Anonymous asked: I think you've misunderstood the previous asker's question. Her objection isn't that you posit sexism as a problem that CAN be perpetuated subconsciously but one that always IS. The tone of your posts reads: no matter what, all guys can't help but feel like women are inferior, and no woman can hope to succeed in such a male-dominated system. That's simply not the case, and insults women who actually DO succeed in the workplace. It also propagates the sexist notions that you aim to fight.
I’ve never said women can’t succeed; I have said that the system is male-dominated. The latter statement doesn’t preclude the former. Obviously, women do succeed in male-dominated systems, but the fact that they do so doesn’t mean the systems aren’t still flawed.
And while I have blogged specifically about issues of male privilege, I’ve also said that subconscious sexism is perpetrated by both men AND women. Sexism is culturally ubiquitous, but it’s also subtle: believing women are inferior is NOT the be-all, end-all of subconscious sexism. For instance: you don’t have to think women are inferior to believe that they make inherently better parents than men - good parenting is a positive attribute! Yet this is clearly a sexist assumption, and one that most people have subconsciously absorbed.
I don’t see how pointing out the existence of sexism propagates sexism. What seems far more damaging is when individuals who haven’t been held back by sexism - or who have succeeded despite it - take issue with the idea that not every woman has been so lucky. Individual success is fantastic, but it doesn’t negate the reality that other women are still held back on the basis of gender; and in fact, pretending they’re not - or trying to shut down conversations about the wider problem - is actively harmful. It’s a way of saying, “I succeeded, so anyone can,” which is blatantly not true.
This is very much an intersectional issue, too: I know that I benefit from white, straight cis privilege in ways that WOC, LGBTQ and trans women do not. My experience of being a woman is not representative of all experiences; and if I were to make the mistake of assuming that all the privileges extended to me on the basis of my race and sexuality are universal to all women, then I would fail at feminism.
I say again: it’s no insult to all the women who do succeed to point out that a lot of them had to struggle for it, or that others have a harder time of it. That admission takes away nothing from their success, and in some instances makes it even more extraordinary. It’s not that women don’t or can’t succeed in the current system - it’s that there are restrictions on female success, and particularly the success of WOC, LGBTQ and transwomen, that are utterly unacceptable.
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