Skip to Main Content

Anti-Prejudice & Hate: Sexism

Sexism

Internet Resources

Sex Discrimination: Crash Course Government and Politics

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFh4GTZH-U

You Throw Like a Girl

Former Syracuse University quarterback and NFL veteran Don McPherson examines how narrow definitions of masculinity adversely affect women and create "blind spots" that hinder the healthy development of men. Dissecting the strict set of beliefs and behaviors that underpin our understanding of masculinity, he contends that we don't raise boys to be men, we raise them not to be women, and argues that viewing violence against women as a "women's issue" not only ignores men's culpability but also conflates the toxicity of men's violence with being male. Using examples from his own life, including his storied football career, McPherson leads us beyond the blind spots of traditional masculinity and toward solutions that engage men in dialogue.

Source: Kanopy

Research & Reference Materials (Log in Required)

Books

In Her Place

The long history of prejudice against women has been the focus of many academic studies, but until now there has been no attempt to collect actual examples of this prejudice from books, articles, and scholarly monographs. In Her Place gathers together dozens of works - mostly by American writers over the past two centuries but also by some European writers who influenced American thought - that embody the scorn and contempt for the "weaker sex" that most women endured for countless generations until very recently. Masterfully edited by S. T. Joshi, who has included brief biographies of the writers as well as footnotes to explain obscure historical, literary, and other allusions, much of this material has never been reprinted since its original publication. As Joshi points out, this is the work, not of a few isolated cranks, but of the leading members of the intellectual, social, and political communities. They published their opinions through prestigious publishers, magazines, and newspapers. Scientists purported to discover physiological evidence for woman’s supposed intellectual deficiencies and their absence of the "creative faculty." Fear of women’s sexuality was a prime motivator of a great deal of prejudice, ranging from disapproval of coeducation to a defense of the double standard of morality, whereby men but not women were permitted sexual dalliance without undue censure. Religion, always a pillar of social conservatism, emphasized women’s subordination to men as a commandment handed down by God. So thorough was men’s indoctrination of sexual prejudice throughout society that even women absorbed it and came to believe in their own inferiority. Reading the unabashed bias against women so evident in these pages brings the entrenched misogyny of American society into vivid focus and makes one appreciate all the more the immense efforts of feminists who for more than a century have worked to overcome the stereotypes of "womanly" behavior long enforced by men.

Gender Equality

Based on the findings of UNRISD ongoing gender research and over 60 specially commissioned studies, the report's analysis is centred on the economic and political reforms of the 1990s. If most of these reforms did not directly address gender equality, they nevertheless received considerable scrutiny from a gender perspective. And whatever their intentions, they had significant and mixed implications for gender relations and women's well-being. The report presents strong arguments for why gender equality must be placed at the core of efforts to reorient the development agenda. Indeed, if some of the key contemporary challenges (economic growth and structural transformation, equality and social protection, and democratisation) are to be met

The Moment of Lift

NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER "In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she's met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention--from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace." -- President Barack Obama" For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she's learned from the inspiring people she's met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, "That is why I had to write this book--to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live." Melinda's unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention--from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world--and ourselves. Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another. When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.

Women and Power

At long last, Mary Beard addresses in one brave book the misogynists and trolls who mercilessly attack and demean women the world over, including, very often, Mary herself. In Women & Power, she traces the origins of this misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial. As far back as Homer's Odyssey, Beard shows, women have been prohibited from leadership roles in civic life, public speech being defined as inherently male. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren (who was told to sit down), Beard draws illuminating parallels between our cultural assumptions about women's relationship to power--and how powerful women provide a necessary example for all women who must resist being vacuumed into a male template. With personal reflections on her own online experiences with sexism, Beard asks: If women aren't perceived to be within the structure of power, isn't it power itself we need to redefine? And how many more centuries should we be expected to wait?

Selling Women Short

Rocked by a flurry of high-profile sex discrimination lawsuits in the 1990s, Wall Street was supposed to have cleaned up its act. It hasn't. Selling Women Short is a powerful new indictment of how America's financial capital has swept enduring discriminatory practices under the rug. Wall Street is supposed to be a citadel of pure economics, paying for performance and evaluating performance objectively. People with similar qualifications and performance should receive similar pay, regardless of gender. They don't. Comparing the experiences of men and women who began their careers on Wall Street in the late 1990s, Louise Roth finds not only that women earn an average of 29 percent less but also that they are shunted into less lucrative career paths, are not promoted, and are denied the best clients. Selling Women Short reveals the subtle structural discrimination that occurs when the unconscious biases of managers, coworkers, and clients influence performance evaluations, work distribution, and pay. In their own words, Wall Street workers describe how factors such as the preference to associate with those of the same gender contribute to systematic inequality. Revealing how the very systems that Wall Street established ostensibly to combat discrimination promote inequality, Selling Women Short closes with Roth's frank advice on how to tackle the problem, from introducing more tangible performance criteria to curbing gender-stereotypical client entertaining activities. Above all, firms could stop pretending that market forces lead to fair and unbiased outcomes. They don't.

The Cost of Being a Girl

The gender wage gap is one of the most persistent problems of labor markets and women's lives. Most approaches to explaining the gap focus on adult employment despite the fact that many Americans begin working well before their education is completed. In her critical and compelling new book, The Cost of Being a Girl, Yasemin Besen-Cassino examines the origins of the gender wage gap by looking at the teenage labor force, where comparisons between boys and girls ought to show no difference, but do.Besen-Cassino's findings are disturbing. Because of discrimination in the market, most teenage girls who start part-time work as babysitters and in other freelance jobs fail to make the same wages as teenage boys who move into employee-type jobs. The "cost" of being a girl is also psychological; when teenage girls work retail jobs in the apparel industry, they have lower wages and body image issues in the long run.Through in-depth interviews and surveys with workers and employees, The Cost of Being a Girl puts this alarming social problem--which extends to race and class inequality--in to bold relief. Besen-Cassino emphasizes that early inequalities in the workplace ultimately translate into greater inequalities in the overall labor force.

Unnatural Selection

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize A 'Slate' Best Book of 2011 A 'Discover Magazine' Best Book of 2011 Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in ten years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have twenty-four million more men than women.The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U.S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval.Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably-researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them.

Washington's War on Women

Gretchen Carlson, who won a high profile victory with her opposition to the pervasive sexual harassment at Fox News, takes viewers to the halls of Congress to uncover an endemic culture of sexual harassment there held in place for decades by a deeply flawed system.

Source: Kanopy