mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-26 07:49:37 -05:00
60 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram
|
||
Wednesday Oct. 25, 1989
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Sexism and a commentator's misplaced fear of fly
|
||
|
||
By 'Asta Brown
|
||
|
||
Not long ago on National Public Radio, there was a great flap over
|
||
a new advertisement for Sansabelt men's slacks. In an apparent attempt
|
||
to to give the brand's image some new voltage, the ad shows a woman
|
||
confiding that she never decides whether a passing man warrants her
|
||
attention "until I look down." The NPR commentator was having none of
|
||
it. Since such crude statements about women a no longer indulged by
|
||
society, she argued, we should now raise a hue and cry on behalf of all
|
||
the men wronged by this reverse sexism.
|
||
This is very high-minded, and surely there are at least a couple of
|
||
guys out there crossing their legs and feeling grateful for the reverse
|
||
chivalry. But most men aren't going to find such an ad offensive,
|
||
they're going to find it for what it is: a feeble attempt to turn the
|
||
tables.
|
||
To the dismay of any post-feminists hoping this will show men just
|
||
how lousy it feels to be a sex object, men may well find the scenario
|
||
amusing or even flattering.
|
||
The ad is not guilty of reverse sexism. There is only sexism,
|
||
period, and it has always worked two ways. The same sexism that denies
|
||
the full humanity of women also denies the full humanity of men.
|
||
While we have made some progress on behalf of women, sexism against
|
||
men is so ubiquitous and deep that we must break profound taboos even to
|
||
suggest that it exists. And here is where public radio failed us, in
|
||
railing against silly old Sansabelt: There is nothing very sexist about
|
||
a woman sizing up a guy's physical contours; in a way, it's kind of
|
||
refreshing.
|
||
True sexism against men is far more subtle, and the woman doing it
|
||
isn't looking at the front of anybody's pants: She's checking out the
|
||
bulge of the wallet in back. Just as sexism reduces women to sexual
|
||
objects, it reduces men to financial objects. Just as woman have been
|
||
exploited as sexual and emotional commodities, men are exploited as cogs
|
||
in the economic machinery, expendable war fodder, and providers who must
|
||
never fail. For every two guys discussing a particular girl's physical
|
||
charms, there are two girls discussing a particular guy's career
|
||
prospects.
|
||
For too long we have approached sexism as a problem caused by men,
|
||
to be solved by women. It is neither. We all create it, and we are the
|
||
only ones who can cure it.
|
||
No wonder the subject is taboo: Once we face the problem and the
|
||
pain, we're going to have to do something about it. And if you think
|
||
there was hell to pay when women raised the first flag of non-
|
||
cooperation (Death of the family! No more babies! Extinction of the
|
||
species!), wait until men finally decide to chuck the moneyclips and
|
||
claim their full humanity: Economic disaster! Political and social
|
||
chaos! Goodbye global security! Despite the alarms, we've weathered the
|
||
first uprising with families and babies to spare.
|
||
The outcome of the next anybody's guess, but one thing is sure: The
|
||
men who raise the flag of their non-cooperation will have the attention
|
||
of the female species, and they won't have to wear Sansabelts to get it.
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
Bowen lives in northwestern Montana.
|
||
|