Sexism in Our Modern Day World - Essay Example

Name: ______________ Professor Name: ______ Course ID: ___________ Sexism in our Modern day world There was a time when the word “Sexism” supported its own significance in a single aspect like, it used to measure the influence of men on women as men were considered twice superior than women, not only superior in terms of freedom they possess but also in terms of rights and responsibilities. Men used to enjoy a complete liberal life free from worries while on the other end; women were subjected to hatred and were deprived of their rights. But women after going through a decade of unawareness not only tended towards consciousness, but have also acknowledged themselves a vital component of ‘sexism’. The perception has changed, but not to that extent that one might deem to consider sexism as not a component of the modern world. Sexism in its most traditional form has lost its significance. This can be proved by visualizing good old days in which sexism was restricted to marital affairs. There was no such concept like extra marital relationships and the existence of such affairs were not appreciated by the then society. However, today the traditional form of ‘sexism’ does not seem to exist, rapes are common due to which women are drawing towards female self defense programs. (R.A.D, 2006) Rapes also present aggravation in today’s men, which were not there when they used to rule over women. This open attitude of society has lead today’s women towards self-consciousness, they are tending towards homosexuality and prefer to be single throughout their lives rather than to be married. In this aspect, sexism exists but it would be better to call it “homosexism” rather than “sexism”. On the other hand, today’s women are more conscious towards their family and household affairs, they are wiser in analyzing and taking decisions than yesterday’s women; they are more influential while involving in human sexuality and reproduction. But apart from the positive impacts they have become more conscious in maintaining relationships. For example, women of the past decades had not even dared to be homosexual, while today’s feminine are more likely to develop a relationship with other women. The reason behind such perception that has allowed women to make bold moves is the sense of insecurity, which never used to wake up. This insecurity has caused women to think much beyond sexism. Although the influence is still there, women are engaged in sexuality and reproductive affairs, as she used to be. The thing, which is changed, is perception. Women have left the superstitiousness far behind when it was considered a sin for a woman to think about homosexuality. It seems both genders are in a state of continuous competition with each other. Men engage with the same sex, while women love not to marry a man but a woman. There is only one aspect that has limited men not following women, i.e., ‘pregnancy’. Child bearing is the only phenomenon, which would always be the same as it was centuries ago. The most fundamental instrumentality in the world is reproduction, the engorging of the womb in pregnancy and its forceful expulsion of the live foetus into the world. Making new human life appear through the instrumentality of her own body is the primary technological achievement, and it is woman’s privilege. In general, human productivity is an extension and universalization of female productivity. Even before humans made stone tools, skirts, and ivory beads, women had children. In fact, men probably made war in order to appropriate to themselves some of the awesome power of maternal productivity. Ancient Greek women understood this when they joked about denying sex to their husbands in order to put a stop to the Peloponnesian War and Roman wives slipped out of their husbands’ beds a couple of times a year in order to thwart the law that made them their husbands’ property. (Gotz, 1999, p. 93) Women still do care about their husbands, but with open perceptions. However they are not as much driven by sex, as they used to be. But still, they are involved in sexism. Apart from this legal relationship, this can be proved by the fact that many of today’s women are engaged in prostitution. This implies that whether directly or indirectly sexism influences today’s era. Today, relationships are easier to be changed; marriages are likely to be broken. This escorts us to a different aspect regarding “sexism”. In the modern world “sexism” is interchanged by “materialism” and this materialism has provided us umpteen options to choose from among several living standards. The pressure for men to include women’s productivity and enlarge their own work sphere goes back thousands of years, when women was more drawn towards reproduction, the concept of family planning did not exist. Men were superior and no doubt, mean, even priests required women to extend their generation. This change was hardly noticed, because, in general, women were doing everything that men did, from salting pigs to cooking and baking, tilling, spinning, and weaving, as is evident from the illuminated mediaeval miniatures illustrating women’s work. But the slow exclusion of women required the priests to become self-sufficient, which meant the appropriation by men of the productive activities of women in the home. In the monasteries, men cooked, cleaned, and generally kept house, as women had done before for them; they even gave (spiritual) birth through baptism; and in so doing, they considered themselves indulged into the territory traditionally assigned to women. (Gotz, 1999, p. 95) In this context sexism can be interrelated by the word ‘feminism’. Feminists have been cast as destroyers of families and other cherished institutions. They have been blamed for problems such as the delinquency of adolescents, the inability of qualified males to find jobs, and the erosion of standards in the professions, the schools, and the academy. If women would only embrace traditional roles, the argument seems to go, there would be far fewer societal problems. (Flynn, 2002, p. 2) Sexism in the new era has undergone through many new modes of conceptualization and transition that neither appear all of a sudden or haphazardly, nor they emerge from nothingness. Rather it would not be wrong to say that such transition has acquired centuries to transform into result from the meeting and combination of different factors, which unite to produce new questions and interpretations, to uncover new facts and to shed new light on old ones. (Guillaumin, 1995, p. 7) In modern world sexism has not kept itself within the boundaries of feminism, race, language or culture. It is much beyond feminist theories, which implies that sexism does not impact the new generation. Sexism in modern era focuses on creating a women’s culture that opposes male culture, or vice versa, this can be perceived by viewing representations of women and men as binary opposites and by making evident that both women and men are capable of being victims and executioners. Lesbians and Gays are the best examples of modern sexism. This refers to the fact that today sexism is a symbol, likely worn by women as well as men. There is no distinction on the basis of sexism as far as gender is concerned. ‘No distinction’ between genders implies that gone are those days when only women were considered to be blamed and responsible for any wrong deed. Today women are engaged in every deed whether right or wrong, who cares. Modern sexism emphasize and seek commonalities between women and men and focus on differences between them, however postmodern feminists problematize binary conceptions of difference. (Flynn, 2002, p. 23) If modern feminists see women as the equal of men rather than their opposite, postmodern feminists emphasize the limitations of dichotomous representations of relationships between women and men or women’s culture and men’s culture. They also see that gender is only one variable in a complex matrix. To fix ‘sexism’ in that variable it is essential to include factors such as race, class, ethnicity, age, culture, and sexual orientation, while the other end suggests that these factors should be kept aloof from ‘sexism’ as today race and culture has nothing to do with sexism. Modern sexism has been the inspiration for the struggle for equality for women in a number of historical eras and geographical locations. The contributions of the various scientific and technical fields to the improvement of the situation of women are everywhere evident. As a result of technological developments, large numbers of women have been able to make choices about pregnancy and childbearing as well as birth control and abortion. In addition, women have definitely benefited from modernist legal procedures and principles including laws that prohibit rape and violence against women and sanctions against sexist language, discrimination, and unequal pay. Radical, cultural, and post modern feminists alike have pointed out, however, that struggling for equality and inclusion is not always sufficient for improving the situation of women; deeper structural changes are often necessary. A modern-feminist perspective does not adequately account for differences between men and women. Nor does it always allow for women’s different history and different societal roles and for the effects these differences may have had in the shaping of consciousness. It also tends to ignore differences within the category woman that result from different racial, class, and sexual positioning. It can, therefore, contribute to rather than alleviate the oppression of women of color in colonizing and colonized countries. (Flynn, 2002, p. 26) Therefore it can be said that technological advancements of the twenty first century has provided women with umpteen choices followed in diverse ways. Such choices are not available to men under any circumstances. All they can do is to adopt a choice, a choice is not provided to them. The social appropriation of women comprises two aspects: the concrete, which corresponds to the appropriation of their physical material individuality, their bodies and labour power, and the ideological-discursive as exemplified in the discourse on their specific Nature. As appropriated physical entities women are turned into things within the realm of thought itself. The naturalist ideology operates in different manners; in some cases, physical characteristics such as sexual anatomy are seen as causing domination; but nowadays, social scientists usually disassociate gender from ‘sex’ and recognize that women’s subordination does not rest upon a biological basis. None the less, the strength of the idea of nature is such that sexual categories still seem evident and self-explanatory; real biological differences are thought to bring about the construction of sexual categories as well as the allocation of human beings to these categories. (Guillaumin, 1995, p. 10) Why not pursue the same reasoning with the notion of ‘sex’? First, sex is seen as evidence, there are two biological sexes and, therefore, two sexual categories. ‘Sex’ is an independent variable, it determines the place occupied in the sexual division of labour and in society in general. Second, biological sex is separated from gender: ‘you are not born a woman, you become one’. Efforts are made so as to understand gender relations and gendering. At this point, the categorization of human beings into two distinct biological categories is not questioned; biological differences between men and women are seen as self-evident and as leading to sexualization as a process of signification. Femininity and masculinity are considered to be added on to femaleness and maleness. Third, some social scientists, mainly materialist feminists, argue that the bipartition of gender is foreign to the existence of sex as a biological reality. Using Guillaumin’s theory of sexage, Mathieu suggests that societies employ the ideology of the biological definition of sex to legitimize and support a hierarchy of gender based on the oppression of one sex by the other. (Guillaumin, 1995, p. 13) It would be unfair on the basis of “sexism” if concluded that sexism does not impact or influence the new generation today. Although it does not reside in the form it used to be some decades ago but still today children are born, youth is making marriages, women are mothers, sisters, wives and daughters. That means sexism does influence our society today, in one sense or another. Several have transformed into gays and lesbians, but that cannot be misinterpreted to the conclusion that sexism does not impact upon us. Infact Sexism influence today’s modern world and would continue to do so, until women stop giving birth to children. Works Cited & References Flynn A. Elizabeth, (2002) Feminism beyond Modernism: Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, IL. Guillaumin Colette, (1995) Racism, Sexism Power, and Ideology: Routledge: New York. Gotz L. Ignacio, (1999) The Culture of Sexism: Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT. Lancaster N. Roger, (2003) The Trouble with Nature: Sex in Science and Popular Culture: University of California Press: Berkeley, CA. R.A.D, 2006 accessed from Read More