Reply #31: I've seen very little sexism and a lot of over-sensitivity

[starroute]

Face it -- men and women are different. They speak differently, they use different body language, they get angry differently. When we want to describe them behaving inappropriately, we have a different store of mental images and cultural types to compare them to.

Because of this, racism and sexism are also different. Overcoming racism may require our ceasing to perceive differences between individuals of different races. But sexism can never be overcome by insisting that men and women be perceived and described in identical terms, because that just doesn't correspond to reality.

The real problem arises not from perceiving difference but from interpreting "different" as "inferior." The people who scream "sexism" at every opportunity seem to believe that any negative reference to a woman which uses specifically female terms or images amounts a blanket statement that women are inferior to men. But that isn't necessarily true.

For example, a male candidate who seems to be inappropriately angry might be described as grumpy, grouchy, or pulling a "you kids get off my lawn," while a female candidate might be described as shrill or bitchy. But calling a woman shrill is no more sexist than calling a man grouchy -- unless you believe that grouchiness is acceptable but shrillness is unacceptable. And if you believe that, then the sexism is in your own mind, and not in the words.

Or as another example, if Hillary at her worst reminds me of the 8th grade English teacher I hated because she was sour, unimaginative, and had no sense of humor, while Obama reminds me of the 9th grade English teach everybody loved because he was cool and witty and could make even Ivanhoe seem like fun -- that's not a sexist comparison. It's just reference points.

For that matter, even if I say there were rumors the 8th grade teacher was bitter because she'd had an unsuccessful romance and never married, or that I suspect at this distance that the 9th grade teacher was particularly good at what he did because he was gay, that's not a reflection on either unmarried women or gay men. It's just an observation. And there is nothing sexist about observations of human nature.