I've been gone a few days swamped at work and this is what I come back to?

[TeamsterDem]

26. Sexism isn't defined that way

Sexism is believing another gender to be inferior to one's own. It's intent which is used to judge whether something or someone is sexist. For example an employer who pays women less, that's sexism. A man who thinks his wife or girlfriend belongs in the house is also sexism. If a man were to call a woman the C word with the intention of demeaning her as a woman, that would be sexism. But men often call each other the C word, amongst other flattering terms. Is that sexism? I'd suggest not because I am a man, and whenever I've used that word I never meant it as somehow demeaning of the person based upon their gender, but instead as an angry snipe against the person individually - be it a man or a woman.

What you're saying is that everyone who uses that word - no matter the intention - is a sexist. The problem is that's almost entirely wrong. I'm a guy, and in conversations with other guys I've literally never met a single one who thinks women are in any way "lesser" than men. Not a single one. Not all of them have used the C word, but the ones who did - in my experience - never meant to do anything remotely sexist. And absent intention, absent malice, it's not sexism. You might call it insensitive or even offensive, but sexism requires a value judgment - one presuming that one gender is superior. Without that judgment there is necessarily not sexism present.

Put a different way, if a woman were to get angry at a male coworker and called him a "dick," is that sexist? I'd suggest not: it's a commonly used word to express disdain for someone else. You must be fair in your application of the rule, though: If saying the C word is "sexist," then using other terms describing the male "parts" must also be sexism if applied to a man. Pretty soon no one could make jokes or get angry and use the ever-broadening array of body part slurs against anyone else lest they be painted a sexist, no matter that their intention wasn't meant to demean a gender but instead one particular person.

This shotgun approach to defining other people based entirely upon a very broad definition is wrong and counterproductive. While people waste time discussing what Bill Maher may or may not have said, they lose that time fighting against the actual sexists in this country who inflict real damage upon women. Large corporations, male bosses in occupations traditionally occupied by men, and of course the creeps in Congress and state houses across the country - all of whom are causing women REAL damage. But instead some people are set on attacking Bill Maher - a comedian - for making jokes which they don't like. If someone doesn't like Maher then they should utilize the little plastic thing that came with their TV and change the station; no one is forced to listen to him. That as contrasted to jobs and the law, the former being something most everyone needs and the latter controlling one's freedoms.