Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm not exactly sure as to your purpose for this thread but I am going to comment on your topic. It is very true that as we grow up we basically do learn from our parents/gaurdian/teachers that girls have the disadvantage in life because they are girls. Those people we learn from grew up when it was expected that girls would raise families, stay home, and the like. Also as we grow up we learn from outside sources that there's more to life than that. That it is possible for us to accomplish more. In order for the cival rights movements to move forward all we need to do is to doubt what we were taught by our life teacher and realize that there is more out there. And when we hear of people telling us there's more we need to believe in them. Then life shall move forward.

A lot of people seem to think that in this day and age there's no need for feminism. That we've achieved equality of the sexes.

Bull s**t.

The entire world is still, and will continue to be for our lifetimes, a patriarchal society. So long as the world continues to have an imbalance of power between men and women, in favor of men, women will continue to be valued less. They continue to have less political, economic, and physical power. Everything is still dominated by men.

Then there's culture. Which has not improved at all, really, since the women's rights movement. Women are still treated with a stereotype of domesticisity, passivity, sensitivity, etc. When you flip on your TV and watch commercials for toys, you still see exclusively boys playing with the trucks and girls with barbies. For me, I'll know things have changed when we actually see commercials for kids toys with equal ratios of boys and girls... regardless of the product they're advertizing.

Then, of course, there's the sex objectification of women, which is encouraged by the media, and especially the porn industry. Now, if sex objectification of men was equally prevalant, I wouldn't have so many issues with the porn industry. But as it stands, it sends pretty offensive messages.

So in short, so long as we continue to have male dominance in fields of power, perpetuate gender stereotypes, and sexually objectify women more than men, the problem will not end. I certainly don't expect it to in my generation. But as a woman and an unconventional one at that, I'm sure going to be making my contribution to reverse these trends. Look at a person not as man or woman... look at them simply as what they are... HUMAN.

Hmmm... I don't really remember anyone treating me differently because I was a girl when I was/am growing up. Sure, they would laugh at me becuase I threw up saying the pledge of allegience in kindergarten, but no sexism that I can recall.

I suppose some people still do grow up with that idea. Over all, however, it is being eliminated rather rapidly considering the general audience which we're dealing with. Ex.- I am a girl.(obviously) I have ambitions of become the first female president. (don't laugh becuase that would be backing up the theory I'm apposed to here) There isn't a person I know who thinks I won't do it. They have never turned off my ambitions becuase I was a girl or any other reason because I am perfectly capable. (even if my spelling is bad...)

So there you go. No blatent sexist views at McKnight Elementary/Ingomar Middle folks. Not that it doesn't exist elsewhere in life.

It makes me *really* sad when I see threads regularily cycling through ED that bash feminism. Although many of these kids don't understand what feminism is, it's still depressing they can't see it. But then, if they can't see it, maybe that's a good thing??? I dunno. When all psychological studies are still proving unconscious gender biases in hiring, among other things, feminism has a long way to go to reaching it's goal. xp

Sexism is rooted in sexuality. The opression of women is insidious because it is so difficult to actually pin down and define. It is a myriad of social and emotional facets of our culture that we are raised to accept. It is virtually impossible to be equal in a society entrenched in a disparity of the sexes.

One of the reasons contraception and abortion are such hot topics is because there is a part of the issue that deals with the woman's right to freedom. When women can control their sexuality and their reproductive capacity, they will achieve a much greater measure of equality than the sham we currently have adopted. Pregnancy, as well as the fear of it, serve as a restriction on women's social power. Men have been using our ability to bear children against us for centuries.

Marilyn Frye wrote an article that described what Frye termed "The Birdcage Metaphor" in reference to opression. She described a system that limited gender and ethnic groups in such a way that no one issue was truly the issue of the problem but rather the aforementioned social stigmas under which we are brought up in and accept as cultural norms. Sexism is rooted in our culture, not in our particular attitudes.

In fact, the bars of this cage are so difficult to see that it may not even occur to some women that they are even in a cage. Children don't egage in sexism as a matter of personal distaste for the gender but rather because they are opperating off of set ideas about what it is to be male and female. It is hardly a comforting thought.

Anyway, that's my rant. Sorry if I got off topic.