Institutional Sexism Essay

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Prior to reading the excerpts dealing with gender discrimination from Race, Class, and Gender in the United States by Paula Rothenberg, I thought that gender discrimination was becoming a thing of the past. In today’s society, I felt that we were more aware of how huge of a gap there is between men and women, and that we were constantly working to change that. However, after reading the following passages I can clearly see that this was a misconception. The structure of injustice that was most present throughout these readings was that of institutional sexism. Institutional sexism is discrimination based on gender. However, institutional sexism does not have to be solely based on the discrimination of females, but it can also be the discrimination …show more content…

Another example of institutional sexism was displayed when Gayle Cameron faced challenges while working in law enforcement. For instance, there were no women’s bathrooms or locker rooms located at her facility. Female officers also had to do modified push-ups, chin-ups, and female-only self-defense drills, which showed that the “women had not earned their dues” (Rothenburg, p. 292). I found these acts of institutional sexism to be incredibly shocking. It is sad that we live in a world where people feel that it is okay to do these things, especially based on the account of an individual’s gender. It is also when you read stories such as these that you realize that there is still a lot to be done when it comes to closing that gap between men and …show more content…

Sheffield has impacted my views on institutional sexism dramatically as well. There were several examples in this piece alone that displayed this structure of injustice. One example that particularly stood out was that “early and sustained sex-role socialization teaches that women are responsible for the sexual behavior of men and that women cannot be trusted” (Sheffield, p. 122). This sentence explained exactly how my high school looked at the dress code for the females. Girls were not allowed to wear shirts that displayed their undergarments, shorts that did not go past their fingers when they had them at their side, and their tank tops had to be two fingers wide. After looking at the list of things females could not wear versus males, many of the females at my school were enraged with this policy because they felt that it had targeted them. The school was worried that this type of appearance may distract other students, in particular male students. However, it is not seen the other way around where men are responsible for the sexual behavior of women. These are just a few out of the many examples of institutional sexism that were mentioned in the passages as well as my through my own

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