Quoted: Ellen Wills on Challenging Benevolent Sexism

I stop to buy a hot dog and the counterman talks baby talk to me, in the manner of countermen. He calls me "dear" [...] I conceive an experiment in self-liberation. I say with a propitiatory smile, "You know, you don't have to talk to me as if I'm five years old." The counterman is enraged. He raves, not to me, but to other (male) customers. "See?" You act nice to somebody and look what you get! Try to be nice!" and he turns to me with the crusher, "You'll never get married if you act like that!" I guess I should make some conscious-raising comeback like "Tried it once -- didn't like it." But I don't have the heart. I feel like an idiot. A certified crank. No sense of humor. -- Ellen Willis "Up From Radicalism" from The Essential Ellen Willis

Ellen Willis wrote this forty-five years ago, and I can say with certain that not much has changed. Oh, big things have changed: women run companies (though still not in numbers to reach parity with men), serve in congress, write life-changing novels, and one has a pretty good shot at becoming president in 2016, but the little things -- the benevolent sexism -- hasn't changed much at all. And because benevolent sexism is enmeshed in tradition and chivalry, it's harder to make a case for why it's so "bad." It's bad because it's part of a larger culture of sexism that says women are the fairer sex who need protection, pats on the head, and baby talk.