The co-counseling leadership has decided that co-counselors should start saying “male domination” instead of “sexism.” I think it’s a great idea. Calling the oppression of women by men “sexism” has always confused me. I actually made it into my early twenties before I realized that “sexism” referred only to the mistreatment of women by men, and not to the mistreatment anyone by anyone on the basis of gender. “Male domination” calls it what it is. “Sexism” is a euphemism by contrast.
Perhaps it is also time to call racism what it is. We don’t use “racism” to mean race-based discrimination. Racism is when a White person oppresses a person of color. The other way around is “reverse racism.” It’s confusing and verges on another euphemism. Why don’t we call race-based oppression by Whites what Victor in The Color of Fear calls it: White supremacy. That’s what it is.
Nathen's Miraculous Escape 
August 11, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Thanks for the clarification of the words. Much better.
August 11, 2010 at 3:31 pm
“Racism” seems more complicated because there aren’t just two races (tho arguably there aren’t just two genders either…)
Wouldn’t we also, for example, use the term “racist” to describe a Japanese person making a certain kind of comment about Koreans? Or is that just ethnocentric?
Racism is also more complicated because who is included in the term “white” has changed so much, compared to the term “male.”
Can we implicate Italian people in “white supremacy” or “white domination” because we consider them white now, even though there were times in recent history when they weren’t considered white?
Also, if you don’t call it sexism when women typecast or demean men… what do you call it?
August 11, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I guess I’m being US-centric to suggest a blanket switch to “White supremacy.” I think sociologists use “racism” to refer to the discrimination of a dominating group against a dominated group. Thus, in the US, a White person not hiring an African American on the basis of race is the effect of racism, but an African American not hiring a White person is “reverse racism.” This gets to your question about sexism, too. Some people use the term “reverse sexism” to refer to the gender-based mistreatment of men by women. The idea, I think, is that the special power of the dominant group’s discrimination earns it the otherwise-generic title.
You’re right about the complexity of the issues. Both race and gender get very slippery when you try to define them, and there is a strong argument for the idea that both are entirely cultural constructs.
Also, despite what I learned in my sociology classes, some people (the wikipedia articals, for example) do use racism and sexism to mean the belief in the superiority of a race or sex, regardless of who is in power.