Jordan Haskins

Eng 101
Proposal
Sexism: Short Term Changes, Long Term Benefits
Professor Lynn Staeheli picked apart the definition of place once and described it, in
one sense, as a cultural and/or social location. Staeheli said that people are located within
webs of cultural, social, economic, and political relationships that shape their identities, or
personalities. The way people interact with each other in our society affects our world and what
its like to experience it. In the all too frequent cases in which women in society dont feel
comfortable in public, whether it be in a parking lot at night, walking alone on any street at any
time of day, or even going to a social event without a friend to stick with them. These
uncomfortable feelings are because the said cultural, social, economic, and political relationships
between men and women make it an uneven situation.
There are many ways that a situation can become uneven as I called it. For instance, the
situations that I mentioned previously-walking in a parking lot at night, walking alone on a street
at any time, or going to a large social event without a friend- women are often scared and
cautious in these situations because of their long-term life exposure to not only cultural, social,
economic, and political sexism but constant gender biases and inequalities. Whether it be
gender biases in grade school lessons or sports, gender roles in the home, rape culture, sexism in
the work force, the world wide wage gap, lack of women in media or politics, or double
standards in media and life in general. Every aspect of a womans life is encompassed by gender
inequalities from the day she is born. Every mom, sister, aunt, partner, friend, and daughter, has
been or will be affected in life by the inequalities between men and women. In school, every
woman was taught lessons that boys never had to sit through. In childhood, every woman was
subjected to gender roles and expectations that she wasnt even old enough to fully understand
such as belonging in the kitchen and not being expected to get a great high paying job like a
doctor or business woman. While in adulthood too, women have to deal with things like sexism
and wage gaps in the work force which always leave men on the higher end of the business scale,
as well as rape culture and double standards in social life. Sexism and gender inequalities are
things that women have to deal with for their whole lives. While American culture and media are
more to blame than the male species alone, it is because of these unnoticed and unaddressed
inequalities that the world seems unevenly in mens favor. These setbacks and restrictions dont
allow women to learn, work, or even exist to their full potential and in turn, this holds back half
of the worlds population from progression as well.
The solution to these inequalities in not easily attained, but with small changes, we can
start solving some of the small problems that make up the big one that we call sexism. We can
start in elementary school by, instead of sending the boys out to recess and teaching the girls
about pregnancy and tampons, we can teach all students together to ensure that there is a general
basis of knowledge of both genders among all children at a young age. In middle school and high
school, instead of only teaching kids about STDs and abstinence, we need to teach them how to
have healthy sexual and personal relationships that they are going to start having soon. As far as

sexism is the work force and gender biases or double standards go, these can be improved by
pairing the changes made in childhood to advocating for gender equality in all parts of life as
well. Given, this process will not be finished overnight. These changes may take months, years
or even decades. But as a female college student myself, I can say that for my future, and
hopefully my kids future, I can only hope that we start making changes now.
While some people may have conflicts when it comes to parenting or even exposure of
their children to certain conversations, the process of attaining true gender equality is about
prevention and education about the problem rather than having to deal with correcting the
problem. In other words, we need to focus on preventing these inequalities so later we dont have
to fix and cope with them. A 2015 PBS article called The Case for Starting Sex Education in
Kindergarten by Saskia De Melker, confronted the people opposed to early Sex Ed saying that
the goal is bigger than [just teaching kids about sex] its about having open, honest
conversations about love and relationships. If we open these lines of communication at an early
age, children will grow up with these tools and education into better people who have better
relationships. This in turn, will improve everyones overall place in society and everyones
experience of being in the world.
Like I said before, this is not an easy goal, sexism has been ingrained in American culture
for its entirety and it cant be cured in a day. But the main thing to take from this is that the
progression of the world can only come about when the prior restrictions placed on half of its
people are diminished and eventually resolved. So even though the ultimate goal of resolving
sexism isnt a very realistic short term goal, for women today and tomorrow, we at least can get
headed in the right direction.