In our AP Lang class, we've been watching a documentary called Miss Representation and dealing with various other topics regarding gender and gender roles. Because of this, I'd like to touch on something that can be quite the hot topic: sexism. A lot of people think that this is still a major issue in America right now and to some extent it still exists. But this notion that women aren't getting the same representation as men starts to get ridiculous and redundant. The same arguments always tend to come up, like how there are more men in political, scientific and mathematical professions and how it's completely based on sexism towards women or that women can't make their way up the ladder. I can't tell you how sick I am of hearing these claims.
The first part of this is gender discrimination of females in the workforce. In the documentary, they state several little factoids about the matter, specifically within politics. The video makes it look as if the reason more men are in politics than women is because of discrimination. If you are a woman in America and you're reading this, think about this. Do you have a desire to go into politics? If you do, then I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors. If not, why do you think that is? The reason you don't see many women in politics is probably the same reason you don't see very many in math and science professions; they're simply not interested in the topic. The other part of this is that nowadays they have the option if they are interested. There's nothing stopping them but themselves from being anything, really.
Following up with my last point, there's also been an argument made that females in the workplace can't make their way up the metaphorical ladder due to gender. While this claim has more weight to it than the related one above, it still has little validity. For instance, if there was so much discrimination within such professional areas, how do you explain this? A lot of people don't know this, but there are more and more females rising through the ranks to the top spot of CEO in companies. But this doesn't just apply to the business world. Take the music industry. Rock is usually considered to be dominated by men and male frontmen. I hereby present to you the exception and proof that this is becoming less true. The female-fronted band Halestorm has reached fame, dominating the charts themselves over a number of male groups, including a number one song on iTunes and a top spot on Billboard's hard rock album list. Look at details of their success from Interactive Guitar magazine here.
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I must admit, it was your title that got me reading this post! I think your Forbes article is a good example to show that there ARE women leaders in business and other professional areas. My understanding of the documentary is that they are NOT denying the presence of women in these types of leadership roles (not including politics here). What they are saying is that women may be there, but we don't see that reflected in our media. Remember the quote, "You can't be what you can't see."?
ReplyDeleteI think the clips we've watched this week, after you made this post, speak to some of the thoughts about women in politics included in your 2nd paragraph. Why would a woman WANT to get involved in politics if she watched others do that only to be meet with sexist insults, slurs, etc. The "Iron my shirt" guy that followed Hillary around the campaign trail? Oy.
Last thing: Be careful that your last link doesn't reflect Hasty Generalization or too little evidence to make that inductive leap.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and making me think.
Thanks I was actually a little afraid the title would turn people off to the post. And some of those guys were legitimate examples of sexism. However, I know for a fact that some of the radio and TV programs flashed were bashing their politics and character, NOT that they were women. I've seen some of them when they first aired and was borderline infuriated at the misuse of context in which they were used.
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