Emerging Contexts for Gender Inequality

One concept that I found particularly interesting in my high school senior english class was Orwell's doublethink. Doublethink is the act of simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs to be true without any awareness of conflict or contradiction (Doublethink, 2014). One example of doublethink would be a woman who believes that men and women should be equal and yet buys into the American beauty myth, wearing make-up and subconsciously believing that much of her self worth comes from her sexual appeal. The unequal physical standard that women are held to compared to men is just one example of how women are less-privaledge than men in America.

I have had the interesting conversations with many individuals in which I had to defend my feminist view. Many people think that feminism is women asking for more than their half. This misperception steams from the lack of understanding of how truly unequally women are in society. So, people are often taken aback when they see the full quantity of rights that feminists are asking for. It is interesting how many men abhor the sexism, sexual assault, objectification, and general inequality that women are subjected to and yet they have no concept of how their own privilege is what creates the system of inequality. Therefore, they are unwilling to give up this privilege.

Articles:

The following is a link to a published study about effects of ambivalent or "benevolent" sexism on the perceptions of tradition sexual roles in married couples. The study used college students as participants and found that the participants "ranked sexual marital rights (for him) and duties (for her) more highly, and regarded forced sex [in marriage] as rape to a lesser extent" (Durán, Moya, & Megías, 2011). This results of this study are both appalling and not suppressing. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2010.513088#tabModule DOI:10.1080/00224499.2010.513088

The University of Idaho is one of 55 colleges that is currently being investigated for their handling of sexual assault claims. The following is a link to the Washington Post Article, "55 colleges under Title IX inquiry for their handling of sex violence claims," about the aim of the White House Investigation to help colleges prevent sexual violence (Anderson, 2014):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/federal-government-releases-list-of-55-colleges-universities-under-title-ix-investigations-over-handling-of-sexual-violence/2014/05/01/e0a74810-d13b-11e3-937f-d3026234b51c_story.html

("Sexism in 2013 should not look like this", 2013)

This photo may make people uncomfortable. It is a very "in-your-face" representation of sexism and sexual assault. However, the fact that sexual assault happens every day is an uncomfortable truth that needs to be addressed. By continuing to keep the unfortunate reality of sexism and assault a hidden topic, we are not addressing it and therefore not solving it.

Watch this Ted Talk!

Watch this Ted Talk, "Violence against women—it's a men's issue: Jackson Katz at TEDxFiDiWomen" (2013), by Jackson Katz, Phd, who is an anti-sexist activist. He has some really interesting points on the responsibilities of men in preventing violence against women. 

Learn More:

Read this recent article about dozens of Nigerian schoolgirls that were kidnapped from a state school. They have likely been sold as sex slaves. This is attributed to Islamist militant group (Nossiter 2014). 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/africa/nigeria-fears-captive-girls-will-be-held-as-sex-slaves.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%23%2Fnigeria%2520kidnapping%2520girls%2F&_r=0

Also, check out the National Sexual Violence Resource Center website for more information on what you can do as an advocate (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2014).

http://www.nsvrc.org