sexism

[piranha]

i am pulling this out of the long threadmess on elke_tanzer's journal because i want to have it more easily accessible (i must get my wiki back up). part of that particular sidebar got really unproductive and obnoxious, IMO in part because people didn't define their terms.

here's my working definition:

sexism comprises conditions, attitudes, and behaviour that foster stereotypes of characteristics, abilities, and socìal roles based on a person's sex, in situations where that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

examples of how i see it (some are controversial):

paying a woman less for the same job as a man (same qualifications, same everything) is sexist.
promoting a man over a woman (same qualifications, same everything) because "she'll likely take off any time now to have a baby" is sexist.
it's sexist to believe women are per se less smart than men.
it's sexist to believe women are per se more nurturing than men.
drafting only men for military service is sexist.
referring to a "woman doctor" or a "male nurse" is sexist.
use of the generic masculine subsuming all humanity is sexist.
treating men as the norm and women as the outlier is sexist.
feminine suffixes such as -ess, -ette, -trix, or -enne are sexist (in english. this is much more complicated in gendered languages.)
it's sexist to call a woman who has lots of sex a "slut" and a man a "stud".
opening doors only for women is sexist.
the term "working mothers" is sexist.
promoting a man over a woman because "he has a family to support" is sexist.
rejecting a qualified man as a hire because "he wouldn't fit in" with the all-woman nursing staff is sexist.

it's not sexist to prefer to have sex with only men (or only women).
it's not sexist to hire a male actor to play a male character.
the word "history" is not sexist. *rolls eyes at "herstory"*. neither is "human".

Comments

I mostly agree, but...

[(Anonymous)]

While the feminine suffix '-ette' often has diminuitive connotations, I'm not aware of any such baggage being attached to '-ess'. Host/hostess, waiter/waitress, fort/fortress -- er, forget that last one -- in each case they *identify* gender (or try to) but do not, to my mind, attach any stereotypes based thereon. Is simply identifying gender sexist?

Taking one step back, one might wonder why, of all human traits, gender identity is the one we seek most readily to embed in our language. For example, there's no separate word for blue-eyed wait-staff. Doubtless much of the basis for that *is* sexist. But does that necessarily make the end product sexist as well?

Unless there are connotations to '-ess' that I'm not aware of (or have forgotten), I don't see how it meets your criteria for "foster[ing] stereotypes".

-deane

Re: I mostly agree, but...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

as we talked about later, this is quite subjective to me, and i feel that there is some devaluation happening when {some} people talk about a "waitress" as opposed to a "waiter", a "stewardess" as opposed to a "steward".

i liked that example we came up with, that waitresses work in greasy spoon joints while waiters work in fine french restaurants.

Re: I mostly agree, but...

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Fancy French restaurants hire males to wait tables, and the clientele expects it, and that's sexist.

Greasy spoon restaurants hire females to wait tables (mostly, I think, because the lower economic status of women makes them more willing to work such a crappy job for crappy pay), and the clientele often expect it and would tend to be consciously displeased if they were waited on by a guy (sexist) or tip less because they didn't get to see any cleavage (definitely sexist).

But I see nothing sexist about using the word "waiter" for the guy working in the French restaurant and "waitress" for the gal in the greasy spoon, unless it's in a context that is conveying that that is how it's supposed to be (such as a help wanted ad). I do, however, see something dehumanizing about referring to either gender as 'servers' (a server is a computer in the back office), and don't get me started on 'waitron'.

Re: I mostly agree, but...

[eagle]

Yeah, the difficulty that I have with this pretty much reduces to the problem that while English is not in general a gendered language, there are words (mostly occupational ones) that do have gender. In my ideal fantasy world, occupational terms would all be gender-neutral, but unfortunately English doesn't live in that world right now.

So we end up with a conflict between a few choices, all of which have drawbacks: reclaim the term as gender-neutral (done mostly successfully with doctor, nurse, secretary, etc., although people still feel obliged to tack "male" or "female" onto the front of those occasionally in situations where gender doesn't matter), continue using the male/female pairing without treating either as a diminuative (problematic for a lot of reasons, although I must admit that this thread is the first time that it ever even occurred to me that a waitress was somehow distinguished from a waiter in any way other than gender, so I'm guessing some of these terms apparently only carry stereotypes with them in particular cultures, classes, or contexts), or invent new terms.

Sometimes inventing new terms feels even more sexist to me than trying to deal with the existing mess of the language, in part because of the people who have pushed some of those new terms and the attitude they've brought to them. Like with "herstory," "womyn," and similar sorts of terms, some of the invented terms have developed sexist connotations of their own. On the other hand, sometimes it works. "zie" and "zir" work fine for me, and after a bit of flopping around, at least my portion of the English-speaking world appears to have settled on "chair" as a replacement for "chairman," something that sounds great to me. (My impression is that this is a relatively new definition of the word "chair," but I could be wrong.)

Oh, and I have no problems with gendered suffixes for things that are inherently sexual to the people talking about them. Dominatrix, for instance, I find unobjectionable in a BDSM play context when the gender of the person is explicitly part of the point. But that gets into more dangerous ground that maybe I shouldn't step on.

Re: I mostly agree, but...

[huaman.livejournal.com]

I've actually put a fair amount of time into trying to find ways to use standard English but not necessarily have to use gender-based words like "waitress." For example, instead of saying "I used to be a waitress," saying, "I used to wait tables."

Sexist/not sexist

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I think that's a good definiton. I agree with most of your examples, but I have a few quibbles:-

it's sexist to believe women are per se less smart than men.
it's sexist to believe women are per se more nurturing than men.

I think it's sexist to believe that any given woman is automatically going to be less smart or more nurturing than any given man. I don't think our current state of knowledge really establishes whether, looking at the average across large populations, women tend to have certain qualities to a greater or lesser degree than men. I'm talking about the same kind of statistical trend where, say, the Asian-origin population in the UK is significantly more prone to diabetes than the European-origin population, apparently due to genetic influences. At the same time. the disease does occur in both groups with a fair degree of frequency. Given our current state of knowledge, I don't think we can rule out similar trends between men and women. If anything, given the differences in hormonal makeup and the known effect of hormones on emotions, I'd think it would be more surprising if there weren't some differences, but I don't think we're anywhere near close enough to understanding what those might be and how to separate them from cultural and similar environmental influences. I doubt it's a question of being more or less smart or more or less nurturing, but I suspect there might at a population level be trends towards being smart in certain areas rather than others or nurturing in different ways. I don't think it's sexist to consider that possibility, but it would be sexist to assume that a given individual will necessarily be an example of the trend.

drafting only men for military service is sexist.

I think I agree with this, but I think it would not necessarily be sexist to exempt certain categories of women from the draft and/or to offer them different duties once drafted - e.g. women who may be pregnant or intending to become pregnant or who have children of nursing age and so on. Some exemptions should be offered regardless of gender - for instance, I think that primary carers of young children should generally be exempt from duties that would interfere with their parental responsibilities.

referring to a "woman doctor" or a "male nurse" is sexist.

Usually, unless one might use "male doctor" or "female nurse" in a similar situation. For instance, it is not sexist for a woman to ask to be treated by a "female gynaecologist" or object to having intimate personal care from a "male nurse", and I think it would not be sexist to mention the gender of a professional who has harassed you if it seems relevant to the content of the harassment. It is also not sexist to say something like "no, it was a male nurse" if you realise you need to correct an assumption made by the person you are talking to.

feminine suffixes such as -ess, -ette, -trix, or -enne are sexist (in english. this is much more complicated in gendered languages.)

I am not sure about this one. If the masculine equivalent is perceived as very strongly male-gendered, refusing to use the feminine version may just make women less visible in that particular profession, which leads to other problems.

Re: Sexist/not sexist

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. agree with you that we do not necessarily have the knowledge, and that it's not sexist to consider the possibility, etc.

i basically don't want to see any military draft. i'd like to see a national service of sorts which everyone could undertake with some freedom as to when. i would like to see hardly anyone excluded from that; i'd also like to see a wide variety of choices included in such a service, so that as many people as possible can be included. i could see it happen all in one lump of time, or in several, smaller bits of time.

agreed as to when it's ok to specify the sex of the professional about whom you're talking.

i do, however, think it's sexist for somebody to refuse treatment from somebody of the opposite sex for reasons of intimate personal care. i find it understandable, and i would probably not argue with it (certainly not at the time when a person is sick; there are better times to educate somebody on sexism. though i have done so at times, but only with crotchety old men who were well enough off that they could flirt with the nurses). but it feels sexist all the same to me. i also entirely understand why a woman who has just been raped would not want to speak to a male counselor, but i also think that is sexist. that's a situation where my pragmatism would say "sure, hire more female counselors for the rape crisis centre, and turn down more male applicants", but i would be thoroughly unhappy about it.

Re: Sexist/not sexist

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

The damage to society comes from applying a general trend to a specific case, whether or not the general trend exists. Even if we pretended for the sake of the argument that there was solid scientific evidence that men on the average were smarter than women, it would be sexist and wrong to sort resumes based on gender because "we're looking for a smart candidate".

I do believe that women in this society are, on the average, more nurturing than men -- society trains us by gender to be that way. (I don't have an opinion on whether there's an innate difference.) I won't accept that that is a sexist belief, but if you catch me assuming that a specific woman is a better caregiver than a specific man when all I know is their gender, then call me sexist.

Re: Sexist/not sexist

[eagle]

Hurm. I think how I feel about the last depends on whether the definitions come with an implied set of morals -- in other words, if sexism is meant to have a negative connotation, I wouldn't apply that to requesting a gender with which one is more comfortable in situations that are or can be sexually charged.

How to put this... people have differing abilities to turn off their view of a situation as sexually charged, depending on their background, upbringing, prior experiences, and so forth. Particularly when ill or otherwise not fully in charge of their facilities, this can bring unwanted complications to a situation. I can't speak directly to any of the situations a woman might encounter, but the whole situation of a female nurse bathing a male patient is a situation with sexual baggage in at least some cultures. If someone can ignore or set aside that baggage, more power to them, but it doesn't feel negative to me for someone to say "this situation has overtones that I don't want it to have, and I would be more comfortable with a male nurse so that I don't have to deal with those overtones."

The fact that that situation has sexual baggage may be itself sexist in the fully negative sense, although I think we may be asking a lot of people to turn off sexual associations to that degree. Observing that it does have baggage that makes one feel uncomfortable is also sexist in the pure "treating men and women differently" sort of definition, but I don't find it negatively sexist. To me, it's the same sort of sexism as being heterosexual -- not quite as neutral, but in the same general class of things.

(Of course, in my opinion the real underlying problem here is the sex-obsessed nature of US culture that emphasizes and exacerbates this sort of sexual baggage. I do think that in the absence of such a culture, there would still be a few people for whom this would be a problem, but it would be a more individual thing. And for me this is a really blurry line -- I realize that the above argument could be extended to justify situations that I think are clearly negatively sexist, and I don't know how best to explain the distinction I feel.)

Sexist/not sexist, part 2

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I'd like to add a few examples of my own. I'm going to follow your "It is/it isn't" format, but as with yours, they should be taken as examples of how I see things currently, not as self-evident truths:-

It's not sexist...

It's not sexist to prefer the company of exclusively your own gender for certain activities (fitness classes and discussion groups on certain topics are the examples that come to mind).

It's not sexist for people to observe traditional courtesies between the genders where the parties concerned prefer them.

It's not sexist to examine whether the move away from the traditional gender roles may resulted in insufficient support, or active discrimination against, men and women who do prefer those roles, and to try to work against that lack of support or discrimination.

It's not sexist to provide men and women who prefer traditional roles with support in implementing them, provided the freedoms of others to make their own gender choices are not infringed.

It's not sexist to encourage men and women to consider traditional and non-traditional roles as equally valid choices for themselves, and to consider carefully which they are more suited to temperamentally.

It's not sexist to consider the possibility that, considering trends over time and large populations, the choices which people make may show gender correlations.

It's not sexist to investigate the causes of such correlations, including social, cultural, physical, genetic and other biological factors.

It's sexist...

It's sexist to give preferential treatment to fellow-members of a gender-restricted group in matters that do not relate to the group.

It's sexist to assume that gender plays a part, or a decisive part, in what choices are right for a given individual.

It's sexist to assume that gender plays no part in what choices are right for a given individual.

It's sexist to assume that any correlation between gender and patterns of choice at population level is automatically a bad thing.

It's sexist to assume that any correlation between gender and patterns of choice at population level is automatically a good thing.

Re: Sexist/not sexist, part 2

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i agree with all of them (and especially the ones about gender possibly playing an important role for a specific individual, something which i have to keep consciously in mind because it's at the other end of the spectrum from myself), except:

preferring the company of one's own gender for certain activities like fitness classes and discussion groups. that (subjectively, and in my gut) feels sexist to me. now, i don't feel that way when women want to talk menopause amongst themselves, and i don't feel that way when men want to talk penile dysfunction, but the further it moves from actual biology, the less comfortable with it i feel, and the more i suspect it of being sexist.

actually i don't want to mix gender and sex here. i completely understand wanting to associate with one's own gender for discussion; i love discussing things with other geeks :). i have a really idiosyncratic view of gender at this point that no longer maps to "man" and "woman". i have no desire to sit in an all-male or all-female group for most discussions, and i wonder about people who do. i dislike people in line in the grocery store who try to bond with me by superficially assessing me as belonging to gender X, and making a comment dissing gender Y. there are probably people of gender X who would feel perfectly fine with me in their discussion group, but it would be entirely superficial, and little do they know that i don't care for that sort of thing.

Re: Sexist/not sexist, part 2

[lizw.livejournal.com]

i have no desire to sit in an all-male or all-female group for most discussions, and i wonder about people who do.

I felt the same way from as early as I can remember until earlier this year, when I suddenly started feeling a very strong desire for the company of women. It went hand-in-hand with a total loss of desire to be sexual with women. I haven't quite finished adjusting to this change and thinking it through. All I can say is that I have experience of both mixed and all-women dance classes and both mixed and all-women discussion groups, and to me, they have been qualitatively different experiences. If it isn't sexist to prefer sexual experience with one gender rather than another, it isn't at all obvious to me why it would be sexist to prefer other experiences with one gender rather than another. Yes, the sexual experience directly involves the genitalia and the others do not, but my perception of the difference between sex with men and women goes beyond differences in the genitalia to include emotional aspects, and I think those have been more decisive in the change in my desires.

[ailbhe]

Hm. I requested a female gp for dealing with my current situation. And I know men who've requested male doctors to deal with some things. And a male midwife discharged me from hospital after I had Linnea. He was the only male midwife I ever met; we had a chat about me working in all-male IT teams and how they compared.

Medical care is so incredibly personal that I think gender does becme relevant.

The term "working mothers" *and* the term "full-time mother" are both very problematic - even though I use the term "full-time mother" to describe myself to people who say "Oh, you don't work, do you?"

A.

requesting a doctor of sex X

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. i can sort of see why, and i respect your wishes, and i wouldn't argue them with you, but that's very different from me, and i don't really grok this emotionally. the following isn't an argument, just trying to explain my insides.

here's how i feel about it:

medical care is so incredibly personal to me that psychological rapport becomes extremely relevant, and for me that is completely not linked with what standard gender i perceive the doctor to be. i've had excellent medical care both from men and women, and i've had shoddy treatment both from men and women. i don't think the ones whose set of genitalia match mine understand how my particular set works per se any better than the ones who don't; i would not have expected them to have passed their boards if they didn't know more about what all can go wrong there than i -- and as regards my personal indiosyncrasies, i'd want somebody who listens and values me knowing myself.

i think that if i could have it, i'd want somebody who experiences pain very similarly to me, and who's been suffering from depression much like i have -- that would be nifty. but that doesn't correlate with gender either. see, i wouldn't even prefer a doctor who's transgendered. my ideal would be a clone of myself who happens to be a competent doctor, *snicker*.

Re: requesting a doctor of sex X

[lizw.livejournal.com]

my ideal would be a clone of myself who happens to be a competent doctor, *snicker*

That looks to me as if you're agreeing that it's not discriminatory to want one's physician to be like oneself - in which case, it looks to me like the issue is actually whether you think it's legitimate for gender to be a more central component of someone else's self-perception than it is of yours.

Re: requesting a doctor of sex X

[ailbhe]

I have a problem with strange men prodding my genitals in painful ways. Except my current gynaecologist, who is lovely. But for standard GPs for whom gynaecology is an unusual part of their practice rather than something they know a deal about - I prefer someone with personal experience.

I would also like to know why so many doctors use baby talk rather than medical terminology when talking about my back passage, front bottom or female parts. That's really irritating.

Re: requesting a doctor of sex X

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

A lot of doctors use baby talk when referring to any part of the body. Last month I accompanied my friend bbwoof to the emergency room for his severe abdominal pain. Doctor after doctor asked him about his "belly-ache" and where his "tummy" hurt! Huh? (He'd reply using the phrase "abdominal pain", and usually the doctor would immediately make the linguistic switch.)

[jennyaxe.livejournal.com]

On the endometriosis mailing list we spend a lot of time discussing gynaecologists and how to choose them. Most women appear to attach quite a lot of importance to the gender of the doctor. Some say that they don't want a female gynae because they'll compare the endo pain with their own menstrual pain and pooh-pooh it. Others say that they don't want a male gynae because they won't be able to understand how bad it can feel and how exposed and powerless one feels in the gyn chair. Still others want a female gynae because they'll probably have smaller hands, making the examinations less painful.

I've had both; my current gynae is a woman and an expert in the field. My take on it is that given two gynaes with equal expertise and "bedside manner" I'd probably choose the woman; otherwise I'd choose the one who knew most about endo. But the choice is often limited; nine out of ten gynaecologists are male. I'm lucky to live in a large city where I do have a choice.

I also know a few women who don't want a male gynae because they've been molested during examinations. That shouldn't be possible as there should always be a nurse present when a male gynae does an examination, but I've once been to a gynae who didn't have a nurse present. (And he took a call on his cell phone while I was lying in the gyn chair waiting to be examined. I did not go back to that one!)

[huaman.livejournal.com]

I"ve decided, in as many cases as possible, to use "parent" instead of mother or father -- and it does take effort to be sure.

I will grant that, since having a kid and thus becoming a parent, I've discovered no shortage of things that affect me differently than I would have predicted, and in ways that are stereotypically "mother." Some of these may have a biological root, but for the ones that cleary don't... I really believe changing the perception of "the work involved in household and family" so that it's more gender-flexible, and so that men are equally able to do it, is a lot of the key to lasting change.