KENTROVERSY 1: “You’re too emotional”… HOW DADS PERPETUATE SEXISM

So my dad and I were having a pretty heated argument. No one was crying or even close to shedding a tear. I am in the middle of my argument just annihilating him, and as I’m speaking he goes “ok, you’re being emotional.” When I told him that that was sexist, he said that it wasn’t. Here is why he is wrong.

We really need to talk about this very implicit and disguised form of sexism. For our entire lives, women have been told that we are “too emotional” to be professional or to make informed decisions. Every time we try to have a debate with the opposite sex, we already start 10 points behind because to men, we are just big balls of emotional instability and hormones. This opinion is so interwoven into the minds of men, and even some women, that it has been accepted as a fact. 1 in 8 people actually believe that women are too emotional to hold office. This stigma on women affects how we move daily in America. It undermines us at every professional and political turn and is why women aren’t taken as seriously in corporate America. Although this form of sexism extends to the workplace, it begins in the home. It’s the little things. Like when you make one sly comment and your Dad asks “is it that time of the month?” Why is it that women are only allowed to unapologetically verbalize frustration when they are on their periods?! Another example of sexism in the home is when your mom specifically asks you to help make dinner when your two brothers are standing right next to you. A woman’s place is NOT in the kitchen. Or it could even be when you are having a debate with your father and he says you are “being emotional.”

I will tell you what I told my father when he said his statement wasn’t sexist: “No, you are wrong. You are being sexist when you say I’m “being emotional” because you know your audience and you know that because women have been told that they are too emotional to have valid opinions; you knew that exploiting that stigma would invalidate everything I just said. In that moment you acted upon your prejudice against women. Thus participating in sexism.”

Women, PROTECT YOURSELVES! Men know what they are doing when they disguise their verbal attacks. The first step to fighting sexism is to recognize it. Educate yourselves on the microagressions men will use in order to politically correctly mask their exertion of sexism. No matter what men (even your own father) will say or how they will try to make you feel; you are NOT too emotional to have an opinion and you are NOT too irrational for it to be valid!!!!!

Men, EDUCATE YOURSELVES! Learn the difference between disagreeing with a woman’s argument because your views don’t align and invalidating a woman’s argument because of gender stereotypes.

Who said it? KEN SAID IT!👏🏾