Witch hunts in the Middle Ages. Glass ceilings and wage disparities in corporate environments all over the world. The fact that women only hold 17% of the seats in Congress. Honor killings and acid attacks in the Middle East. Female infanticide in India. FGM (female genital mutilation) in Africa. The Mad Men era and the disturbing statistics that women make up the majority of Americans living in poverty, and that one in five women in America will be sexually assaulted within their lifetime.
Social media, music and magazines pushing a culture where it is acceptable to be sexist and objectifying and 'rate' women and call them 'Miss Piggy' (yes I'm looking at the knight in shining, depraved and orange armor). Rape culture and victim shaming. The history of 'female hysteria' and 'fainting rooms' in the the 1870s leading through the early 1900s. Yes, we have come a long way - women are allowed to vote, the pay gap is closing, but these are not enough. Merely surface changes, a daily face-washing routine of the terrible acne that is deep rooted sexism.
The Bechdel test, women having to be in scenes of seduction and provocative attires in movies and TV shows. You know, because it helps the plot move forward organically and all that. The disturbing truth that to be sexist is always funny, and that it's just another thing people are too sensitive about nowadays. Yes, men are also objectified in media. But it's always with a sense of power, conquering and dominance, whereas women are treated as objects of acquisition, like land or territory or loyalty or power, as shown in the gangster films. No matter what your politics, the microscopically critical and condescending coverage of the tiniest details about Secretary Clinton and the unforgivable glossing over of Mr. Trump's most terrible remarks from his Greatest Incendiary Statements CD as just, well being Trump, underscores yet another bump in the turbulent ways sexism exists today. The fact that little to no men adress sexism in the media or even just their daily lives, and are addressed as being 'white knights' or just 'trying to get some' if they do.
Yes, worse issues in the world exist, things beyond you and I. Things beyond the scope of our sometimes limited intelligences if the gravity of the situation is considered, but the intrinsic act of downgrading, without thought, half the world's population, is an issue we can and should solve just by ceasing to do it, otherwise it will be a waste of our intelligences if we continue it.
If you don't like this article, burn after reading. Which is a great movie, by the way.
