Sexism just for women???

I always believed that this idea of sexism revolved around the idea of women being oppressed. Women women women. After reading the Adams text I can now see that that is not the case at all. It involves realms such as heterosexuality, transgender, bisexual, masculine and feminine roles to just name a few. LIke many other subjects we have discussed in class this area is yet another one of those socially constructed ideas that has lived on for too many years now.

With the area of sexism I can discuss several topics but I have decided to focus on feminism. A quote that I liked quite a lot and even went as far as to post in on Facebook as one of my "status updates" was "...feminism is the radical notion that women are people." I had to re-read the line a couple of times until I understood that feminism is not an attack toward men but just the advocacy of women to be treated as what is suppose to be their equal.

Our society has allowed us to believe that the system is one that will always favor men. Let that be with abstract ideas as to not being afraid to walk at night alone or concrete ideas like that we as women have been paid less since we entered the work field. This binary of masculine and feminine have not only allowed us women fight for our rights and stand beside the idea of feminism but has deteriorated the many other ideas that society sees as vulgar like the LGBTQ community.

Two articles in the Adams text I especially liked are "Violence against Women is a Men's Issue" and "Out-of-Body Image." I am guilty of not seeing violence against women as a man's issue before reading the article. I had always believed that this was a battle that we as women would have to carry out ourselves but now I understand how men have an enormous responsibility in doing so as well. I couldn't agree more over the image issue. I myself fall in the category of women that feel compelled to fit the image of this model in the front cover of a magazine. I constantly struggle with my self-esteem and confidence and I am a firm believer that the media has constructed this idea in my head. It is a battle that I continue fighting and will not let it beat me.

Let's move on to something less heavy than what was just said. While reading through all of the text even the Zinn reading I had the silly Miller Lite beer commercial running through my head so here it is:

C'mon men, you wouldn't want to loose your "man-card" (sarcasm). They loose their man-card by drinking the wrong beer but we, according to Zinn and according to history, we as women loose all of our rights as soon as we marry??? Compelling huh?

I really liked this quote: "No people does down until their women are weak and dishonored..." gives us women a sense of power and I love that.

I leave you with your thoughts...