The majority of college-aged women are no strangers to sexism. The interesting thing is that many of them do not realize it.
Everyday sexism is innocuous. Hearing, “at least you’re pretty,” in response to some sort of personal failure might seem like nice, consoling words for a friend to say on a bad day, but it actually is a way to invalidate a woman and reduce her to her ability to attract men.
And that is just a small part of the issue.
Another example most women are familiar with, is the male friend who treats friendliness as foreplay and assumes a female friend will be sexually available if they are kind in return. This disturbing yet frequent phenomenon is more commonly known as “the friend zone,” and chances are, everyone has seen or encountered some variation of it. Alisse Desrosiers, a writer for Feminspire, summed it up nicely.
“The Friend Zone is a bullshit, misogynistic, make-believe land Nice Guys have come up with to demonize women for not wanting to date them.”
It should be obvious to any guy that just because a girl is friendly does not mean she owes them the time of day. But apparently it isn’t. The expectation that being nice is
a green light for a relationship or sex has become the norm, and if a woman turns her unwitting suitor down, she is often labeled harshly and cast aside by “the Nice Guy.” How dare she lead him on and make him waste his time? Obviously he would not have been so kind to her if he was not interested! How could she do that to him?
The Everyday Sexism Project, an online collaborative effort created by Laura Bates in order to give women all over the world a chance to “shout back,” gives a number of clear examples of how a woman might suffer sexism. The stories range from accounts of male friends pulling a “Nice Guy” to decidedly darker examples of managers taking advantage of employees and beyond.
One example, written by a user named Liz from the U.S., described a situation where she tried to speak out against a man who was intentionally making her uncomfortable, only to have a male friend scold her for overreacting and make her apologize to the perpetrator.
The idea of the overreacting woman is both an old one and an extremely widespread one.
Women are taught to grin and bear it, and be ladylike. Psychologist Janet Swim stated that women have a tendency to ignore sexism because they “just want to get on with their lives.” No one wants to be browbeaten about overreacting to “harmless” jokes or “innocent” comments. If a guy says he is not being sexist, then he must be right! All those years of thinking women were somehow oppressed or mistreated must have been imagined.
The fact of the matter is that if a guy was a real friend and ally, he would not be telling a woman she was overreacting when some other man “accidentally” groped her on the bus. He would not be under the assumption that any woman might owe him sexual favors for daring to be receptive to his kindness, and he certainly would not downplay her success by insinuating her physical appearance has anything to do with it.
But what can be done?
When a classmate tells a woman she still has her looks when something goes wrong, she should know that he is being sexist. If a woman gets touched without her consent, she should be able to shout back without fear of being accused of overreacting or of being hysterical. It goes without say thatwomen are entitled to every bit of success that a man is, without being subjected to the assumption that she slept her way up the ladder. She should be able to turn down a guy without being called a tease.
None of that will happen just because women want it to. It will only happen when women make it happen.
Laura Heiney,
Sophomore Spanish Major.
I agree with this completely,I am sick and tired of hearing,wolf whistles,and being sexually harassed,I am sick and tired of males hushing me when I complain about my period,saying that I’m acting like a baby and telling me to deal with it,I do deal with my period,but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it! I hate being female because I am forced to be ASHAMED of being a female,but whenever I wear Anything boyish I get called a dyke,and other mean names like that,If I wear too little I get called a slut,or a whore,oh,how DARE I show skin in front of you! i’m sorry,are my bare shoulders Arousing you? it just sickens me,so much.