Days ago, a friend of mine and I decided to go to see a movie together. I was in a good mood because I had not watched a new movie in a movie theater for months. We met up at the movie theatre. While I went to buy the tickets at the box office, he waited for me in the lobby. I went back to look for him after I got the tickets. He was staring at a poster on the wall.
“Hey, that’s the movie we are about to watch!” I said.
“Yeah. I was looking at the names of executive producers of the movie. The names seem to be all woman names. Can you believe that all three of the executive producers are women?”
I have to say, I was offended by that statement. Is he saying that a woman is not be capable of being an executive producer?
“Why can’t there be female executive producers? That’s very sexist of you.”
“Wow. Don’t be so serious. I was just saying that normally there are more male producers. It’s just so rare that all three executive producers are female.” He tried to explain.
“The statement you made sounds like it’s surprising for women to be executive producers, like male executive producers are the norm. Would you even be surprised if all three of the executive producers are male? Would you even bring up this topic? You just assume that men are supposed to be capable of this job, not women, and……”
“OK. I’m sorry. Let’s stop the argument. The movie was about to start.” He was a little bit embarrassed and tried to stop me from the argument.
Sexism refers to any bias against an individual or a group of individuals based on the individual’s or group member’s sex. As a Chinese, I realize that our society does not take sexism so seriously. People still live by certain gender stereotypes like men should be successful, assertive and rational while women should be caring, gentle and emotional. I truly hope that children would receive more education on gender equality from an earlier age and that the society as a whole take everyday sexism more seriously.
Reference
Gruman, Applied Social Psychology Understanding and Addressing Societal Problems
I have to say that I don’t think you’re being overly sensitive about sexism. In fact, this is the most direct and common expression of sexism in our life. Is it only when a person explicitly states, “Yes, women are just not as good as men” that we can call it sexism? We can never say this phenomenon would only happened with an extreme action. Sexism can happen at any point in life. Whether the actions involve a group in society or just two people in a conversation doesn’t change the fact that sexism occurs. At the same time, I don’t think your friend is deliberately talking about sexism. From what you describe in your blog, it’s more of an unconscious saying. When your friend says this, he’s probably just expressing it is rare that all three executive producers of the movie are female. But it is this kind of unconscious speaking that better shows the possibility of sexism in our lives. When people regard a wrong thing as right and a rare thing as normal, we must consider the seriousness of this phenomenon. One additional point I would like to mention is that in most cases of sexism, male are the originators of discrimination and female are the “victims”. However, there is another situation would happened in our lives which is some female also have sexism to their gender group. When people cannot defend their own group, but chooses to comply with the major group’s discrimination against them, the impact of such discrimination is more worthy than people’s consideration.
Reference
Gruman, J.A., Schneider, F.W., and Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bates, L. (2016, April 4). 15 tweets that reveal the ‘everyday sexism’ women face, from Cradle to Grave. TakePart. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/04/04/everyday-sexism.
I think your focus is profound. Even people’s unintentional actions can see that the problem of gender discrimination against women in society is already in a subconscious state. Even when your friends mention these words inadvertently or commendably, it also symbolizes their idea that “women are not as good as men”, Changing this social ideology will not happen overnight. From the list of film producers, we can see that women’s gradual achievements in striving for their social status. With the continuous efforts of all social parties, I believe that the most important trend of equal rights in society is bound to be achieved.
Reference
Kettler, S. (2020, September 11). 7 women’s rights activists who changed history. Biography.com. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.biography.com/news/famous-womens-rights-activists.
Instances just like this one happen more often than what most think, and when they happen it can come across as shocking and upsetting. For example, when women express that they want to be voted as president of the United States, senses of sexism arise because a common stereotype is that only men should take on high roles such as president. As a woman, I agree that sexism is sometimes ignored by society and the topic needs more attention. “Only 6 countries give women equal legal work rights as men. The World Bank’s recent Women, Business and the Law report measured gender discrimination in 187 countries” (Whiting par 16). These unfortunate statistics are calling for change so it is important that this topic is discussed. Many cultures still abide by gender related stereotypes, and I personally think that some of these stereotypes will never disappear. It is our job as women to develop interventions and make our voices heard. Equality should be served, especially between men and women.
Reference: Whiting, K. (2019, March 8). 7 surprising and outrageous stats about gender inequality. World Economic Forum. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/surprising-stats-about-gender-inequality/.