When I was at uni\u00adver\u00adsity in Auck\u00adland, one guy said to me that he had\u00adn\u2019t real\u00adized he was sex\u00adist until he met me. I\u2019ve always found dis\u00adcrim\u00adin\u00ada\u00adtion based on the bio\u00adlo\u00adgic\u00adal cap\u00adab\u00adil\u00adity of bear\u00ading chil\u00addren to make about as much sense as dis\u00adcrim\u00adin\u00ada\u00adtion based on eye col\u00adour. It seems much of the world does\u00adn\u2019t agree, pre\u00adfer\u00adring pre\u00adjudging abil\u00adit\u00adies to the hard work of fig\u00adur\u00ading out real, rather than pre\u00adsumed, cap\u00adab\u00adil\u00adit\u00adies. A lot of dis\u00adcrim\u00adin\u00ada\u00adtion is simply not think\u00ading, accept\u00ading the movie or tele\u00advi\u00adsion view of the world and the roles that women and men (or for that mat\u00adter, people not of west\u00adern european extrac\u00adtion) have in it.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s quite a lot of sex\u00adism in tech\u00adno\u00adlogy. One woman I know hates start\u00ading a new job, since, as she says, Of course, this prob\u00adlem isn\u2019t lim\u00adited to tech\u00adno\u00adlogy. A female law\u00adyer friend of mine takes some pains to dress dif\u00adfer\u00adently to the way sec\u00adret\u00adar\u00adies dress, for example, so it\u2019s clear she\u2019s a law\u00adyer and not a sec\u00adret\u00adary. She says it\u2019s been inter\u00adest\u00ading watch\u00ading the devel\u00adop\u00adment of some men, who at uni\u00adver\u00adsity assumed every\u00adone was a pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal and treated them all equally, but once out in the leg\u00adal work\u00adforce star\u00adted treat\u00ading men and women dif\u00adfer\u00adently, assum\u00ading women were sec\u00adret\u00adar\u00adies and men were law\u00adyers. With the large num\u00adber of women gradu\u00adat\u00ading from law school these days that should change. Wheth\u00ader the prac\u00adtice of push\u00ading women law\u00adyers off into fam\u00adily court (\u201cyou\u2019re so good at being under\u00adstand\u00ading\u201d) where they earn less than crim\u00adin\u00adal court law\u00adyers changes soon is an inter\u00adest\u00ading question.<\/p>\n There are lots of aspects to sex\u00adism, quite a few where people don\u2019t under\u00adstand why I find them irrit\u00adat\u00ading, or even upset\u00adting. As an example, send\u00ading mail addressed to Mr and Mrs {hus\u00adband\u2019s name}. Hav\u00ading people assume mar\u00adried people share a sur\u00adname is not unreas\u00adon\u00adable, but assum\u00ading we also share a first name is. To me it smacks of Vic\u00adtori\u00adan-era treat\u00adment of women, where they were an append\u00adage of the hus\u00adband, not beings with sep\u00adar\u00adate iden\u00adtit\u00adies. I guess it seems petty to worry about these sorts of things when women in so many coun\u00adtries have it so much worse, but on the oth\u00ader hand sex\u00adism cre\u00adates an envir\u00adon\u00adment that is not wel\u00adcom\u00ading. If you don\u2019t feel your pres\u00adence is val\u00adued in a soci\u00adety, then you\u2019re not going to be a full part of that society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was at uni\u00adver\u00adsity in Auck\u00adland, one guy said to me that he had\u00adn\u2019t real\u00adized he was sex\u00adist until he met me. I\u2019ve always found dis\u00adcrim\u00adin\u00ada\u00adtion based on the bio\u00adlo\u00adgic\u00adal cap\u00adab\u00adil\u00adity of bear\u00ading chil\u00addren to make about as much sense as dis\u00adcrim\u00adin\u00ada\u00adtion based on eye col\u00adour. It seems much of the world does\u00adn\u2019t agree, \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cUnthink\u00ading Sexism\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}it takes six months to con\u00advince the guys I know how to turn on the light<\/q>. Shelagh Cal\u00adla\u00adhan told me of an exper\u00adi\u00adence she had doing booth duty at a con\u00adfer\u00adence. She was start\u00ading to explain some\u00adthing to this guy when he inter\u00adrup\u00adted her, said she did\u00adn\u2019t know enough and he knew Dr Cal\u00adla\u00adhan, the lead\u00ading expert on this top\u00adic, and he (Dr Cal\u00adla\u00adhan) had a dif\u00adfer\u00adent opin\u00adion. At which someone stand\u00ading next to him sug\u00adges\u00adted he look at Shelagh\u2019s name badge. I\u2019ve had my fair share of con\u00addes\u00adcend\u00ading males assume I would\u00adn\u2019t under\u00adstand what they\u2019re talk\u00ading about or be able to con\u00adtrib\u00adute any\u00adthing of value to a tech\u00adnic\u00adal dis\u00adcus\u00adsion. One could argue that most women would\u00adn\u2019t under\u00adstand a tech\u00adnic\u00adal dis\u00adcus\u00adsion, but that\u2019s no excuse for the assumption. <\/p>\n