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GENERALDECAY

You may call me Alice. Because that's my name, you see.
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Member Since: 5/2007

Reverse sexism and reverse racism

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I am part of another online community - a feminist community - which does not recognise 'reverse discrimination'. Specifically, it does not recognise 'reverse sexism' or 'reverse racism'. The rationale for this, as I understand it, is that a person cannot be sexist or racist if s/he is not part of the applicable dominant and powerful structure.

Therefore, according to this paradigm, women cannot be sexist towards men because they do not hold privilege or institutional power over men; and non-whites cannot be racist towards whites because they do not hold privilege or institutional power over whites.

This argument can also be applied to reverse class, reverse ableism, etc., but I am primarily interesting in reverse racism and sexism.

I can understand the reasoning behind this theory, particularly when it is positioned within a feminist discourse, but I'm not sure I agree with it. For example, if I, as a woman, made a derogatory and gendered remark about a man's inability to fix a car, could that not be considered a sexist remark? * I feel that it could be, but according to the position above, it could not because I am not part of the dominant gender group.

I'm interested in your thoughts.

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(*) I wouldn't ever, and this is an over-simplified example.

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