Philosophy and Feminism
Assignment 1: Case Study
Binh P. H Tran – Nick
“Women cannot be sexist. Only men can be sexist because they are the privileged group”
This is one of the statements my boss made, when I first started working in the Multicultural Information. Even though I did not say so, I did have serious doubt. Can a woman be sexist? What, exactly, is sexual discrimination? The fact is indisputable that men are generally treated better than women. They are better paid for the same amount of work. They don’t have the same social pressure to be submissive. However, they can certainly be oppressed. Minority men have certainly been and will continue being oppressed. The issue here is that can a man be oppressed by a woman? Consequently, if both sides are equally capable of oppressing each other, is it a fair society?
First of all, to understand these questions, we need to understand the nature of sexism, prejudice or discrimination based on sex and prejudice, an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics (Merriam-Webster dictionary). Additionally, prejudice is rooted in the view that the discriminator’s group is somehow superior to the oppressed group, which is the justification for the oppression. The current U.S society has the prejudice that men, as a group, are somehow superior to women. This discrimination serves to justify the double standards between men and women and the injustice done to women by society in general. Nevertheless, we need to determine whether men derive their power from being oppressive or they are being oppressive because they are powerful. Other instances of oppression such as between masters and slaves may convince us that the Caucasian group is op ...