That’s great that they feel that way–and of course it’s true for many people!–but to deny the existence of systemic sexism and racism is to live a lie. There’s no shortage of data out there. Here are a few tidbits regarding sexism:
as of 2013, 18.3% of congressional seats are held by women and 23% of statewide elective offices are held by women
Researchers from the Institute for Women's Policy Research at the University of California Hastings College of Law [...] ranked the United States last out of 20 industrialized countries in an index that measured such programs as family leave, alternative work arrangements, part-time employment, and other means to make workplaces more flexible and family-friendly.
According to a study conducted by researchers at California State University, Northridge, when an individual with a PhD applies for a position at a university, that individual is significantly more likely to be offered a higher level of appointment, receive an offer of an academic position leading to tenure, and be offered a full professorship if they are a man when compared to a woman of comparable qualifications.
Similarly, research conducted at the University of California, Davis focusing on academic dermatology revealed a significant downward trend in the number of women receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health, which the authors concluded was due to a lack of support for women scientists at their home institutions.
International Labour Organization notes as of 2010 women in the United States earned about 81% of what their male counterparts did
According to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the primary cause of this gap is discrimination manifested in the tendency of women to be hired more frequently in lower paying occupations, in addition to the fact that male dominated occupations are higher paying than female dominated occupations, and that, even within comparable occupations, women are often paid less than men.
Research conducted at Lycoming College has found the enjoyment of sexist humor to be strongly correlated with sexual aggression towards women among male college students
Sixty percent of women in tech reported unwanted sexual advances. A full third of women in tech say they have felt afraid for their personal safety because of work-related circumstances
Eighty-four percent of women in tech said they've been told they're too aggressive
Sixty-six percent of women in tech have felt excluded from social or networking opportunities because of gender
Eighty-seven percent of women in tech have had male colleagues make demeaning remarks toward them
Al, you’re trying to be funny and it’s really not fair to subject us to that. What are you trying to show? That there are crappy attitudes and behaviors, reflected in bad jokes? Or that anyone who doesn’t find those amusing has a screw loose?
My post was a response to @momofthreeboys pondering what words the student might use if he had a do over in introducing the dean.
I purposefully chose the most vanilla, boring, nondescript and common introduction phrase I could think of. i wanted to illustrate how the student might now think through each and every word and throw them out as soon as he thought they might be considered offensive by anyone. I wanted to show how he ended up with only two words in trying not to offend anyone. Yes, it was over the top. That was the point. He was now incapable of knowing which words might offend. I think we are all getting to that point.
Personally, I thought it was pretty funny but that’s me. I guess ya gotta know your audience. I wish I could be more like Marvin, with thousands of followers remembering me for my self proclaimed humor and not apparently for my hyperbole and exaggerations.
It seems obvious that the student put some amount of thought and goodwill into his initial introduction. He tried to capture all the great qualities and accomplishments of the speaker. He was lambasted, downright excoriated, for his choice of words, no matter the goodwill with which he chose them.
I doubt he will ever,ever, offer to introduce anyone again. And in turn, I will probably pass on introductions too as I wouldn’t want to chance anyone being offended. Just not worth it. Like here, in this thread.
And for the record, my first post states in no uncertain terms that after reading the thread I was now convinced that vivacious was indeed a sexist term i stated I learned something. I also offered up a number of other words one might not consider using.
Well, I definitely understand that feeling. Sometimes it does seem like more and more things are offensive. But that’s because the people who have been so long the butt of jokes are finally being heard–there are avenues, now, through which they can gain an audience. And “where will it end?!” slippery slope handwringing is unhelpful and distracting from very real issues (and sometimes even [worse](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Concern_■■■■■))[url=https://www.quora.com/What-is-sealioning].[/url]
I think it’s okay to occasionally accidentally say something offensive. What bothers me is that many of us, when we’re called out for doing so, respond defensively rather than with humility and an open ear. It doesn’t feel good to be told that what you’ve said is sexist, racist, homophobic, or transphobic (I know–it’s happened to me plenty of times!), but if we really care about others–and your reaction (“I learned something”) shows that you do!–then it becomes us to set our defensiveness aside and really listen to the people who are trying to teach us.
I vividly remember a high school classmate arguing about the word “gyp,” for example. He used it in its colloquial way and when called on it (by an ethnic Romani, no less), he bristled, arguing that (A) its usage no longer had anything to do with its origins and (B) he didn’t even know about its origins.
That was understandable, but counter-productive. He wasn’t a jerk and I’m sure he’s since amended his vocabulary. But at the time, his defensiveness prevented him from actually listening and made him seem callous and uncaring about something that actually hurt someone, and as the argument escalated, the person he’d initially offended felt even worse: attacked.
I’ve only read the OP, so sorry if I’m jumping in out of nowhere, but I wonder if the person who was offended by vivacious, failed the SAT, and was subconsciously mistaking vivacious for voluptuous?
Going back to bus driver’s #334 and #338: I feel equal, generally speaking, to the male scientists in my profession. There are a few “superstars” to whom I feel equal as a citizen, but not actually equal as a scientist. I definitely do not feel like a victim, though I have faced overt discrimination in the past.
However, the evidence seems to indicate that I belong to a group that is not regarded as equal, exactly, by others. The relative absence of women in all sorts of lists of honored or commended scientists (lists issued now, scientists alive now) is one indicator of this.
There will no humor allowed unless I say it is allowed! And you had better be sufficiently remorseful when I chastise you!
It always cracks me up when men get out of sorts when women don’t sufficiently hold on to their victimhood status.
This may not work for everyone, but for me, I find it effective to treat everyone with kindness and respect. The homeless guy on the street, the person working what appears to be the most menial job. Everyone just wants to be respected. But those, men or women, who think the world should tiptoe around them because they are Very Important People? Not so much.
Also, I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. I have not yet quite reached the state of grace to find it funny that my department chair told me that he had had multiple arguments with one of his post-docs (male), in which the department chair advocated that if a man and a woman were doing exactly the same job, the man should be paid more. This probably will seem like a joke in the future. [You need to know that the chair sets the raises, to put this in the right context.]
I am older than some in the Parents Forum on CC, but I have not reached retirement age yet. So this is not a long-outdated event that took place in the 1950’s . . . more like the mid-1990’s.
If the actual situation in the workplace tends to make some women super-sensitive to possible indicators of a lack of respect, I would say, “So be it,” and not criticize the woman for being thin-skinned. The best advice to give someone might be to shake the dust off their sandals and keep about their work, though.
In terms of the popular culture, I think that the evolution of the treatment of Margaret Houlihan’s character on MASH is practically the basis for a sociological study in itself. At the start, the rendering of the character was pretty definitely sexist. Houlihan was portrayed as . . . um . . . vivacious. Later, one episode in particular filled in some of the backstory of Houlihan, and I think marked the conversion of the character from “Hot Lips” to Margaret. The wikipedia article on MASH gives short shrift to the changes in the Houlihan character. Sometime in the future, when I have the time, I might locate some of the old episodes and add to the commentary there.
Agree @QuantMech but describing these women as “super-sensitive” and “thin-skinned” is probably not going to help in moving the conversation forward either. And I know some of my previous posts implied that as well, but in thinking about it it’s not going to be productive to invalidate their response to words that many men also felt were not well chosen.
For what it’s worth, I agree that the word vivacious is almost always used to describe women, and so might have some sexist connotations.
However, I disagree that the word vivacious has sexual connotations. Maybe it did back in the 1920’s, but I have never heard any men use the term “vivacious” in a sexual way.
In that respect, I would put it in the same general category as the words “perky” or “nurturing”. Both words are often meant in a complimentary way but non-sexual way. For example, I think most men would have no problem describing their mother or their sister as perky or nurturing. However, those words are almost always used to describe women and should generally not be used in a professional context.
“Also, I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. I have not yet quite reached the state of grace to find it funny that my department chair told me that he had had multiple arguments with one of his post-docs (male), in which the department chair advocated that if a man and a woman were doing exactly the same job, the man should be paid more. This probably will seem like a joke in the future. [You need to know that the chair sets the raises, to put this in the right context”
I’m not sure how that would ever seem like a joke. Unless of course, the world turns into reverse Saudi Arabia, and driving and working is restricted for men, who have to cover their faces.
Conflating serious and illegal situations with silly over reactions that hurt others and create backlash, in my opinion, does not help the cause. I’m hoping the chair in your situation got fired, or at least saw the stupidity of his ways.
I happened to like Sax’s post :-). I’m not fond of the word perky or cute…neither I imagine would be applied to me as I am neither perky nor cute and I’m very tall. I have heard through the grapevine during the years that a few men along the line have called me “scary.” That is OK with me to be honest, I’d rather have men scared of me than dismissive of me. Come to think of it I think I’ve heard my husband of 30+ years say I’m scary. I think they use it in terms of “don’t mess with her.” LOL. I think it comes from having to be competitive and tenacious with guys in the pre-Title 9 days in tennis and golf and being my dad’s first born. I can hold my own. I probably shouldn’t have dropped out of law school after the first semester. I might have been a pretty good defense attorney. That said, you can be tough without being rude, mean, dismissive, vindictive which does the opposite of giving one “power” and can still be caring and thoughtful, forgiving, respected and trusted and I certainly could have handled the kid who used the word “vivacious” much, much better than the dean…as could have many of us.
Hah, busdriver! No, the chair was not fired, and I don’t know that he ever changed his opinion. As I mentioned earlier, when I later told the Dean that the chair had said that he did not believe in equal pay for equal work, the Dean said, “I don’t either.” Interpreted charitably, it is possible that the Dean misheard me. That was a phone call.
I’m not conflating the two situations. But I think that when someone speaks of women in a professional setting with a sizable audience, in terms that the person would not apply to a man, it does tend to reinforce inequality of status. Do you disagree?
I do disagree. I don’t think that the use of a word that is typically mostly applied to females necessarily either signals or reinforces inequality of status. I also think it’s quite possible that the person was using the word vivacious as a complete synonym for lively, energetic, dynamic, etc. and just simply didn’t think about whether it was a word that was typically mostly applied to females. I don’t think it matters all that much. Sorry. I do think this falls under “perhaps unfortunate word choice, but well-intended, so move on and get a life – or if you’re really that bothered, take it up with the person privately, but by no means make a big public deal and embarrass them.” I think the woman’s reaction was a HUGE overreaction to a minor misstep, and all that does is reinforce negative stereotypes of women not being able to handle themselves in the real world.
