Wow. Sexist much? Really, really fucking sexist. Let’s just look at all the ways this is sexist:
—The assumption that the “default” engineering student is male
—The assumption that female engineers are so scarce that it’s impossible to have an engineering class with more than a tiny handful of women in it compared to many men
—The assumption that all women in engineering are ugly
—Describing women engineers based on their appearance, rather than their intelligence, knowledge, or, you know, anything you might use to describe men, engineers or otherwise
And then men in engineering and other technical areas of study wonder why there aren’t more women. It’s not because we suck at math or science or technical information. It’s that we’re conditioned from an early age to focus on our looks and downplay our intelligence and not go into anything “too nerdy”. It’s that when we DO go into these fields, we have to deal with being assessed and judged not as human beings, not as fellow students and later as professionals, but as sex objects, as “token females”. It’s that we have to deal with harassment, and gender-based discrimination, and having to prove ourselves in ways men don’t have to.
And then you act so damned confused as to why there aren’t more women in these fields? Really?
So what constitutes a “slut”? A woman who happens to like sex? Is there some magical number of partners that you have had that makes you a slut? I’m 33 and the number of sexual partners I’ve had in my lifetime, male and female combined, is in the double digits. Am I a slut? Or does it have to do with the duration of relationships? I was married for 3 1/2 years and the relationship in total was a year longer than that. Does that cancel out those three one night stands I had when I was younger? Or is it the fact that as I’ve gotten older I have found that I much prefer long-term relationships? Maybe being polyamorous just completely ruins any chances I have of not being a slut.
But seriously, let’s make it clear: slut-shaming sucks. The above e-card may be intended as “humor”, but humor is a meme in the viral sense, not just the internet fluff sense, and as a meme it conveys cultural information and communicates certain norms. Humor that encourages slut-shaming also encourages treating women who like sex, or who have more than X number of partners, as dirty and somehow lesser than the virginal or monogamous. Humor is one manifestation of larger cultural and social patterns, and it does help to normalize these patterns. Worse, those who want to invalidate people who fight against those harmful patterns can just say “Well, it’s just humor, don’t take it so seriously”.
Which is the exact same things bullies tell their victims all the time. It doesn’t stop the damage the bullies do to their victims. So think about that before you reblog something like this.
Dear Facebook,
No, switching over to leet speak as my language on my account and finding that “female” became “sandwich maker” was NOT amusing or funny or a good joke. It was sexist and disgusting; it’s basically another version of the bullshit misogynist putdown “get back in the kitchen”, used to belittle and marginalize women for entirely too long.
If FB for whatever had a “race” setting, would it be okay if the only option for black people was “n*****” or “slave”? Really, how did this even get through?
This is a pretty rotten Easter egg, folks.
No love,
Lupa
PS to readers—here’s where you can go report it: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=ui_profile
