There has been a lot of talk about right and wrong in this election, along with blurry lines in what's legal and morally right. This is something we're all aware of, whether it's "Hillary is a crook and liar" or "Hey... Donald Trump is an extremely sexist and racist asshole who should probably be euthanized along with his supporters, or at least banished to the middle of the desert." After reading the two articles by
Jill Soloway and
Amy Chozick, I realize that this election is the most basic form of sexist, while it's almost also bizarre. I don't think the problem is that Hillary is a women, it's that she's a strong women who knows that in order to be heard, she has to be direct. On Thursday, 10/13 we briefly talked in class about how women tend to end sentences with a raise in pitch of their voice, as if asking a question, and this is because in the history of our country women have always been below men, not allowed to be assertive.
"Even Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor whose 2004 campaign became
immortalized by a widely mocked scream, said the criticism of Mrs.
Clinton was sexist. “If she were a male and she were making these kinds
of speeches, would people be criticizing her?” Mr. Dean said on Fox
News" (Chozick).
The answer to Dean's question is a blatant no. If Hillary were a man, like say Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, no one would have a problem with her "shouting" while giving speeches. She would be seen as enthusiastic and strong.
The struggle with sexism in this country is similar to our struggles with racial equality. Soloway's article made me think back to the arguements in All Lives Matter..
"I remember how there was absolutely a moment in American history where the civil rights movement powered a hard left turn, where white people talking about black people in polite company, where using the once tossed around N word in front of another white person became cause for lawsuit, firing, social suicide, exclusion.
But not so with men talking about women."
As a country we (we being mostly white males) discriminate against women, especially women who don't "belong" to anybody.
Soloway's article also relates to the most recent article we read by August, about LGBTQ issues in the classroom.
"White cis able-bodied educated males from the ruling class are at the top, holding nearly all of the power of the planet. You get access to this power if you’re married or related to one of these men. As you head down the pyramid, by daring to be perhaps — an unrelated white woman without a ring or poise, or gosh, a black woman, or a queer person or a trans person or a disabled person, your fall speeds up exponentially."
If we're supposed to be the "land of the free", why aren't people free to be themselves. As a women, I should be able to give a passionate speech, without being stereotyped as a bitch. There is nothing wrong with a women getting excited when talking about extremely important issues.
In conclusion to what could be considered a personal rant instead of a blog... these two articles teach us that gender in this election is extremely relevant, and shows us that like racism, sexism is something hiding deep within everyone. If Donald Trump were a woman (Thank god he's not, that would be embarrassing), there is no way he would've even gotten the nomination from the republican party. He probably wouldn't even have been a reality star.
I consider charity to be a short time fix, like what Kozol mentions in his article by saying it's a band-aid on a broken leg. There's nothing wrong with charity when it's all a person can do, but it is nothing compared to change. It's not a bad idea to supply clean needles to a drug ridden community, but it's an even better idea to try and fix the drug problem. Fixing the drug problem would be change vs charity. When working at a soup kitchen why stop there? Why not start a group or program that works to decrease the amount of people in your community who go hungry. Work to fix the minimum wage and make it a working wage. This is a shorter article that gets to the point of the difference between charity and change and address the fact that we need more change to progress in the future socially.
It doesn't take much to change someone's life forever instead of just changing it in the moment. For example, in our service learning projects right now I believe that we are doing "charity" work, not necessarily because the schools and students need us, but because we are changing their lives in the moment. If we do our best to nurture them and teach them the skills needed to thrive in our community, they can take those skills with them and have better futures. Don't just brush this off as an assignment needed to pass the class, look at is as an opportunity to better the lives of children who need role models to look up to.
