Chapter 2 reminded me a lot of a class that I took last year. The class was Minority Group Relations and even though the class was about race, it directly correlates with gender issues. This further shows the link between sexism, racism, classism and all the other isms. One of the points that really reminded me of the class was about the bootstrap myth. This is also called the myth of meritocracy which says if you work hard at something, you will succeed. Because of this myth, people believe that things like racism and sexism don’t exist. What this ends up doing is perpetuating these inequalities. There is a personal detachment that people put up. If a person believes they are not a sexist, they feel that nothing needs to be done and they don’t need to learn about it. This is a case of ignorance is bliss: If a person doesn’t know about sexism and racism then they don’t believe that it is true and that it really exist. The U.S. has been socialized to believe that we live in a just society and everybody has the same opportunities. Even if one person who has been in poverty all of their life works hard and earns success doesn’t mean that can happen for everyone. If a woman becomes a CEO of a company, you can believe that there are hundreds more who worked just as hard if not harder and were not able to accomplish the same thing. If a group doesn’t have certain resources, in the case of women it would be power, then what they are able to accomplish is extremely limited no matter how much work is put forth.
You're right when you say not everybody who works hard will make it like the myth says. If you're poor or unsuccessful, people tend to think its your fault and you just don't want to work hard or you don't want to succeed "badly enough." My parents are working class and I see how they are looked down at and judged by more powerful people like doctors, teachers all the time simply because they have less -- as if it is THEIR fault they have less.
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