Fighting sexism
"As a Hispanic woman living in the United States, I am faced with a mixture of two worlds: one where men tell women what to do and another where women are independent and make their own decisions." — Pilar Verdes, Atlanta Constitution, September 6, 2001.
In spite of her protests, when Pilar Verdes was anchorwoman for a television news station in Venezuela the newscast was always started off by the co-anchorman. Sexism? Probably. Most television news broadcasts are started by the anchorman — not the female co-anchor.
Verdes, a journalist who currently covers North Georgia's Hispanic community for the newspaper Munda Hispanico, states that one of the reasons she left Venezuela "was because, in my country, women are treated as private property. There are no laws against sexual harassment..." In seeking a better life in America she soon realised that sexism, although not as bad here as in Venezuela, is still alive and well. She reports:
"Married men in the Hispanic media who were in a position of power over me — my bosses — asked me out on dates more than once in the United States. When I worked for a TV news network, my boss, a married Latino with three children, made sexually suggestive comments and twice invited me out for wine.
"I refused. He made my life miserable. He created a paper trail that said I was not committed to my career, was irresponsible, late to work. He also took special pleasure in telling me that I was not going to be able to work as a journalist again. I was a foreigner living alone in the United States. Now, that was scary."
She laments that she not only still has to deal with sexism in her professional life, but in her personal life, as well. "A former Latino boyfriend in the United States sometimes wanted me to remove his shoes and socks when he came home from work." He thought that she should be subservient to him — and this was after he had been living in America for more than 20 years — in spite of the fact that Verdes' professional and personal responsibilities were equal to his.
I hope that my granddaughters do not settle for partners with such a mindset. As I watch them growing into maturity I become increasingly sensitive to what is, and is not, sexist behaviour. I hope that they will each choose a mate who is free of sexism. I hope, too, that none of my grandsons will be inclined to try to reduce his mate to little more than a sexual convenience who fetches and carries.
Needless to say, I sympathise with Verdes' personal and professional struggles against sexist behaviour. In writing this column, I make it a point to avoid contributing to sexist concepts. If, inadvertently, I do, readers inform me of my error and I am always grateful to be corrected. At the end of her essay, Verdes declares: "No, I do not remove anybody's shoes. And if somebody does not like it, I will say as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O'Hara: 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn'."
While the first part of her closure inspires me with enthusiasm — I support her refusal to be used — the second part catches me entirely off guard. Her use of the words of a sexist fictional character to buttress her argument is self-defeating, to say the least. She has taken this quote from one of the most sexist and racist literary works of the 19th century, Gone With the Wind. Scarlett O'Hara is the epitome of a woman who encourages the very behaviour that Verdes complains of. Imagine if I had used a quote from Rhett Butler, a character who supports slavery, to help drive home the point of an essay I wrote about the evils of racism!
Although it seems futile and even absurd for Verdes to attack sexism and then call forth a sexist — and racist — character to support it, it cannot dilute her powerful message in which she details a series of events that clearly demonstrate how the demoralising disease of sexism eats away at the very flesh of society. I appreciate her valiant battle.
I have stated on more than a few occasions that sexism and racism exist in a symbiotic state in America. Verdes' fight against one of these evils serves to bolster the fight against the other.
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <brandonastorjones@hotmail.com>. Jones depends entirely on donations. He welcomes contributions in any amount. In Australia, please transfer or deposit money directly into account #082-631 53 096 4691 at the Australian National Bank, Ltd. This account, under the name A. Frischkneckt, is entirely dedicated to receiving donations for him. US readers: please make a money order or cashier's cheque payable Del Cassidy, Jones' trustee, and send it to him at 142 Wilmer Street, Glassboro, New Jersey, 08028. Jones is seeking a publisher for his collected prison writings. Please notify him of any possible leads. Visit Jones' web page at .]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 14, 2001.
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