Blog Against Sexism Day

I was reading Ms. Magazine in the airport on a business trip with a coworker a few years ago.

"What's that?" he asked. He'd heard of Ms. but thought that it was another "lipstick and fashion" rag.

This started us talking about feminism, and, of course, sexism. He doesn't believe that it exists.

See, our office and indeed our whole industry is predominantly female, at least down in the trenches. Sure a significantly skewed percentage of management is male, but his boss and his boss's boss are both women, so that's where it stops for him.

He doesn't feel powerful. In fact, he feels pretty powerless. And he's been sexually harassed at work. So women are as successful as men in corporate America now, and sexual harassment is an equal opportunity experience. Didn't you see that Demi Moore movie?

His experience is a microcosm for all experience. He doesn't see sexism, so it doesn't exist. Hell, even those strippers he likes to visit over on the east side make more money than he does. That's empowerment. And women like looking at strippers too, dontcha know.

This went on forever and was going nowhere. I wasn't going to change this guy's whole worldview in one afternoon. I ended the conversation politely but firmly and excused my pregnant self to get a bite to eat. He came along and talked at me while I ordered and waited for my food. I excused myself to go to the ladies' room, then sat on a bench and talked to my husband on the phone, waiting for the guy to give up and go back to our gate.

Pretty soon, he called into the bathroom after me, "worried" that our heated discussion might have caused me some harm in my "delicate condition." He's a critically acclaimed "really nice guy."

Oh yes. Sexism is so dead.