[swa14]

>If a male were to sexually harass a female, it would not be sexism because he is not giving males special preference over females

Well, seeing how he's not sexually harassing the males I'd say there's a noted difference in "special preference".

Anyway, I'd argue that sexism is almost inherent to any sexual harassment, as the male put himself in a position of power/dominance based on little more than gender difference and the perceived inequality/role expectations that go along with that.

[jack-r-abbit]

Not that I agree with the other person but by your logic everyone (who is not bi-sexual) practices sexism because they have a "special preference" to relationships with one gender over another.

If the OP of the article had all those same things done to her (ass grabbing, pillow fight invitations, etc) by gay women, would that still be considered "sexism" or just sexual harassment? People sometimes forget that sexual harassment is not always a "Man on Woman" action. There is a 2x2 matrix of how that can go down.

[drostie]

I can't hammer this home enough: it's institutional, the sexism that's going on here. That is, the pillow-fight invitation is not by itself sexism; the sexism is that we live in a world where a man might consider it acceptable to burst into a conversation without prompting and ask a woman to his room for a private pillowfight party, for the sexual gratification of onlooking men. It's not the act, it's the environment which makes the act possible, and the environment which the act fosters, which constitute the sexism. In practice we can therefore label the act itself as 'sexist' -- but the criticism that the act 'is not literally sexist' or what have you deeply misses the point.

If this had been done by gay women, the problem would still be that those gay women somehow felt entitled to make such a request of women. The problem is that a woman was, purely due to her sex, "lowered beneath" a baseline of human decency, if you wish. There might be a legitimate question of "what if we lowered the baseline?" but there is no legitimate question of "what if the person who lowered her was a woman?"

[gavanwoolery]

I see an environment that values females sexually. Yes, there are plenty of instances where males are rude to females, but the reverse is true as well. Have you ever watched the way some females gun down males in a bar, even when they approach kindly? This is not sexism, it is sexuality. We are attracted to women, and in fact often give them special bias due to their sex (do women hold the door open for males? Who pays for dinner more often, males or females? Who buys the other person a drink? Who buys the wedding ring? Which sex is allowed to slap/punch the opposite sex? Who has to resort to saying "yes dear" more? Which sex gets let past the line in a club? Which sex apologizes more?). Just because there are isolated incidences of sexism does not mean that the US as a whole is generally sexist (I assure you, it is not - the male race cannot afford all the lawsuits).

If anything, the sexism is in favor of females, as no one would call it sexist if a female groped a man, invited them to a pillow fight party, etc.

[drostie]

Look, I understand that you have a stake in this. I get that. I am also male. I understand that you might want to look out for male interests in a sort of economic sense.

Nonetheless, what you are saying is deeply misguided and shows that you don't know what sexism became in the 20th century and looks like today. You are struggling too hard to make some sort of point. In doing this you are failing to come to a common ground and to understand the Other. I know this well; I have been there. I implore you to make one last effort.

Let us start from some common ground: women are granted a great deal of courtesy because they are in some sense 'overvalued'. The question you should ask is, how are they being overvalued, exactly? And the answer I think is, "they are being overvalued as romantic objects." It's a common thread with roots in that Shakespearean sort of ideal, the Quiet, Pure Woman who Knows Her Place and is Walled Away and must be Wooed by her Romeo. It plays forth in all of the behaviours you have insisted upon: that we would pay for dinner, buy them drinks, arrange the wedding, extend them romantic courtesies, forgive them their outbursts, et cetera. It is also the reason that they are discouraged from the club scene and thus can be whisked past the line.

This is our common ground. Now what you must understand is that this position is not merely a position of privilege, but is also deeply dehumanizing. Look at those words again: romantic "object". The same attitude which makes her precious also makes her little more than ornamental. And this is a story played out through most of our history, until several extremely noteworthy women in the Victorian Era decided "hey, screw that--we can be writers and mathematicians and factory workers as well." Of course, this soon after intersected with the Suffragettes, the World Wars and the Sexual Revolution. It was only very recently that women got the right to vote and the right to attend school -- much less the right to wear 'immodest' dress or the right to be a witch. For a long time they simply were not treated as human but rather as subhuman.

Sexism is simply that: it names these social institutions which treat women as a whole as subhuman. There are still many such institutions. Many of them come from this same Romantic Object Past that you are complaining about -- this is presumably why some man drunkenly licked her tattoo; he may well have thought that this might show that he was pursuing her and wooing her, in his drunken state -- in doing so he revealed that he doesn't really think of her as some independent person to be talked to, but rather some skin to be licked. They may also be inverted by the modern pornographic culture, as with the man who burst into a conversation asking for her to come to a pillow-fight essentially did the same, essentially saying "your conversation could not possibly be as important as our idolizing you as a sex object; come on, let's do this."

The bottom line is that the sexism isn't "in favor of" anybody, it's a deeply immature mistake that we've been carrying around from the Dark Ages to the present. It wouldn't be sexist if a female groped a man or invited him to have a pillow-fight because our institutions happen to not be geared to objectify men in this way. They objectify men in other ways though; especially in corporate culture where there is a tendency to emphasize those who neglect their families to work harder, to be cogs in a machine, to follow the orders of management. This may not be sexism -- that is, there is little reason to expect that women who join the corporate circuit are treated much differently -- but it certainly is objectification happening to men today. The pornography industry also objectifies men; in the industry men become little more than muscles, penises, and a bundle of perversions, with their stamina, girth, and virility being the most important qualities.

TL;DR = "rudeness" is not sexism, sexism is again the climate which generates, and is generated by, such rude acts. Key to the climate being "sexist" is that the climate lowers women beneath a baseline of what it is to be human. The examples you've given do not lower men beneath such a baseline, but there are cultural features which do and we should be wary towards those too, even though they tend to not be sexist per se.

[jack-r-abbit]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the act of inviting a woman to a pillow fight is sexism regardless of the gender of the requester. If so then we can agree that the act is equally <what ever label you use>. We may disagree on what that label is. If you label it sexism, that is your choice. I would call that rude or aggressively forward.

However, if you are thinking that it is only sexism if the requester is a male, then I think we'll have to agree to disagree completely because I am not going to buy into such gender based biases.

[drostie]

I'm not sure you do understand. The point is rather, "yes, it is rude and aggressively forward. Added onto that, the fact that someone felt free to do it, is sexism. And, the global environment that it creates is also sexism."

It is a sexist request in the sense that it was constructed by, and constructs, sexism. It does not directly oppress anyone, that is true -- but that is irrelevant, because that isn't the only mechanism of sexism (and isn't even the dominant mechanism).

[jack-r-abbit]

As long as we are agreeing that it is <what ever> regardless of who does it, I really don't care what you label it. That was my point. You can believe it is sexism. I will believe it is not. I don't have to believe it is sexism to think the behavior is bad. It is bad regardless. However, I believe labeling it as sexism is overly harsh due to what that label implies. I don't believe that label is deserved.