The Evil -isms: Sexism and Speciesism

Of all the challenges I've faced in my life, sexism is the most vexing.  It has been a constant source of anger and frustration; mostly anger.  It comes from the media, the way history is taught in classes, and even my friends at times.  One of the worst instances is the whole joke about how women are always told to "make me a sandwich" because they belong in the kitchen.  Just typing this phrase sets light to my internal kindling and builds quite a fire.  I really can't even express how enraged I get when I hear boys say stupid stuff like that.  I've lost friends because I couldn't stand their "friendly teasing" made me too angry.  So I found this reading mentally stimulating and related to a topic of personal importance.

"Women who avoid acknowledging that they are animals closely resemble men who prefer to ignore that women are human." (590)

I can see how the instinctual reaction is to fight fire with fire.  They try to set themselves apart from all the criticism by denying any connection exists but that's just acting as immature and rude as those who oppress them.  It's hard not to fall into that trap even when you're aware of it.  My personal defiance is never of the verbal sort but tends to be of the same reactionary nature.  I've always hated the idea that women are weak and physically incapable of certain activities.  As a middle schooler, I got unbelievably annoyed when the boys said girls can't play football so I'd prove them wrong during our lunch recess.  I did enjoy playing because I loved the activity but I was so focused on proving myself most of the time that I really never got to relax and have fun.  So I guess this all goes back to our early theme of living reactionary versus proactively in the even bigger theme of sympathy and connection to creatures different from ourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CWMCt35oFY
Watch this clip on Disney movies and Sexism to see its pervasiveness in our culture

"Frequent capitalization literally elevates Man above other animals, whose names remain lowercase." (591)

On a more general discriminatory trend trend, I've noticed this issue of capitalization from personal reading experience.  Particularly, in the bible I always found it interesting to see which words were deemed worthy of a capital letter and which were relegated to the lowercase.  It's always made me wonder, when did the capitalization become an issue?  The bible wasn't originally written in English after all.  We tend to think of the original language used to write the bible was Hebrew and Aramaic but there are actually even older translations.  So did any of these ancient languages actually have capital letters?  I know for a fact that some don't.  So when did we first make this change to Man above beast?

http://www.lifescapemag.com/why-animal-advocasy-can-be-seen-as-feminist-issue/

"The said question of the said animal in its entirety comes down to knowing not whether the animal speaks but whether one can know what respond means." (597)

It's so odd that we presume to believe that animals can't actually respond to our language or understand our motives.  What defines a response in human terms?  The ability to communicate back within the same language?  I find that rather limiting.  In fact, most of human's communication is carried through body language and our facial expressions.  Very little of what we say gets through without these physical cues.  And actually, because animals don't have the physical capacity to speak, they're that much more expressive with their actions.  We judge "higher intelligence" on such flimsy, human-based attitudes but it seems to be our only point of reference.  And that comes back to my last reference to the text.

"Presumption is our natural and original disease." (584)

Have we not heard the multitudes of quotes relating to pride and it's negative consequences?  Pride comes before a fall.  Pride is the original sin.  Hubris always leads the Greek tragedy to it's depressing end.  We have so many little sayings and catch phrases about the dangers of pride but we seem incredibly bad at following our own advice.  I personally think we go wrong with knowing where we need to be careful or aware.  A general sense of awareness of the world around us would help reduce the pride issue without hardly trying.

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/02/rashad_mccants.php