Sexism and racism are related, right? There are quite a few good posts around laying into various mainstream media articles to which I will not refer. Phantom’s on a real roll. If you haven’t read what she has to say, I highly recommend it. I was going to point to Laura at 11D’s single post, but she’s got a few plus links to others. Just go there. And Bitch, Ph.D. has an awesome rant, mostly related to housework. Elizabeth also chimes in, riffing off of Dr. B. And Amanda at Pandagon has written a virtual book on the issue.

I have one question (which Laura at 11D already raised): where are the men? Are there any men writing about this? Let’s go see. BRB.

Not much. There’s Rebel Dad and he’s quite reasonable of course. There was one that was, as you might expect, blaming the feminists even more (imagine that kid in the Simpsons who says, “HA HA” in that really annoying way). And there’s this one, which is interesting. And there’s Atrios, who reminds us that raising kids is hard work. Um, that seems to be it.

Seriously, why is it in these isms that the oppressed always get blamed. It’s the feminists who failed, the civil rights movement or the people it was supposed to help who failed. It’s never a problem with the whole system. Remember Lawrence Summers and 80 hour work weeks?

Honestly, if I could work 30 hours/week, my life would be significantly better. Doesn’t seem possible, does it? It’s true. I could be home in time to meet the bus, work with my kids for a while. Actually Mr. Geeky is planning to do this next year if he gets tenure. In terms of housework, yes, we often fall into fairly traditional roles and sometimes the work is unbalanced, but we do often renegotiate and try to arrange things so that there’s more balance, but it’s a constant battle. There are strong forces pulling us into stereotypical roles and workloads. I’m actually working very hard on these issues on my own campus. There are some seriously entrenched attitudes in the workforce, even (maybe especially) in the ivory tower.