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The Ground is Up, and Sex Matters |
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((I’m losing the computer, so I decided to put all of the lists and writings that I didn’t want to delete in my journal.))
The Ground is Up, and Sex Matters
Everyone has some personal sense of justice that causes them to react strongly to the things that are the most dramatically incompatible with it. Most people can even name a few of those things, when they really think about it. In my case, one thing that really revs my sense of justice up is sexism. According to dictionary.com, one definition of sexism is “attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” , which I am glad to notice does not specify whether that behavior is helpful or hurtful to either the sexist or the sexes involved. To be honest, even the word is ugly to me, combining the harsh sounds and vulgar feel of the word “sex” with the more academically and intellectually associated suffix “-ism”. Incompatibility incarnate. Like with so many other forms of injustice, sexism stems mostly from a societal disconnect with reality. Simply put, the ideas and sentiments that sexism encompasses are false, although quite pervasive.
Before I really get into the subject, let me try to frame why it is that I have such a strong, personal hatred for sexism. From the day I was born to the present day, I have been raised, surrounded, and befriended almost exclusively by females. As ironic and hypocritical as it sounds coming from one who professes a hatred for sexism, I think that this upbringing deeply affected me. My guess is that many of what behavioral tendencies that actually are attached to females may have rubbed off on me, because I was never a very masculine boy. I hated sports, wasn’t very fond of roughhousing, liked to be clean, preferred nice and pleasant things, and, to this day, never got in fights. So when someone told me to “Be a man!”, it was like they were speaking a strange foreign language that made me uncomfortable. By the time I became a halfway intelligent human being, I had come to the conclusion that all of the people who had particular expectations of the different sexes were kind of idiotic. I mean, I was living proof that boys weren’t always “macho”, and many of the important women in my life had been extraordinarily strong and not-at-all “girly”. So what planet had everybody else, including the very women who had so inspired me, been raised on that caused them to think that being a boy or girl actual had any non-physical meaning? I just couldn’t figure it out.
As I grew older, I kept thinking about it, and my thoughts and feelings concerning it became more developed. After hearing of the scientific concept that a singular exception to an idea disqualifies that idea as an absolute law, the reason for my confusion became clear to me, and I felt some comforting satisfaction at coming to understand something that, by all indications, not many had (at least, not emotionally). I continued to study sexism, and eventually realized that it, like racism, is somewhat of a vicious circle. It is a terrible example of self-perpetuation. Older generations believe in the tenets of sexism, and often literally teach them to their offspring. More insidious is the way that those offspring are subconsciously conditioned into their gender roles. They are treated as if they have the sexist characteristics specific to their gender, and slowly end up conforming to that model so that their inner world (how they are, and how they see themselves) matches the outer world (how they are treated). By the time they are old enough to potentially understand all of this, it is often too late, and their personalities are already finalized. The only reasons I managed to slip out of this sinister current were my previously-mentioned unique circumstances, and a few other, not-directly-related dysfunctional aspects of my upbringing which caused those authority figures that might have taught me to have less emotional authority.
However, I do believe that there are ways to combat the menace of sexism. I have to believe it. Straight education is a definite possibility. Although there are many that have taken sexism completely to heart, and therefore can’t be helped, there are so many more that may have some kernel of reason buried deep down inside. If they could be exposed to all the logical arguments against sexism, as well as the many examples that defy it, they could finally throw off the shackles of their misconceptions and live life as it was meant to be lived: individually. Imagine how free the world would be if everyone no longer had to (either because of conditioning or pressure) conform to the stereotypes of their sex. The world would be one giant leap closer to truth, honesty, and worldwide understanding.
Before I bring this attack on gender discrimination to a close, I feel that I have to admit to my own personal sexist beliefs and behaviors. I don’t want to seem like I am unaware of my own topically-relevant flaws, after all. In this essay alone, I have shown a sign of the imperfect nature of my belief-consistency by suggesting that my being raised by women is what mainly caused me to be different from the average person, when it comes to sexism. If I were true to my own ideals, I wouldn’t think that at all, since I supposedly believe that men and women are really no different, and thus being raised by one group or the other shouldn’t have any effect on a person. Furthermore, again because of my upbringing, I am generally more comfortable and open around women, no matter how much I berate myself for that unjust difference in interpersonal behavior. Lastly, there is one final fault that I must bring up, though I am relatively certain that most everyone would think me silly for even mentioning it. To the best of my knowledge, I am heterosexual. This means that, as far as I know, I cannot fall in love with another man. In a way, this is the highest form of sexism imaginable (though it may be excusable because of the strong possibility of sexual orientation being firmly determined by genetics). Being able to share your heart powerfully and completely with one sex, while being incapable of doing so in the same way with the other, is the greatest offense to gender equality that I can think of. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish that all of these sexist shortcomings of mine would be eradicated, but I simply have not been able to overcome them thus far.
As you can plainly see, I am passionate about my opposition toward sexism. With the progress that I have seen over the years, I actually have a lot of hope for the future. With a lot of hard work, and a little luck, I think that future may turn out to be very bright. But even though I am confident of the direction the world is moving in, it can’t hurt for me to pray that, some day soon, people will be able to say with the equal degrees of sarcasm, “The ground is up, and sex matters.”
Works Cited
"Sexism." Def. 1. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, LLC. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism>.
 magic_doglover · Mon Jan 02, 2012 @ 04:01am · 0 Comments |
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