What bothered me about that quote was the assertion that a human being simply cannot be racist or sexist without the power structure. Do you really believe that it is impossible for a woman to believe in her heart that women are superior to men, or for a Black man to believe that black people are superior genetically than white people. What do you call that if not sexism and racism? It's one thing to not be worried about the instances of these forms of sexism and racism. But I believe it's quite another to write them out of the definition.

Personally I think that was done more for rhetorical strategy (i.e. don't let conservative reactionaries use the powerful words "racism" and "sexism" against us) than for clarity. And in my mind that's intellectually dishonest.

It, like so many words, has different but somewhat similar definitions. One, simply, is discrimination based on sex. Another, more robust definition, includes power structures that women aren't a part of. There's no more point in going back and forth with somebody using a different definition than there is arguing whether the opposite of "right" is "left" or "wrong".

There are so many better things to argue about. Like, what's the deal with conservatives, amirite? And those liberals! Don't get me started. Don't even get me started.

Now, these things are silly, and they come from ignorance, and they're prejudices. They are inconvenient for Russians and beef-haters and the poor. But they're a world different than what, say, Muslims from the northeast get here (the last matter-of-fact description I heard of them is that they are "all dirty and love to steal") -- those prejudices get you locked up.

I don't care that much about the labels, but there is a kind of race ignorance and assumption that is a step towards understanding (the step before understanding), and a kind that is weaponized to limit or repress an individual group. I can tell the difference. I often feel like those perpetrating injustices can too, but choose not to think about it.

(that having been said, I think it's an awful idea for the president to be photographed showing off his muscles. Very Putinesque, very creepy.)

I repeat: discrimination against white people and white men in particular is not a social problem.

But that's just the point. It's one thing to argue that discrimination against white people or men is not a real social problem, it's another thing to argue that the definition of racism and sexism itself must comport with your conclusion.

I'd prefer to keep the definitions neutral, and then make all the arguments on privilege and power to stand on their own. In my view it is a more intellectually honest way to discuss things.

If we define sexism, racism, classism, cissexism, etc. as "power + privilege," then are you arguing that prejudices against white people carry the same social power as prejudices against black people, prejudices against cisexual men and women carry the same social power as prejudices against trans men and women, and prejudices against men carry the same social power as prejudices against women?

I would be surprised indeed if you could convince me that racism against white people is as much of a real social problem as racism against historically subjugated minorities. Why? Because white people have social power, so the prejudices of people who do not hold social power simply do not affect them.

If you're saying that this definition of these "isms" is only useful to people who want to point out that privileged people have privilege, I'd definitely agree with that. Privilege and social power are extremely relevant to sexism, and to ignore those forces is to completely ignore how sexism actually functions in our society. Of course, I invite argument as to which people have "privilege" and how that privilege functions. But to ignore it is, ahem, intellectually dishonest.

In my opinion, sexism and racism is merely discrimination that the speaker doesn't like.

They're less useful as genuine descriptive terms than they are useful as rhetorical tools. In other words, they are so accusatory by nature that they function less as a means to identify and more as a means to castigate. For these reasons it's obvious why someone like that blog writer would try to circumscribe the use of the phrases. She or he simply doesn't want the rhetorical force of the words to be used for causes he or she doesn't agree with. It's not a semantic argument, it's a political one.

At first I couldn't figure out why I was so frustrated by the Gender Bender quote, but then I realized it was because the issue that was frustrating me was predictably absent: the fact that we are (as usual) talking about CISwomen and CISmen.

The notion that (cis)women are NEVER capable of sexism EVER rests on the assumption that if one is looking at power re:gender (cis!)women are never part of "a dominant in-group," which is true only if everyone in the world is cis. If we're defining sexism as "power + prejudice based on gender," then when a (CIS!!!)woman acts on a prejudice against a transman, transwoman, genderqueer or genderfluid individual, etc., that's sexism, period.

Put another way, when the Gender Bender post says "there is no such thing as 'female privilege,'" I read "there is no such thing as ciswoman privilege," on which I call BS. And the fact that this possible interpretation is never addressed reinforces the point.