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I'm a senior at St. Ansgar high school. I was wondering if you could tell me some of the major reasons that men and women are so sexist aginst each other? This would help me out very much. Thank you for you time. - Josh

To begin, I think that we have to look at what "sexist" means. Following the dictionary definition being sexist, it means "discriminating in favor of members of one sex." It also means "assuming that a person's abilities and social functions are determined by his or her sex." As someone who doesn't believe that there are pre-determined roles for men and women, I don't think that men and women are sexist from the get-go. Sexism comes into play when our gender roles are defined for us.

As for an answer as to "why" people do this, I think the main reason is fear...either fear that your "power" is being taken away from you and/or fear that you have to take more responsibility for yourself. Most of this fear is based on ignorance--either not believing that one gender is capable of doing what the other gender is or not believing in yourself. We are limited by barriers as much as we limit ourselves. Until will push these limitations by daring to believe in ourselves, we will have a hard time moving those barriers. I hope this helps. Good luck.


Amy

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