PUBLISHED November 14, 2014

Reader Question: Where Are You From That Sexism Is Such a Problem?

Where are you from that feminism is really that much of a problem? Where I’m from.. nobody even thinks like that guys and girls get along here there is no sexism… People need to stop getting so butt-hurt and offended because it seems like they’re making an issue out of nothing and making it a bigger deal than it really is.

That’s fantastic that you live in some part of the country where “guys and girls” “get along.” Really, cherish that. Now I don’t know your gender, or from what seemingly mystical land you are writing from, but perhaps it’s not that sexism does not exist around you, but rather that you have personally not experienced it. The fact that you yourself have neither experienced sexism nor bore witness to it (shockingly) does not mean it does not exist. If a woman suffers 100+ instances of harassment on the streets of New York within a ten hour time frame and you’re not around to hear it…does it still exist? (Hint: Yes).

The biggest threat to women in this world, in this country, is not disease, or natural disaster, or accidental traffic mishaps, or diabetes, or carbon monoxide poisoning, or nuclear threats, or airborne viruses, or the common cold, but men. 

To have answered your own question you could have simply typed “crimes against women” into your browser and entertained yourself for the rest of 2014, and the better part of 2015, scrolling through articles of instances of harassment, assault, bias, unequal working conditions, sex crimes, sex trafficking, and rape against women in this country and across the globe.

Furthermore, whether I have suffered gravely at the hands of sexists or nah I am an evolved citizen of the world and will fight for those who have and who do. What makes us so amazing is that we can feel empathy. We can hear the stories of people halfway across the world, or just over in the next town, and feel for them. We can take up arms to fight against the injustices that plague any one of our fellow humans. We can care

When the number of women killed by their husbands and boyfriends stretches far beyond that of troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined we need feminism. We need feminism to pound into the skulls of small minded, lazy, self-indulgent fucks who can’t see their hands in front of their own faces through all the ignorance that blinds them to the FACT…that there is still work to be done. 

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