In Monday’s New York Times, Frank Bruni wrote a wonderful column called “Sexism’s Puzzling Stamina.” He addresses what he’s noticed about the disparity between progressive court and even corporate decisions regarding discrimination and the reality of how one gender, mine, is treated on the ground, so to speak. He begins:
This month the Supreme Court will issue raptly awaited decisions about affirmative action and gay marriage. But what’s been foremost in my thoughts isn’t race, sexual orientation or our country’s deeply flawed handling of both.
It’s gender — and all the recent reminders of how often women are still victimized, how potently they’re still resented and how tenaciously a musty male chauvinism endures. On this front even more than the others, I somehow thought we’d be further along by now.
So did I. Although I spend considerable time reading and moaning over the deadly way women are treated in fundamentalist-dominated countries, Bruni’s stand for women in our country goes to the central question: it may be more subtle than it was when I was first trying to develop a career in the 1960’s, but why is this still happening?
Read it all.