DO YOU THINK SEXISM IS A SET OF BEHAVIORS, OR IS IT INHERENT IN THE ATTITUDE OF SPECIFIC PERSONS? (I.E: HOLDING A DOOR FOR A WOMAN BECAUSE SHE WAS RIGHT BEHIND YOU AS OPPOSED TO BECAUSE YOU THINK WOMEN ARE WEAK AND IN NEED OF SPECIAL TREATMENT.
The majority of sexist behavior is not rooted in some essential wickedness, although that would make sexism much easier to address. There are very few people who are sexist by explicit and informed intent; the majority of oppressive behavior comes from sexism, racism, and oppression simply being normalized.
Which is why people flip their fucking shit when you ask them to examine their own privilege, because what you’re doing is shaking the very foundations of their reality. The nature of privilege is that you don’t notice it until someone takes it away from you.
Men (the vast majority of white men in the united states, that is) have the privilege of walking down the street without being hunted for sport. So it’s impossible for them to understand why you can’t manage the same.
The horrible truth is that oppression is what’s normal. Getting the privileged to recognize and address this is extremely difficult because it doesn’t fit into the Just World Hypothesis which we’ve all been taught throughout grade school and which many, many people never have to think about or adjust. In a Just World, you would have to do something bad in order to have something bad happen to you. It’s logical, it’s just very shallow logic.
That’s why addressing sexism, racism and homophobia (and transphobia and so on) is so incredibly hard, particularly when you’re talking to the ubiquitous White Heterosexual Cisgendered Man.
From here by 3Liza