{"id":23717,"date":"2015-01-16T12:24:52","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T11:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=23717"},"modified":"2015-01-16T16:10:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-16T15:10:51","slug":"for-women-is-showing-up-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/for-women-is-showing-up-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Showing Up Enough for Women?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Valenti wriites:\u00a0 Feminists insist that the more women, people of color and LGBT individuals are visible, the better off \u2013 and more egalitarian \u2013 the world will be. But is simple representation the best answer to sexism?<\/p>\n

Women are still scarce in many places of power.<\/p>\n

The push for eventual parity, however, often means that the first women in traditionally male spaces \u2013 be it politics, gaming or even firefighting \u2013 are saddled with the responsibility of taking abuse until a critical mass is reached and (hopefully) the culture shifts, and of making that space more woman-friendly.<\/p>\n

Women still make up barely 24 per cent \u00a0off all legislators nationwide,.<\/p>\n

It is unclear if women’s presence in Congress has had much impact on the behavior of their male colleangues (or the continually sexist culture in politics).<\/p>\n

We simply don\u2019t have enough women represented yet to know what a critical mass might do. The fact that we\u2019re still counting women is because there\u2019s not that many of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re still looking at an institution that is overwhelmingly male; it\u2019s still the most exclusive men\u2019s club in the world\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Any person breaking in to a space where they\u2019re not of the dominant culture \u2013 it\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n

Asking individual women to enter hostile spaces to make them better is really asking women to make men better \u2013 and to make men better at women\u2019s own risk. But it shouldn\u2019t be women\u2019s responsibility to fix men or deal with their misogyny. Instead, men should be taking it upon themselves to treat women with respect, and demand their other male colleagues do the samen<\/p>\n

We need to regularly ask underrepresented folks: what would support look like to you? And then develop concrete, ongoing systems to provide that support.<\/p>\n

That means if a female politicians want more bathrooms, get them more bathrooms and lay off the potty jokes.\u00a0 It also means developing support and training for non-traditional jobs for women and demanding that straight white men do as much to make spaces friendly for underrepresented groups as those groups themselves. Women \u2013 and women\u2019s presence \u2013 aren\u2019t the only things that can end sexism, and closing gender gaps is more than just a number\u2019s game. So let\u2019s look forward to the day we can stop counting.<\/p>\n

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Jessica Valenti wriites:\u00a0 Feminists insist that the more women, people of color and LGBT individuals are visible, the better off \u2013 and more egalitarian \u2013 the world will be. But is simple representation the best answer to sexism? Women are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inequality","category-w-t-w"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t