Thanks to Laura Becherer for her insightful column highlighting the insidious nature of sexism in our culture.  Her experience in an ethnic studies class is a perfect example of how sexism is so pervasive that it is trivialized. I was not amused to see her argument illustrated several pages later in the “Blundergrads” comic strip, where humor through insult is attempted by calling two males “ladies.” The comic is funny only if you accept the premise that male is the standard and female is substandard. This is only one example of the hundreds of messages males and females produce and consume daily that undermine females’ credibility; the result is subversion of women’s rights, negation of women’s abilities, and the appropriation and desecration of women’s bodies.

Mary Rose Williams
Associate Professor
Communication Technologies