Why would men’s razor blades and football make women want to appear nearly nude? Good question, and one I hadn’t ever expected to be asking.

But, a few weeks ago, a couple of the Catalyst Canada team members arrived at work shaking their heads in wonder about the promotion that involved scantily clad women giving away samples of razor blades to commuters in Union Station. Then someone else drew my attention to this article about a lingerie football league.

How far have we come? Women can be captains of ships, captains of industry, and even “captain” of the Supreme Court of Canada, but skimpy clothing is still considered an appropriate uniform for sales pitches and entertainment sports.

What’s wrong with that? No one is being hurt. The women are having fun. And why shouldn’t attractive women show off their beauty?

The women selling razor blades—like the women selling cars and men’s colognes—are part of the insidious sexism that persists in popular culture in spite of the achievements of individual women. And no one is going to take lingerie football seriously, except as an opportunity to leer.

These two—possibly extreme—examples of everyday sexism led us to look for other ways that we perpetuate sexist stereotypes within our culture. Let me share some examples from our 24 hours of sexism:

“Men working above” signs assume that no women are working on the site—and that no one thought there could be when they ordered the signs! But then, it’s hard to do construction work in lingerie!

Then there’s the name change dilemma.  How many men do we know who would even consider changing the name they had carried for their entire lives?

Or maybe the kitchen-obsessed wife who can’t even hear the problems of her hard-working husband.

The use of exclusive language, such as fireman—or referring to a doctor as “he” and a teacher as “she”—especially around children who are still figuring out that gender needn’t dictate career.

The automatic assumption by utility companies, financial advisors, or realtors (frequently women!) that the husband’s name is first on the bill, the investment, or the title deed.

I invite all of you to post your most irritating example of insidious sexism. Together we can call out sexism and put an end to it once and for all!

Tags: marketing, popular culture, sexism, stereotypes, women

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Sexism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.