These are never compliments, are they?
Comments like the above are seemingly the most innocuous
forms of sexism but they illustrate and perpetuate
the sexism rampant in our society - in fact, worldwide.
Here in Canada 189 people recently purchased a men's
T-shirt that proclaimed "No means have aNOther
drink" before complaints to retailer Bluenotes
led the company to pull it from the shelves. That's
189 people who consider the anti-sexual assault slogan
"No Means No" something to joke about. It's
just a T-shirt, some people have said. T-shirts don't
hurt people. Words don't hurt people. But of course
they do.
Domestic and sexual violence, street
harassment, genital mutilation, the wage gap between
genders, the lack of women in political power in most
countries, the objectification of women and girls
in the media - none of these occur in a vacuum. They're
the result of a society that devalues women. In one
of its most extreme forms, sexism robs women's lives
before they've even begun. According to Amnesty International
over 60 million women "are 'missing' from the
world today as a result of sex-selective abortions
and female infanticide." 70% of the world's 1.3
billion people living in extreme poverty are women
and girls. At the same time 66% of the world's working
hours are worked by women and only 16% of parliamentary
seats worldwide are held by women. (figures from
Unesco).
Even in an industrialized and developed
country like Canada, women only earn an average of
77%
of what men do. Recent research
on Canadian university and college campuses found
between 16 - 35% of women surveyed had experienced
at least one physical or sexual assault by a boyfriend
in the past year. Approximately 45% had been sexually
abused since leaving high school. Government statistics
indicate that 50% of Canadian women surveyed have
survived at least one incident of sexual or physical
violence in their lives. Violence against women is
a global crisis.
Meanwhile media images that sexualize
girls and women have a negative impact on girls' ability
to develop a healthy sexual self-image and lead to
eating disorders and mental health problems including
depression (American
Psychological Association report on the sexualization
of girls, 2007). These same images also damage
boys and young men by teaching them to be violent
and preventing them from forming genuine friendships
with girls and women. The intense pressure to conform
to media messages in music, video games, magazines
and internet pornography doesn't allow children of
either gender to be themselves, instead offering a
script of dominance and submission through strictly
defined gender roles. With these hyper-sexualized
images creeping into more aspects of life than ever
before it's
impossible to say that children are not being affected.
We need to make a concentrated effort
to fight sexism in all its forms by raising awareness
and standing up against sexism wherever we encounter
it, including calling people on their disparaging
comments and sexist jokes. Women's rights are human
rights. No means no. And women and girls are entirely
capable of having a terrific pitching arm.
