Reflection paper

I am going to talk about two different forms of discrimination, sexism and racism. I
specifically chose these two topics because I think they’re both very important to talk
about, since they’re both currently quite large problems in the world. Also because
they kind of walk hand in hand in a way - which I will tell you more about later.

Sexism, in theory, means prejudiced discrimination, oppression or exploitation of

people, solely based on a person's gender. The word was “invented” by the women's
rights movement in the United States during the 1960s, and since then it’s been
commonly used in different parts of feminism. It is also a parallel formation to the
word racism, which I’ll talk more about later. Sexism itself however, has existed for
over 12 000 years, which to me is kind of insane, considering the fact that it still
exists and is a very big and current issue all over the world.

A common misconception often made is that sexism is only towards women, which
definitely isn't true. It goes both ways. Nevertheless, since it is such a big and current
issue in our society, it’s important to talk about what is happening and to whom, which
right now is mostly women.

In a way, you could say that there are different “levels” of sexism, because it is such a
wide topic. Therefore, there is a huge gap between extreme sexism and subtle sexism,
even though they both count as sexism. A few cases of extreme sexism can be for
example sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, rape and other forms of any
sexual violence. Again, this doesn't just happen to women, but that being said, the
majority of the times something like this does happen, it is to a woman by a man. And
this is partially the reason for the very common misconception of the word.

That being said, sexism isn't just physical, or a person's acts. It’s actually more
common for sexism to be verbal, which has led to it being almost normalized in some
cases. Sometimes verbal sexism is so normalized that most people don't even realize
that it’s happening. A few examples of this can be: evaluating women less positively
than men, ignoring and talking over women, or not acknowledging when they do
something good. It can also be catcalling, wolf-whistling, making sexual remarks and
comments about one's appearance, or telling a partner how they should dress.
Moving on to the second topic, the word racism basically means discrimination solely
based on another person's skin color, ethnicity or nationality etc. It can also be
explained as: the belief that different races or ethnicities possess certain characteristics
or qualities that distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another. The first
recorded utterance of the word was in 1902, but racism itself existed long before that.

Unlike sexism, I wouldn't say you can divide racism into different levels. Seeing as it
has such a long and horrible history behind it, I don’t think any type of racist behavior
should be excused in any way. Of course, there are many different ways of showing
and expressing racism toward another person or group of people, but that doesn’t
mean one way is more or less serious than another.

Throughout history, racism has been a big issue that has affected a lot of people and
many different cultures. A few cases where racism has shown very clearly are for
example, the slave trade during the 1600-1800s. Also the apartheid system in America
between 1948-1994, when people of color weren’t allowed to do things - just because
of their skin color.

A quite common example of racism in our society today is generalization, for

example by using comments like “you people…” and “people like you”.
Another type of racism that often goes unnoticed is denial of individual racism - when
a white person denies their racial biases. For example: “I’m not racist, I have many
black friends”. Which basically means “I am immune to racism because I have friends
of color”. Contrary to popular belief, ignoring or denying the issue isn’t making it
disappear. So when a person says things like “When I look at you I don’t see color”,
they’re not removing the problem. Instead, they’re just denying a person of color’s
racial or/and ethnic experiences.

I wouldn't say any of these forms of discrimination is more important than the other,
because they’re both such big current issues that affect two very different groups of
people. Therefore I don't see why one should be prioritized above the other.