Tuesday, March 23, 2010

THE FEMINIST CHRONICLES part I. the intro.





I don't see a problem with being a male and writing feminist commentary. It might not endear me to the male population at large, but I could really care less. The fact is that there are a lot of problems with our sexist culture that are deeply ingrained and the problems were created and perpetuated by who?…. you guessed it…. men.
Women did not create the sexist climate that we all live in. Contrary to the Bible--women are not the root of all evil. I’m sure the story of Eve & Adam would be different if women were allowed to write when the Bible was in the pre-publishing stage.
Most of the problems with sexism is our culture is blazingly obvious. Women are not on equal footing with men in the workplace. Women are portrayed poorly in the media. Women are under-represented in our government. Women bear an unfairly large burden of the childcare in our culture.
Other problems with sexism in our culture are seemingly innocent yet insidiously ever-present. Men’s names are nearly always written first when a letter is addressed to a heterosexual couple. Men almost always drive when going somewhere in a vehicle. Men ALWAYS ride in front on a tandem bicycle. The phrase he/she or his/hers is used instead of she/he or hers/his. Some professions add an 'ess' when the professional is female as in actress and seamstress. People say “Hi boys and girls” rather than the other way around. These are all ingrained signs that men should come before women and that women are considered diminutive to men. Why else would our language be like this? It is certainly not random.
Little things like the way we speak may not seem as important as other problems that women face in our culture, but I believe it to be important none-the-less. If the way that women are thought of was changed on such a subtle and unconscious level, then maybe it would become easier to change the big problems.

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