Sexism

Originally Posted by Supersonic

Aloha !

After my remark in regards to women not being funny and this, to my surprise, sparking a more serious discussion, I'm wondering how much sexism really bothers you?

I rarely used to pay attention to it. I joke about pretty much anything, so obviously the derogatory jokes about women are some I enjoy making every now and then, but only if it's obvious I'm taking the piss. If someone's seriously offended by it and thinks I'm serious I feel quite bad, I rarely make a joke to seriously offend someone.

With that said, I had a conversation a few years ago about how much sexism dominates TV, billboards and other advertisments. I was pointed to a video in which somebody demonstrated how often sexism, especially towards women, is used to get a point across and portrays a skewed image of real life. Ever since I've seen that video I started paying attention to it, and it actually is quite shocking.

For example; whenever I'm drawing things I put on a TV show in the background. Sometimes they're good shows (Dexter, Breaking Bad, Arrested Development...) and sometimes quite average ones, as in The Walking Dead. I've no idea if anyone's watching this show (if you don't look up what it's about or some of the details here might fly over your head), but the sexism in this show is mind-blowing. The men are always out there "shooting zombies", driving cars, taking the lead, being strong, saving everyone. And then there's the women. What are they doing? They are always, always doing laundry, rasping potatoes, doing more laundry, and then act all dramatic and being the women that needs to be saved by the man. True, there are some exceptions, no needlessly those who are the exceptions get shot, crash cars and die.

Am I the only one who's bothered by this? Ever since I started paying attention to this it's odd to see how used society is to sexism. We all know sex sells and obviously the women using their body in adverts are just as guilty as the men staring at them, but considering how civilized the western world should be, I'm kind of wondering if either audiences aren't quite ready yet for independent women, or if independent women are just not ready for societ

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Originally Posted by Mysterytrain

Smart, independent women who don't seem to 'need' a man intimidate many men.

I remember back in 2004, when John Kerry was running for president in the United States. My parents, Democrats, supported him, and, by extension, his wife, the outspoken, foreign, worldly (former Republican), Teresa Heinz Kerry.

My dad told me he went to a non-political meeting with some of his neighbors, and all of the men were making derogatory jokes about Teresa Heinz Kerry, saying they "didn't like her", but they could never really say why (and this wasn't just about differing politics).

My dad, always a mellow person who never raises his voice, finally spoke after all of the potshots were taken, simply saying, "I like her; she's smart."

The other men looked at him like he was an alien from another planet. He told me later, "No matter what their political affiliation, these guys were terrified of women who seemed smarter than they were."

Hillary Clinton evokes much the same response among some men, imo. Our culture 'trains' both women and men, through our media, and through the examples in our own families, that men are supposed to act 'a certain way' and women are more often than not trained to be the 'helpers' of men.

Even my own sister, an otherwise-intelligent woman who works full-time in a demanding job and is raising two young boys, belongs to a church where women are not allowed to speak at meetings or teach adult men (they take the Bible literally when it comes to what women are 'allowed' to do). Men must speak for them. This kind of behavior perpetuates itself: Women actively work to diminish their own worth by ignoring the historical and cultural limitations of the Bible and view this decree as eternal, simply because they happened to be born a particular gender.

The cognitive dissonance of an otherwise fearless, outspoken woman demurring in this way shows how we often let sexism stand, simply because if women were thought of as not worthy of having something to say back in Biblical times, it must be "good enough" for the women of today.