Just in case you don’t know, sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s gender. A common example is an idea that women are inferior to men and so should only do certain things like cooking, taking care of the family, etc. While many may not agree with this, there are sexist ideas they unknowingly perpetuate, sometimes as jokes. Here’s a list of nine jokes and statements that still count as sexism and why:
1. The idea that women are more emotional than men
This is one of the most common ideas about women. Some people even go further to add that men are more logical than women. First of all, logic is not the absence of emotions. Also, there are studies to prove that men and women have the same emotions. This idea exists because of how society has socialized us to treat women. Such that when women express anger, it’s used against them and when men do it, it’s a show of his manliness. Fix it, Jesus.
2. ‘Beauty and brains’
It’s you that is beauty and brains. Pointing out that a woman is beautiful and smart is saying that she cannot be both. That idea is why silly blonde tropes exist and beautiful women are often not taken seriously. Shaking ass on a yacht while earning good money and having a serious job isn’t an abstract concept. Get with the program.
3. ‘You’re not like other women’
Men usually say this when they have done something offensive to a woman but she is calm about it. They say you are not like other women so you can feel special and endure rubbish. My dear sister, don’t fall for it. People often say this to make you feel superior to other women, again, don’t fall for it. We are all the same dear, no woman wants to take your rubbish.
4. Calling women wife material as a compliment
If the first compliment that comes to your head when a woman does something spectacular is ‘10 yards’, you are sexist because you perpetuate the idea that the reward for a worthy woman is marriage and outside of marriage, she doesn’t hold any value. I know you mean it as a joke but I’m telling you there’s more to it. It’s always silly ‘10 yards’ jokes, never ‘take 10million dollars for your spectacular work’.
5. You are strong for a woman
This statement should be ‘You are strong.’ Who gets to determine who is strong for a man or who is strong for a woman? Definitely not you, dear. Sit down. Please if we want to be strong we’ll go to the gym or represent Nigeria as heavyweight champion. Long suffering isn’t a sign of strength.
6. No wonder she dey drive like that
This one is funny because anybody can use it to mean anything. I’ve seen someone pass a woman driving slowly and say, “No wonder” but I have also seen someone accuse a reckless driver of driving like a woman. So which is it, dears? This one is closely followed by men who assume every woman who owns a car, got the car because a man bought it for her. Men will scratch your car and have the audacity to assume that a hypothetical husband will fix it for you.
7. Why you dey do like babe
The next time I hear someone say this one, I will ask them to give me a 10 page thesis on what it means to do something like babe because only then will it make sense to me.
8. You should smile more
No. Are you smiling more? No? Then leave me alone, we don’t owe you niceness.
9. Why does she look like a man?
This is the most limiting of them all — not just even for women but also for men. There is no one way to be a woman and there is no one way to be a man. We are not in the dark age, dear. Even then, sef.
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