"I've been chatting recently with some of my girlfriends about sexism on
campus. It's funny--almost every time I bring it up, everyone gets
nervous, apparently thinking they're in for some sort of tirade against
men that will conclude with me urging women to burn their bras and stop
shaving their legs. Once I explain that I'm just curious to see if they
think sexism exists here at Williams, people visibly relax.
I don't understand why talking about sexism makes some of us
so nervous. We seem to be doing okay in discussing racism: the
conversation has been contentious, arduous and, frankly ugly, but at
least it's happening. When you talk about racism, it seems, you're
being brave by taking a stand on a serious problem; when you talk about
sexism, you're a crazy feminist or a shrew.
This reluctance to discuss sexism on campus is particularly
strange, given our collective comfort level in talking about rape and
sexual assault. As co-coordinator of the Rape and Sexual Assault
Network (RASAN), I have been deeply impressed by the campus's support
for the organization. At the same time, however, I can't help but
compare students' receptiveness for RASAN with our collective freak-out
when the Women's Center was started two years ago. I am not now and
never was involved with the Women's Center (in fact, I was initially a
bit leery of its presence on campus), but the hostility with which it
was met continues to baffle me. People argued that it would negatively
impact gender relations on campus, that it would benefit a minority of
students, and that there are not enough exclusively "women's issues" to
necessitate such a space on campus.
The -ism That's Overlooked
Talk about racism on college campuses is trendy, but talk about sexism has been too easily pushed aside at Williams College. From The Williams Record.