Motley Moose – Archive

Oh the irony!  

As the Supreme Court announced that it is going to place a second affirmative action case on its calendar, a review of Michigan’s Prop 2 affirmative action ban, which will join the case already before them (Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin), I thought I’d go back and review the right wing’s media presentation of all of this, and look at just who are the poster faces for the movement to eradicate programs in universities that help gain more access to higher education for those who are not privileged-blacks, latinos and native americans.  

Two white women and a black man are ostensibly leading the charge. I say ostensibly since the two women are named in legal cases and the third, the black man, claims to be a crusader for civil rights, but it only took a few moments to figure out that the same old right wing wrong-headed big money supporters of bigotry are forking over the green-backs to roll-back gains we’ve made since the 60’s.  

To start with, let me be clear: The oppression and general subjugation of women is not an exclusively Republican issue. The Stupak-Pitts amendment, which is an attack on women’s reproductive rights and was drafted by a Democrat from Michigan, makes that clear. Nor is the oppression and subjugation of women even an exclusively male issue. I don’t want to get into an argument about the “blame the victim” mindset, but the fact is, a lot of women adhere and/or contribute to the doctrine of male domination. Now, is that because they have been indoctrinated to do so? Sure. However, the same can be said of sexist men. Despite all the calls for political correctness and the efforts of feminists throughout the country and the world, everyone who has grown up in the United States has been influenced, in one way or another, by the pervasive and prevailing mindset of masculine domination. Some of us are more resistant to indoctrination than others, but few, if any, are entirely immune. We are all subject to the influences of gender stereotyping, no matter how careful our parents may have been to prevent it. Every day, we are inundated with indoctrinating images and ideas, through television, literature, music, and innumerable other mediums. What is most important isn’t that we are completely free of assumptions about the opposite sex, or even our own, but that we strive to understand the causes and effects of sexism and rail against it when we perceive it.