Inside the Levan Center on Nov. 5, Philosophy Professor Reginald Williams, gathered coworkers and friends alike to discuss the words racism, sexism and misogyny.
“If you look up the literature on racism and sexism, of course it’s a philosophical topic, and what you notice when you look at philosophical issues and you read about them.tons and tons of disagreements,” said Williams.
Williams begin the inquiry, first with an anecdote for his reasoning behind having the discussion, noting that he comes from a modest background that influences much of his socio-political studies – then he moved on to discuss the etymology of the words, what they convey, and the degree at which they convey.
“Certainly if you’re seen as a misogynist on campus with your students, or even a sexist or racist or whatever, that is not some lightweight charge, so we need some clarity and it’s really hard to get it even on this kind of basis.”
As the discussion progressed, examples of statements that could be construed as racist, sexist, or misogynist, and rather the words, which carry social and behavioral determiners that can be construed as a negative implication upon the individual they are intended for, are appropriate in classification with some statements.
The example was given: “Women tend to be smaller or more petite than men.” Some of the audience assured that it was a generalization. Williams asked, “Are generalizations OK?” and whether there was truth to the statement.
Communication Professor Michael Korcok during this point said, “The medium height of woman is less than the medium height of men on this earth and has been historically the case.”
In the case of this statement, Williams went on to say, “I hear that there is some level of truth to this.I hear that there is no negative connotation to it. Interesting is, it might depend on the context.”
Further examples of sexist or misogynist statements were provided such as “women are whores” and “women are evil,” in which they were concluded to contain elements that could deem them as misogynistic and not sexist. In relation to the Oxford English Dictionary definitions of the terms, it was concluded that misogyny carries a hateful connotation toward where as sexism implies a lesser but still an offensive attitude or treatment of one based on sex.
This severity difference between the words sexist and misogynist was further related to the word racist.
“In the sex case we have a distinction – sexism, misogyny,” said Williams, “In the race case, I have looked far and wide and I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read, we don’t draw an analogous distinction.”
Williams went on to stress that there is no underscoring linguistic tool for the word racist and that people’s use of the word causes unwanted connotations that aren’t necessarily accurate to the individual being accused.
Williams said after the discussion, “It all ends up lumped together in a way that’s not like sexism.”