class

When I come across blatant misogyny in mainstream articles; clichés, stereotypes and sexist jokes that are enjoyed tolerated or ignored, I often ask myself; Would this be acceptable if it was written about black people?
In most cases it wouldn’t be. It would not be acceptable for a college newspaper to publish an article about how black people who go to nightclubs are sluts. It would not be acceptable for a respectable news channel to label a news segment about a black celebrity with a racial epithet. At the same time though, just last week a recognized comedian launched into a hate tirade against the black people heckling his standup routine. How can we even consider having defeated prejudice when Mel Gibson decides to defend him?

I just got back from the coffeeshop here, and got a chance to talk to Jayne. Jayne's a workingclass, 60something, matriarchal, peacenik feminist who does a lot of work w/the local homeless population. Last year Jayne came to the annual Women Studies party, and tonight she and I reminisced about how wonderful it was that she boldly expressed her opinions to academic, upper-middle class feminists, really exposing them to some of their unexamined class prejudice that, even as feminists, they didn't want to discuss. Jayne is a revelation and a national treasure.

And I was thinking how great it would be for all of you bloggers to take a minute and try to find a woman whose life you feel is totally different than your own, and write about how this is so. Now, it may be hard to do this in real life, so think about women and girls in the movies, tv shows, or in books that you're familiar with. Maybe she's from another country, or another class, or another agegroup- but somehow you feel that she's 180-degrees different from yourself.

The one definite plan that I had for this summer vacation, besides getting an hourly job (which, oddly enough, after 20 applications, didn’t happen) was to take a class at the local community college to get some credits out of the way. So I decided to take a History course just to get rid of one of my legislative requirements.

My first day was on Tuesday. I guess I’m at least semi-used to politically correct teachers that pay little to no attention to the inherent differences of their students – gender, race and so on – and if they do, it’s only to point out that we’re making strides, and that diversity is a positive indication. This one was a bit different, though.