Me Too

This week we saw social media erupt with #metoo’s—a rallying cry to show the overwhelming prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assault.  At first, I didn’t contribute my twitter or facebook voice to the conversation; I thought somehow I was excluded because I’m one of the fortunate ones who hasn’t experienced sexual violence or repeated, targeted harassment based on my sex.  But apparently I momentarily forgot my main social justice interest of RECOGNIZING SEXISM AND ELIMINATING IT FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.  When I came to, I realized that #metoo is about showing how rampant sexism is; that too often females are seen as their sex first, and their personhood second.  Repercussions from that treatment are far reaching and lie on an unfortunate continuum that starts at routine sexism and ends at assault, violence, or worse. The first step in wiping out that continuum is to show that it exists.  Here’s my evidence of sexism, most of which are instances that occurred in the last week:

• When an entire 130-student class chats through a woman professor’s lecture
• When someone says, you don’t meet that many girls who know how to [insert favorite male-dominated professional trait here, mine is code writing] 
• When empathy is an assumed female trait [there are some genderized traits, empathy should not be one]
• Nearly every aspect of showing up to play for a new co-ed soccer team [Without fail, the women are outside defense and outside midfielders, you know, the positions that supposedly get less action!]
• When we females apologize before we say something, as we say something and after we say something
• When we say an idea, or answer a question, but are drowned out or cut off by a voice that’s louder and deeper
• When we choose professions with friendlier working hours because we think that's the only way you can successfully have a family
• When we can’t win the presidency against assholes like Donald Trump
• When we watch TV shows like Sister Wives
• When we don’t stand up for ourselves, or forgive too soon in relationships, because we’re scared of what we’d do if it failed
• When our tone of voice is criticized [are males regularly described as sounding bitchy?]
• When we assume and expect guys to pay for us dates [I mean, hell yeah it’s nice, but ladies, let’s offer]
• Or, when we buck societal dating trends and it’s met with bewilderment
• When guys say thanks for putting up with me, or keeping me in line [I have a job and it's not that (Ok I don't have a job, I'm in school, but still not my responsibility)]
• When a man explains your own field of study to you.  Worse yet, when his explanation is wrong. 
• When our iPad app for Anatomy class omits the female pelvic region altogether [????]
• When people think that feminism is synonymous to man-hating or elitism or that it's exclusive to women.

To those [few, god bless you] reading this and saying ‘wow, she’s like, totally being nitpicky’: Think Deeper.  Maybe my list is different from yours, but everyone can observe sexism, everyday; it happens anytime you would answer “no” to the question “would I have treated an opposite sex individual who did the same thing, in the same way?”  Hopefully, someday each of our lists can get shorter and shorter and then disappear altogether.  Until then, here’s some lovely murals exhibiting some fierce individuals who happen to be females.


P.S. This is written from my hetero-cis-female perspective, so, super biased to that POV! I so want to be woke to other perspectives, so please dear [3] readers and Russian bots, dialogue away!