Coming into this class, my initial impressions of the terms “feminism”, “sexism” and “gender and women’s studies” were standard. What comes to mind when sexism and gender are involved is the idea of dominance vs subordinates. There is an under lying connection towards feminism, sexism and gender (of women) when it comes to the concept of dominance and subordinates because of how society has portrayed the relationship between men and women. In the articles, “Feminist’s Politics: Where We Stand” written by Bell Hooks and “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” by Audre Lorde touches on the subject of sex (women) and how it corresponds to the power structure.
Men, the dominant race, has always found a way to perpetuate their leadership over any other race and/or sex. Therefore throughout history they have showed countless times and situations where they have considered, “women right’s when the granting of those rights could serve the interests of maintaining white supremacy” (Hooks). In our eyes, men will always be seen as the higher upper, the CEO, the boss, the leader. We as a society tend to cater towards the idea that men must have a certain type of masculinity which therefore promotes their leadership and power. Due to this mentality we are in a never ending cycle of promoting male dominance. In a social construct,
“we have learned to deal across those differences with the urgency of all oppressed subordinates. All of us have had to learn to live or work or coexist with men, from our fathers on. We have recognized and negotiated these differences, even when this recognition only continued the old dominant/subordinate mode of human relationship; where the oppressed much recognized the maters’ differences in order to survive” (Lorde).
To conclude, society has fixed a sexist definition of gender and women to allow many and myself to believe that sex will always be affected by power and those that hold power will continue to do so even after many years of countless fighting for civil rights for men and women of different races and sexual orientation. The terms “feminism”, “sexism” and “gender and women’s studies” means to me, what society has made us to believe it as.
