Sunday, June 8, 2008

Modern Sexism

Many people consider Hillary's loss a manifestation of sexism. I think there has been sexism against Hillary, but I think the media and the public has also been racist.

The debate is between those like Modo and Judith Warner

Hillary could have made a great speech about sexism just as Obama made a great speech about race. She sort of started to in her concession speech, but it wasn't really a very deep analysis, hence the masses and pundits are duking it out for themselves. Everyone is saying "this is the state of sexism," "no, this is." For example, is "Sex in the City" actually a show about female empowerment or just reinforcing sexism in American society? "Sex in the City" is not singularly about feminism or about perpetuating sexism. It is a show that reflects the values of modern women, although not necessarily about reality. Personally, I think neither "Sex in the City" nor Hillary losing the nomination are women's biggest problems. At this point, most barriers to women are cultural and societal, not officially sanctioned. Women are often their own worst enemy and give themselves and other women a harder time than men even do. This is nowhere more obvious than in middle school and high school, when girls feel pressured to look good but not admit to being good at math. Truly overcoming sexism has to be about raising girls to respect themselves and be ambitious. Benchmarks such as having a higher percentage of female CEO's are more of a breakthrough than electing a female President.

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