AIBU to think Sexism cannot directly be compared to Racism

[Mengog]

Last week a female friend was getting ready for a night out. She was taking an age and I said "Typical Woman, never ready on time".

She took offence to this. Commenting that if woman was replaced by black person then it would be unacceptable.

My argument with her was Racism and Sexism cannot be directly compared. I said it's okay to have female only toilets, hospital ward, gyms at certain times, charity events, even music festivals etc etc. Female only spaces are seen as important.

However, the idea of having toilets only for black people, gyms times for black people or large national charity events were black people were only allowed to take part in would make people uncomfortable.

AIBU to think to directly compare racism to sexism in the way she did is simplistic and inaccurate.

bath that is not what i meant and you know it... Just look what hooty said

Like god men are so useless they cannot do house work very well sexist but perfectly acceptable.... and numerous other stuff that appears in tv adverts where men are portyed as being bumbling idiots and women can get things done = perfectly acceptable but when they had the roles revsered there were 100s of complants (it was the same advert it was social experement but the role of the man and the women where changed same actors and everything so where the woman was portryed as the idiot ie couldnt work the oven and man came to rescue to show her how 100s of complants when the man was portryed in that role there were 11 complants same advert just 2 roles swapped

there is a very catchy song that is basically revolves around women drivers no surviours (which is totally sexist and is rightly frowned upon its a shella wheels skit song ) but there are other numerous examples where its fine to rip into the gender male but is seen as totally unaccpectable if its female

It wasn't even a joke. Just an observation, much like someone once saw me run (I'm black) and said I knew you would be fast.

I didn't start questioning how they knew, it was a stereotype.

Even in this thread assumptions about male taxi drivers or doctors have been made. Of course we are individuals but we are judged partly due to groups we belong to be overtly or covertly.

To me it wasn't dissimilar to me leaving the toilet seat up and a female friend making a comment (not an unusual scenario) and saying she wouldn't say it about a disabled person. She is more a friend of a friend, and joyless is probably accurate.

Ok so you didn't actually want to ask women if racism and sexism were similar, you just wanted to state that they are tell us how we should think. Thanks for that but actually, contrary to what you might believe we can think for ourselves and most of us don't agree with you at all.

And that comment about you being fast was incredibly racist.

"Exactly, let's bear in mind that sexism is advantageous for men and they have a lot of reasons to make sure it doesn't come to an end."

Yeah, let's bear in mind that there is a tacit conspiracy among men to "uphold" sexism because it is "advantageous" for them.

As a man I can tell you I have never wanted to uphold sexism because it is advantageous to me, and I have never, ever, ever known any man who does, or seen or heard any evidence of anything like anything like a conspiracy to keep women down with sexism.

I have known some men who appear to loathe women and blame them for things they have not personally done, and I have known women who appear to loathe men and blame them for things they have not personally done. As far as I can see it is because those individuals are horrible turds.

It isn't that one is worse. It more that the differences are nuanced and not simply interchangeable.

It more that the differences are nuanced and not simply interchangeable.

Indeed.

Which means they are comparable. Just different.

I can't believe you think saying gender stereotypes out loud counts as "observation".

ding ding ding! Did someone say 'reverse racism?'

(NB: I know it was from the position of agreeing with this vid, more or less)

Also I love posting this when people start doing 'sexism works both ways'. If you apply it to sexism you can see how it actually can be quite accurate to compare racism and sexism, at least in some ways.

"As a man I can tell you I have never wanted to uphold sexism because it is advantageous to me, and I have never, ever, ever known any man who does, or seen or heard any evidence of anything like anything like a conspiracy to keep women down with sexism."

Cool. What's your explanation for the wage gap?

In general if someone feels bad about it, you probably overstepped the mark, even if there can be a world of difference between real sexism and observation of gender differences.

I grew up caught between two horrid "sexists" and it left me with a distaste not only for hateful bile, but a distaste for people joyfully "extracting offense" when there was no malicious intent at all.

"Cool. What's your explanation for the wage gap?"

How do you justify expecting me to explain a wage gap?

I don't think there has to be malicious intent for sexism to be offensive and/or upsetting

What I'm getting at is that I don't anyone, or, anyone reasonable, thinks that men are sitting around discussing how to keep women down, or that, as you say, there's a 'conspiracy'. I think generally the idea is that over hundreds of years women have been seen as 'lesser' in many many ways and that those ways are still subtly visible, and we all, to a greater or lesser extent, continue to engage with them.

The OP's remark was an example. I personally wouldn't have really cared if someone said it to me, but if someone does, and pulls you on it, then surely the reasonable thing to do, given both the history and current situation is be like 'yeah true, sorry' rather than jump online and start talking about doctors.

I don't *think anyone reasonable

It's strange how often men trot out this "conspiracy" line - no-one, even hardcore feminists, think that there is a conspiracy to oppress women. It's just built into the structures of the society we live in. Individual men don't need to conspire (though, having said that, obviously there are a few men who do). But by unquestioningly accepting the sexism that exists, they are perpetrating it.

Where's Beta?

I was on a thread once where he talked about how it wasn't just unconscious sexism that kept women out of top jobs, that it was because men didn't want them there, and that some men were quite open about that in all-male company.

I do not think the idea I am doing it WITHOUT realising it because I'm a man, is any less insulting than the idea I am doing it consciously. If anything it is more insulting.

I do not appreciate or accept the idea that I and all of the men I know are part of a conspiracy, conscious or otherwise, to keep women down, it is intellectually lazy othering, it is blaming individual people whose heads you are not in, by gender, because that explains why 50% of the human race is entirely responsible for the way the whole human race lives.

I don't accept that I am thinking or doing x because I have label y. If someone wants to make lazy generalizations about people in the modern world, on the internet, they have to be prepared for the fact that real human beings, of the group they are talking about, might pop up and inconveniently turn out to be an individual who does not conform to the Alf Garnett speech.

Actually, I am a father of daughters and people don't get to sit there and say I want to uphold sexism out of self-interest without me piping up. I am not "upholding sexism because it is advantageous to me", any more than (to draw reference to the OP) I am workshy or predisposed to criminality because I am a black man. Here I am, an individual, disproving the bullshit fucking "theory" again man.

Of course, that's one parallel, but there are quite a few points where sexism and racism differ.

Nobody said you made sexist assumptions because you are a man.

The point that was made was that you are very likely to make sexist assumptions because you live in a sexist society.

I make sexist assumptions all the time, and I'm a feminist.

What makes you so great that you are immune to influence from a society that treats women as inferior to men?

You might want to get over yourself before your daughters are old enough to pick up on the fact that their Dad thinks he is some kind of crusader against women.

No one on here has said its a conspiracy

No one has said that its all men

It's going to take ages if everytime someone wants to post they have to type

'Men are advantaged by sexism..except for inmansplicable"

For example.

Ooh cross post (ish) I'm so slow at typing

Even non-sexist men are advantaged by sexism.

Just like non-racist white people are advantaged by racism.

In a world where you are less likely to get a job if you are black, it is advantageous to be white.

In a world where you are less likely to get a job if you are a woman, it is advantageous to be a man.

Those advantages accrue to you regardless of whether you think they are fair, or whether you work to help end them.

The non-sexist, non-racist people recognise that.

I agree it's not nice that we all do bullshit stuff without realising. I spent years of my life thinking all sorts of wrongheaded nonsense and am likely still doing so.

It's an imperfect old world, but for me, as a white woman, if I say something to a black person and they're offended by it, it bothers me not a jot to apologise and have a wee think about why they were offended. Given that my own grandmother called people 'darkies' I can see that the battle ain't exactly won and my opinion about what is and isn't racist might not be 100% correct. So I'm inclined to trust people who might know better than me, or have actually experienced it. Especially when it's something as basic as a turn of phrase. And to start trying to argue that whatever I said was fine, would seem, to me, to turn an innocent error, likely quickly forgotten, into something rather less palatable. It would make it seem that I had, for want of a better word, an agenda.

Nobody's saying anyone wants to uphold sexism. And yet sexism remains despite none of us upholding it.

Also, I'm not saying it's just men, who keep this shit going. It's all of us. But weirdly it is normally men who get upset when I mention it.

Well some people do want to uphold sexism.

Actually 50% of the human race (men) are responsible for how the entire race lives, because up until less than 100 years ago the other 50% (women) had absolutely no say in it, given that they could not vote, hold public office, gain the same level of education as men, run companies, hold property or function in any way as a meaningful citizen. In the thousands of years of civilisation prior to that the law, business, government, religion was run entirely and totally by men. Things have changed somewhat in the last hundred years but undoing that level of inequality takes time.

Bathtime yeah true. I got a bit optimistic there for a minute.

OP You are responsible for perpetuating a casual discriminative attitude. this is discrimination end off. What would justify that women are treated as inferior beings? Absolutely nothing! Everybody should have equal rights. It took time for slavery to be abolish, time for women and black people to get the right to vote. For me discrimination is not ok, end off. Not ok for black people, for homosexuals, for disabled people or women.
Now be a man and stand up against inequality!