Much has been written (too much, some might suggest) about the legacy of Michael Jackson since his unfortunate death in June. As is true whenever someone famous passes before their time, there is enormous conjecture about what was and what might have been. Their lives, already under the microscope, are further dissected, often with the intent of uncovering the more sordid details of their history.

In Jackson’s case, few would question his contributions as a musician; the man, however, is not so easily categorized. By all accounts, he was a gentle soul, contributing generously to charities—most notably by writing “We are the World” with Lionel Richie to help famine-relief efforts in Africa. Conversely, he was accused of abusing young boys at his Neverland Ranch. Jackson settled one case and was acquitted in another, but revelations during that trial—compounded by his often quirky behavior—left many of us feeling uncomfortable.

Jackson’s father allegedly abused him physically and emotionally beginning at a young age, and if we have learned anything during the past two decades it is that child abuse is damaging. Abused children often drink and take drugs to excess, develop eating disorders and other body issues, and can be developmentally delayed—staying childlike in many behaviors and decision-making processes, while progressing normally in other life areas. The effects of early trauma, as we now more readily understand, can be lasting—it is in many ways a small death, often leading to increasingly destructive behaviors over time.

If his allegations about being abused are true, as most people close to him believe they are, Jackson may indeed be the poster child for the need to more effectively intervene when children are being mistreated. Yet rarely, in the weeks that have passed since Jackson’s death, have I heard the issue of his alleged abuse during childhood (or his alleged victimization of others) discussed in relation to the need to break the cycle of child abuse that permeates our communities.

So what on earth, you might ask, does this have to do with sexist remarks? One only need look at the language that is used when violence occurs against women and children to consider that a sexist and patriarchal perspective has influenced our response to abuse. We ask why women stay with their abusive partners, even as research tells us that they try to leave—often numerous times—despite the financial and cultural difficulties they encounter when they do. Supposedly well-educated judges have publicly questioned the clothing and demeanor of very young girls who were sexually abused by adult males—as if to suggest that they provoked the attack. “Provocation” is in fact often mentioned when women and children are the victims of abuse.

How we discuss child abuse impacts our ability to create effective prevention, intervention, and treatment approaches, and quite obviously blaming the victim is not the answer. When all the hoopla that has surrounded his passing subsides, perhaps Jackson’s real legacy will be to cast a light on the need to change the way we talk about and address child abuse in this country. If we are wise enough to learn that lesson, we might be ready to explore how sexist language helps to perpetuate some of the other destructive elements of our culture.

Cynthia

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has offered at least one lesson on gender stereotypes. 

In case you missed it, Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) has implied that Judge Sotomayor may be a “bully judge” and, referring to her demeanor, says, “There’s a character problem; there’s a temperament problem.” He has questioned her fitness for the High Court based on those characteristics. 

Temperament may be a fair criterion on which to assess the fitness of a Supreme Court nominee. But if so, are we using the same standards for men and women in assessing temperament? 

Apparently not, according to a June 15 story on National Public Radio. Journalist Nina Totenberg did more than report what supporters and detractors say about Sotomayor’s temperament. She and her team listened to oral arguments in two cases for which Sotomayor was one of the sitting judges. For the first case, Totenberg tallied the number of questions and interruptions made by Sotomayor and her colleagues during presentations by the opposing lawyers. Sotomayor asked 5 questions, and her colleagues an average of 4.7. She interrupted the lawyers 7 times, and her colleagues an average of 5.1. (Totenberg points out that Sotomayor was participating by teleconference, and it was clear that some of her interruptions were the result of not being able to hear.) For the second case, Totenberg compared the tenor of Sotomayor’s questions with those of sitting Supreme Court justices. She concluded that Sotomayor’s questions were tough but that her cross-examinations of lawyers were no more or less aggressive than those typical of Justices John Roberts and Antonin Scalia. 

We are left to ask, then, what is the real basis for criticism of Sotomayor’s temperament. It’s not hard to figure out: women in leadership face a double standard in which assertiveness is perceived as aggressiveness and decisiveness as domineering behavior. It’s the same double standard applied to  Hillary Clinton during her Presidential campaign and  countless other women leaders. Of course, if women leaders are not assertive or decisive, they then are called weak. It’s the temperament trap, in which sexist labels are applied to strong women leaders that would never be applied to men who perform similarly. 

What’s the lesson? Perhaps we should react a bit more skeptically the next time someone tells us that they find a certain female leader or manager unfriendly, overbearing, or hard to work with. We might ask, “Would you make the same observation about her behavior if she were a man?” “How does her behavior compare with that of men in her position?” and, most important, “Is she effective?” (which is often the only criterion used to judge the character of men in leadership). 

That conversation might help clarify where the problem really lies. 

Steve 

I am back from vacation and during that otherwise marvelous trip, I saw two comedians perform who used the most incredibly old-fashioned sexist humor that you can imagine. My husband and I actually walked out of one show when it began with a joke about the comedian’s mother’s t%ts and quickly went downhill from there. The other comedian, who was billed as performing “observational humor,” was less lowbrow but insulting to women nonetheless. It was not that his observations about the differences between women and men were totally off base; rather it was the way he spoke in a high-pitched, nagging voice when mimicking his wife or other women. While men didn’t fare much better, being portrayed as laughable boobs, “momma” was a highly organized, humorless scold, bent on keeping her husband in line (read: not having any fun). 

These are not the women I know and work with, and frankly most of the men I hang out with aren’t quite so feckless. And yet the audience laughed (women included), while I sat with my jaw in my lap. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of a good laugh but why does so much humor have to be at someone’s (often women’s) expense? And why are we laughing at humor that perpetuates old stereotypes like the nagging wife or over-involved mother-in-law? Could it be that much of the audience response was the nervous laughter of women and progressive men who did not know how to respond otherwise without appearing humorless? 

Sound familiar? You bet it does. The greatest challenge we face with regard to stopping sexist remarks is our inability to challenge the status quo. While we know that tolerating sexist remarks isn’t helpful in changing the culture, we often endure those comments (teeth clenched) in myriad settings, and it is time to figure out why. 

I suspect that it would be easier to routinely stand up to sexist remarks if we were certain that we had the immediate and unwavering support of colleagues and friends (or for that matter, any intelligent stranger happening by), policymakers, and cultural leaders. So why haven’t more of us banded together to challenge the all-too-prevalent use of language that demeans women? 

If you are reading this post, it is likely that you care about stopping sexist remarks. So you tell us—how do we begin to create a network of people who will speak up when sexist remarks are made? What can we do to convince everyone of the need to take the impact of sexist remarks more seriously? 

Send us your ideas, and we will share those on this site. Then take action to ensure that stopping sexist remarks is on the radar of those with the power to support positive change. For example, you might write to Valerie Jarrett, who is heading the White House Council on Women and Girls, to encourage her to address the effects of sexist language on women and girls are in this country. Or contact Terry O’Neill, the new President of the National Organization for Women (NOW) or your local NOW chapter leaders and ask them to focus on stopping language that undermines women’s power and potential. You also might reach out to leaders at your local schools and universities and community and religious institutions to ask them to create policies for eliminating the use of sexist remarks in their arenas. 

Keep us posted on what you do to create your own local network for stopping sexist remarks and the responses that you receive from national organizations—because we have a much better chance of challenging the status quo if we join together to do so. 

Cynthia

A story in my local area illustrates what can happen when workplace managers fail to create an environment that is free of sexist remarks and other forms of sexist behavior. 

Four female corrections officers who worked in our county jail have filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the county sheriff’s office. They say that they were subjected to sexual jokes and innuendo by male co-workers, retaliated against when they filed complaints with managers, and denied promotions.

The women’s charges have been given added weight by a report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluding that that the evidence supports their claims that they experienced sexual harassment, degrading treatment, and a hostile work environment. 

I find troubling our sheriff and county administrator’s response to the suit. The sheriff responded, “I can tell you that we adamantly and feverishly deny all of the allegations and can’t wait for our day in court. The sooner the better.” And our county administrator has declined comment. Obviously, the defendants are innocent until proven guilty. But what our local leaders did not say is revealing: “As county leaders, we oppose discrimination and harassment in county offices. We do not tolerate sexist behavior, and we have policies in place that prevent sexual harassment and discrimination.” 

The costs of our county’s lack of leadership on gender equality now include the end of the careers of four women and a possible cost to county taxpayers of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Workplace leaders who believe that sexist comments are harmless and that women should simply “laugh them off” are setting the stage for other forms of sexual harassment. When organizations treat sexist comments as routine and ignore complaints about them, they create an environment that makes even worse treatment of women possible. 

Those who stand up to sexist comments and other forms of harassment are the canary in the coal mine. Their efforts to end sexist remarks are a warning that an organization is not taking gender equality seriously enough. But unlike the mining’s industry’s canary, no one has to die to fix this problem—it just requires leaders who are willing to put an end to sexist behavior.

Steve

Increasingly, I feel as if the prevailing cultural norm is “winning at any cost.” This is evidenced by, among other things, the verbal sparring among politicans and by media pundits that accompanies every emerging issue or situation. Whatever happened to civilized dialogue—to polite debate during which we focus our comments on substantive issues rather than attacking the character of the (perceived) opposition? Too often today, when we disagree, we hurl invective—including sexist remarks—designed to shatter the credibility of our opponents rather than engaging them in thoughtful discourse. 

The most recent example includes calling Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist on the basis of a comment that she made when discussing discrimination (which was, of course, presented out of context). Whether you agree with her statement or not, we all need to object to this latest example of vitriolic name calling. Words matter, and statements designed simply to incite—rather than educate—the public are dangerous. Calling a woman a racist on the basis of one comment does not further the discussion; it simply serves to inflame those engaged in it. This isn’t a partisan issue, with voices on both the left and the right using inflammatory language during public debates. 

I therefore decided to revisit the idea of a proper debate, skimming through a few websites with information on debate strategies. The prevailing guidance included the following: avoid exaggeration, refrain from telling the other person that she or he is wrong, watch the tone of your voice, and admit when you are sharing an opinion rather than a fact. Further, the basis for a debate is described as using logic and evidence to build a case (an apparently lost art). Moreover, to constructively debate, you must listen, assess, and then respond politely and effectively to your opponent’s remarks. These are not bad principles to consider applying to our daily discourse. 

I am left thinking that the best advice I’ve heard came from Steven Covey, the management guru, who said “Seek first to understand.” In other words, even when we disagree with someone, we should pause, ask questions, and really listen to their answers—not simply react. By trying to understand how others feel and think, we might just learn something that hadn’t occurred to us. Using that information, we can begin to create real conversations where the goal is to generate a positive exchange of ideas for each participant’s delight or enlightenment (is there really any other reason to talk?). In situations in which we are considering how to deal with critical issues, this type of conversation can yield mutually agreed-upon strategies for positively resolving our challenges. When I have applied Covey’s principle (and trust me, it takes work in a culture that rewards you for winning), the outcomes are always better. 

Maybe it is time that we demand that our elected leaders and the media choose more dignified and helpful ways to engage the American public in assessing important national decisions. Call or write your elected officials and national/local media executives and tell them that on important matters, you want: 

1. An objective presentation of the facts (in context)
2. Any relevant historical information
3. Their analysis, guidance, or wisdom, with the caveat that it represents their opinion
4. Truly fair and balanced coverage during public forums and on television and radio news shows, in which both sides of an issue are explored by advocates with similar qualifications, skills, and experience
5. An immediate reduction in the use of language intended to generate controversy (read: language intended to raise money/generate high ratings)

Let’s face it: we shouldn’t be surprised that we are still dealing with sexist remarks in our personal lives when much of what we hear on the news or from our elected leaders is far worse. So reach out today and encourage your elected officials and the media professionals you regularly watch to kick their hysterical rhetoric to the curb. 

Cynthia

A friend recently told me about the book Boys Adrift, whose thesis is that boys today are faring substantially worse than girls in school. Its author, Leonard Sax (a psychologist and family physician) claims that several barriers are keeping boys from achieving their potential and that as a result, boys are faring substantially worse in school. Sax calls for a complete overhaul of the educational system to accommodate the needs of boys, including giving parents the option of sending their children to single-gender public schools.

The book has received a lot of attention since its release in 2007. Sax is presenting his ideas at medical schools, giving speeches at education conferences for public school teachers, and doing workshops for parents. In March, he appeared on the Today show. 

While I was interested in my friend’s enthusiasm for the book, I confess to being uneasy about the general alarm being sounded about the welfare of boys. I want children and young people of both genders to succeed. But while I am encouraged by the long-overdue gains that women have made in the last 20 years, the remaining disparities make the attempt to rearrange the world for boys feel like part of the backlash against feminism that has been going on since the seventies. 

So I hope that Dr. Sax and those who support efforts to reform school systems on behalf of boys are equally troubled by (and willing to help address) the obstacles that girls have long faced in school. These include sexist comments about their abilities in math, science, and computers and  teachers’ stereotypes about girls’ ability in math and science, which affect their test performance. 

Because students of both genders deserve to have adults advocate for the removal of barriers to their success, where those exist. I suspect we all want both the boys and girls we know to get what they need to achieve their academic potential. So if you know people involved in efforts to help boys in school, suggest that they also consider taking action on behalf of girls by promoting an environment that is free of sexist remarks and that offers equal opportunity and encouragement in the range of areas that can broaden their life choices.

Steve

About 25 years ago, I asked a long-time battered women’s advocate whose work I respected why eliminating sexism appeared to be so much tougher than dealing with other forms of socially based discrimination. Her response bears repeating: “Because messages about sexism usually begin at home.” 

She went on to explain that addressing sexism requires each person to examine the culturally defined, gender-based roles that they play in their most important relationships (parent/child, marriage/partnership, brother/sister). In other words, challenging the status quo with regard to sexism does not simply mean signing a petition, attending a rally, or otherwise speaking out. It means taking a good hard look at our own lives and the roles we have chosen (or had foisted upon us), and therefore, the ideas about women and men that we are passing on to our children. At the time that I asked the question, it meant taking risks with a partner or family member as you pushed beyond socially defined limits to negotiate the paths less traveled by your gender. 

Times have changed (thank goodness), and I delight in the new young fathers I see pushing their babies in strollers around the neighborhood, tackling the responsibilities of daycare, and showing up for school outings. I am thrilled that so many young women have taken advantage of the educational and workplace opportunities provided by the first and second waves of feminism. 

Yet sexism remains, playing out in the way women are portrayed by the media; in films, television, and advertising; and of course, through sexist remarks. More subtly, in many homes, the traditional gender roles remain firmly in place, with dad washing the car or mowing the lawn, mom cooking dinner, grandpa cutting the turkey at Thanksgiving, and grandma shopping for the new grandbaby. 

Even if you love every one of the “more traditional” roles that you have adopted in your family of origin or creation, it may be time to reflect on how watching you in those roles may impact your children’s choices. Will your daughter grow up to design new, and hopefully ecologically sound, automobiles if she never develops a passion for cars? Will your son learn to cook if he witnesses Dad tying on the apron only for a backyard barbecue? Does Uncle Bill suggest that the women clean up after a family dinner while the men retire to watch the football game? Do you encourage your daughters and nieces to join them? 

As a country that appears more interested in whether Michelle Obama bares her arms at political functions than in her amazingly dignified and engaging performance as First Lady, it seems that we still have a ways to go where sexism is concerned. And changing outdated sexist ideas begins at home. So start by asking yourself the following questions: 

1. If I have chosen the more traditional male or female roles at home or work, do I expose my children to successful and happy men and women who have made different choices? 
2. Do I actively (and visibly) support my partner, family members, and friends when they make choices that do not fit neatly into traditional gender roles?
3. Do I consider how my comments about women and men might affect my children’s thinking about the choices they have available to them (or the value that we place on girls and boys)?
4. Do I talk with my children about the value to our community (and the world) of encouraging women and men to use their skills or otherwise contribute in ways that go beyond traditional gender roles?
5. Do I address the sexist remarks my children encounter—at school and family events, or in other situations—either in the moment or with them later privately, as appropriate?

Then decide to make a change, if you need to (and I suspect most of us do), in the messages that you convey to your children about women and men—through both what you say and what you do. Because if sexism begins at home, then home is where we need to stop it.

Cynthia

How does one respond effectively to sexist remarks? The original intent of this site was to explore options and present women and men with strategies for addressing those types of comments during everyday conversations. The overall goal, however, was not simply to build a list of catchy retorts—although those can be very helpful and I particularly like the list that Steve put together in his post “Setting Boundaries in 15 Words or Less”—but rather to educate people about the need to stop sexist remarks. 

What we really need is prevention. Simply responding to sexist remarks is akin to scooping water out of a sinking boat rather than checking the boat for leaks before leaving the dock. It doesn’t mean that we should stop figuring out how to respond effectively to sexist comments because those situations present incredible learning/teaching moments, as Steve discussed in his last post. Simultaneously, however, we need to focus on the bigger goal of creating environments—at work, home, and school, and in the business, political, educational, and religious arenas—that are free of sexist remarks and other forms of gender discrimination. 

This means, as prevention always does, taking action on the front end. We need to help community and private institutions (and family members and friends) to train or educate those with whom they are engaged about why sexist remarks are inappropriate (damaging actually, as some of the research Steve has highlighted in his posts suggests). And we need to encourage them to set limits through policy and practice (including everyday conversations) that clearly defines acceptable language for talking to or about women and girls. 

Check out the Take Action section of this site—where we provide detailed strategies for getting started—and decide today to broach the subject of ending sexist remarks in a setting where you (or those around you) encounter such comments. And watch for new information on taking action to prevent sexist remarks in other settings—we will let you know when that becomes available.

 Because in stopping sexist remarks, an ounce of prevention just might be worth a pound of cure. 

Cynthia

It’s a fact of history that bigotry in its various forms—sexism, racism, homophobia—is a potent tool for diverting the attention of people who are vulnerable. In the South, white-owned corporations used racism to divide the white and African American working classes and prevent unionization. At the height of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in Oklahoma, voters elected a governor who had run on a platform of moving Jewish people and African Americans out of the state for allegedly stealing jobs and resources that could benefit poor whites. And as Susan Faludi argues in Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, some of the backlash against feminism by working-class American men has been the product of misplaced anger at shrinking wages, layoffs, and a world they perceive to be moving on without them.

That understanding helps me to have a bit more compassion in handling sexist remarks. Why compassion? After all, not everyone is being manipulated by someone else, and we do make choices about what we think. But we are also shaped to a large degree by our experiences, and we all would be different people if we had someone else’s background. 

The authors of the 1997 book Encountering Bigotry argue that change happens when we are able to have real conversations with people who express bigotry. They think that real conversations have two parts. Part 1 consists of being genuinely curious about why the other person has chosen to express themselves in a bigoted way. As offensive as we find their expression, this means asking questions like, “I’m curious why you would say something like that?” “What is that based on?” “What experiences have led you to think that way?” Part 2 consists of communicating your values, expressing in personal terms why equality is important to you. Why do you care about sexist remarks? How do such comments affect people you care about—your daughter, your sister, your wife, you? 

When asked why I care about stopping sexist remarks, I talk about having witnessed discrimination against my mother in a church that we belonged to when I was in high school. At age 16, I and a few friends my age had been asked to serve on a committee, one that my mother happened to lead because she’d been asked to do so by the lone progressive-minded church leader. It was the first time that a woman had taken a leadership role in our church. She had clear leadership abilities—people commented on her public speaking skills and her ability to facilitate a committee discussion and bring a group to consensus. But the backlash soon came—a male member of the committee was unhappy that a woman was heading up the committee, and told her so. He rounded up support from other men who believed that it was not appropriate—based on their religious understanding, they said—for a woman to be in a leadership role.

Ultimately, enough people respected my mother’s skills that she stayed in her role until the committee’s work was finished. But the injustice of it offended my friends and me—how could men oppose someone so clearly gifted only because she wasn’t the right gender? 

We all have key experiences that help explain why we care about stopping sexist remarks. If we can share those experiences, and listen to the stories of those making sexist remarks, it’s possible to create change one conversation at a time.   

Steve

If sexist beer advertisements were a sign of the decline and fall of America, our cities would have been reduced to rubble years ago. Fortunately, there is enough else going right in the country that predictions of our demise are probably premature. But here’s one recent ad that I couldn’t let pass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc

So women love high heels, and men love beer. That such a cliché could still be considered funny indicates how far we have to go.

But there are subtler forms of typecasting by gender that people perpetuate in everyday conversation. The following are sentiments that I’ve heard expressed, even by people I consider egalitarian-minded:

1. Women are neat/men don’t clean or care about appearance.
2. Women and girls express aggression verbally/men and boys express aggression physically.
3. Women like talking about feelings/men don’t know how to express feelings.
4. Women are chatty/men don’t like to talk.
5. Women need someone to take care of/men are independent and not good caretakers.
6. Women like to shop/men hate shopping.
7. Women are better at multitasking but can’t finish tasks/men can’t multitask but finish the job.
8. Women are sensitive/men are insensitive.
9. Women are good listeners/men are self-centered and don’t listen.

Are these just harmless observations about the differences between women and men? Not likely. The “innocent stereotypes” that we hear daily in our culture affect our thinking and therefore behavior. For example, there is now a substantial body of research documenting that women perform worse than men on tests when participants are led to believe that the results will differ by gender. In contrast, women and men perform equally well when the participants are told before the test that the genders typically perform equally well.

I suspect the same holds true for women and men regarding expressing feelings or cleaning or shopping. People behave according to the cultural expectations regarding each of these characteristics. (Even so, among the people I know, gender is a poor predictor in these areas.) When sexist cultural stereotypes go unchallenged, it reinforces the rigid gender roles that keep both women and men from reaching their potential.

As Cynthia noted in her last post, we can start to break down these roles by becoming more aware of our own presumptions about gender. And then we can address those when we hear them.

When enough of us do, the beer advertisers who depict men as boobs and women as bimbos will wake up one day to find they’ve lost their audience.

Steve

On Earth Day this year, I made the decision to really “go green.” My husband and I already do our bit for the environment. Neither of us drives to work, and we keep the heat down and use air conditioning sparingly. We turn off the lights when we are not in a room, and I recycle paper by printing on both sides. Because we choose to live in a city, we have a small condo, which keeps us from “over consuming” simply because we do not have room for lots of new things—many of which would eventually make their way to the landfill. 

I did however have a penchant for using paper towels. And because we take our lunch to work, we tended to use plastic baggies and to reuse the plastic grocery store bags as lunch sacks. Not anymore; I am now conscious of every paper towel that I use. Paper napkins are a thing of the past, and I have begun exploring non-plastic alternatives for storing our lunch items. We are going green, and once I made that decision, I began to reassess my every action. When you pay attention, you notice the waste and harm that you can do without ever intending to. 

From the myriad articles that I read about Earth Day, that simple message emerged—there is power in raising people’s consciousness. In my neighborhood, everyone carries cloth grocery bags to the store; two years ago, that simply wasn’t true. Little actions make a difference, as we keep being told—especially when you multiply those by millions of people. 

Funny, but wasn’t consciousness-raising the initial goal of the feminist movement? Perhaps if we commit to taking small actions to stop sexist remarks, we might raise our overall consciousness about how language (and the ideas defined by it) affects women and girls in our culture. You know, doing the equivalent of carrying a cloth grocery bag, or turning off the lights, or driving less. 

So pick one day each week for the next six weeks—and on that day, be more conscious about how you think and talk about women and girls. It is amazing what you can discover about yourself simply by paying attention. Maybe if we all change our own thinking, and therefore our language and behavior, we will begin to make a difference in how women and girls are viewed and treated in our culture. 

Because while going green is about creating a healthier and more sustainable environment, stopping sexist remarks is about creating a more gender equal—and therefore more sustainable—world. 

Cynthia