Mcintosh Discrimination Against Women

Women have been downgraded and mistreated because of their gender. From birth, Women and Men grew up with very different rules to follow. Men were raised to be the head of the house and do work for a living. Growing up as little girls, women were taught to raise their kids and make food for their families. “Strong family structures were necessary because the family was the basis for all other institutions. The government, church, and community all worked through the nuclear family unit.”(“Gender and

McIntosh's realization had varied views. At the micro level, society treats her as superior because of her skin color. At the mezzo level, which focuses on groups of people, society assumes white communities are dominant, thus creates a social norm. Furthermore, the article describes the macro level where women are oppressed in the patriarchal society, while men are not to blame for their unawareness of their privileges.

This book review is on the book, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, which was published in 2014. Rebecca Solnit writes a book of essays that interprets the silence that women hold towards men in their everyday life. Young women must know the reality that we do not live a fairy tale life where women are treated as royalty by their husband or boyfriend. Women are treated as objects in where men could play with them as if they are dolls, whom they pay attention to whenever they would like to or need something from them. Despite what a woman says to men, all men are always going to have the reason, even if they are not right. The silences that a woman holds towards men are creating an even broader issue towards women in the present and in the future. The author mainly argues that women should not silence themselves and their issues such as abuse, harassment, rape, violence, stalking or any other crimes that are hurting them emotionally and physically. “Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender” (Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me, page 21). If women continue not to speak up and take action, men are going to continue to take abuse and control over their power.

Throughout our experience, we have encountered so many challenges when it comes to gender in the society. Gender is being used as a basis for stratifying people in the society. In this article, the racial caste system that used to exist in the United State is depicted. In that the black women were denied the access to justice because of their status. They were perceived to be people who do not have any right within the society and no one could believed them when they were raped by the white men because all the court judges were white men according to this article. The women were classified to be from poor background and they should remain at a low class in the society.

McIntosh’s realization had varied views. At the micro level, society treats her as superior because of her skin color. At the mezzo level, which focuses on groups of people, society assumes white communities are dominant, thus creates a social norm. Furthermore, the article describes the macro level where women are oppressed in the patriarchal society, while men are not to blame for their unawareness of their privileges.

Gender Equality is a big issue throughout the world, but what exactly is it? Well to answer that, it is the view that everyone should receive equal treatment and not be discriminated against based on gender. Today, most women are getting treated differently compared to men. Whether it is based on pay gap, power, or strength the problem comes up. Men think they are stronger and better than women and this upsets women because it makes them feel like they don’t have a place in this world. This is where feminism comes into place. I chose this topic because I can relate to it more than the racial option, although now it could be about the same.

McIntosh also points out, that men tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men. She

For centuries women had had to bow to men they were taught never to speak unless called upon or spoken to. That their sole purpose in life was to be a homemaker; a servant to the men in their lives fathers, brothers, sons. As time progressed women began to fight for their right to receive equal rights, education and vote. But that wasn’t enough in the year 2013 women still made eighty cents to every man’s dollar but that all changed one day. Women who were sick of being oppressed had risen up against the male chauvinism within society of the united states.The first measure was to take all men out of all positions of decision-making power immediately, and of any kind of social, professional position whatsoever. The men of society were

Women know not all men are the same. However, men indirectly participate in the cultural problem. Plait states, “If we’re quiet, we’re part of the problem. If we don’t listen, if we don’t help, if we let things slide for whatever reason, then we’re part of the problem, too.” The cycle of sexism will continue, if nothing is done.

That woman today doesn’t have a lot of power because we live in a planet where in other countries and religion, men are to be believed to be superior to women. Also for the second point women should claim any type of abuses, even if it is a minor incident, to alert me to step away and not to mess with women, even if these types of defenses mechanics could be called by men as feminism.

Male privilege has existed for centuries, but it was not widely discussed until around 1988 when Peggy McIntosh, a scholar working for Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, wrote a paper titled, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies,”. The paper takes a look both at white and male privilege, with a long list of 46 examples of McIntosh’s own, self-recognized privilege as a white woman. The paper sparked a massive controversy and extremely opposing opinions on privilege. David Horowitz, an American writer with deep conservative views and values, deemed McIntosh one of “America’s ten wackiest feminists”.

There is a denial in the observations that there is one specific dominating male gender. There is also an abundance of only white women`s experiences by this masculine hegemon. After women realized that the world view did not only have to be seen on a male standpoint the world started to shift views (Frankenberg, 1993, pp. 8).  Women of colour now want to focus on a standpoint from a radicalized point of view in order to stop racism. Moreover, since white people are the oppressors they cannot see how their situation is reinforcing racism. People of colour are the oppressed and know exactly how they are underprivileged. Subsequently, women of colour were the first to see how gender, race and class forms a persons experience in life (Frankenberg, 1993, pp. 8). White women did not see their race as something that was constructed. They did not see themselves as racialized because they were coming from a position of privilege.  This position for a white person was normalized throughout American history. Therefore, in order to deconstruct race white women have to admit it is something that affects them (Frankenberg, 1993, pp. 11).

Ever since the early Americas, even today, there is discrimination. Discrimination is “ The practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Another way of describing discrimination is the practice of treating a group or people based on their differences to another group. Much discrimination is based on women and race.

Throughout history, countless acts of gender inequality can be identified; the causes of these discriminating accounts can be traced back to different causes. The general morality of the inequity relies on a belief that men are superior to women; because of this idea, women have spent generations suffering under their counterparts. Also, a common expectation is that men tend to be more assertive and absolute because of their biological hormones or instinctive intellect. Another huge origin is sexual discrimination; even in the world today, many women are viewed by men as just sex objects rather than a real human being with

Gender discrimination against women is out of control across the world and seeps into many aspects of women 's lives. This discrimination harms women in two ways. First, women directly experience stressful events. The experience of sexism is so common that some research suggests women can experience one to two instances of everyday sexism. But women aren 't only harmed by sexism through the physical stress caused by others. They are harmed to the extent that they internalize and adopt these sexist attitudes that can manifest as poor self-concept. This negative self-concept often obvious on a subconscious level, as women and men will demonstrate automatic negative biases against women (Ferguson, 2013).