“Sexism” is a short code. Not only that, it’s a short code which has already been given a strong negative affective valence in modern society. Fights about its definition are fights about how to use that short code. They’re fights over a resource.
That code doesn’t even just point to a class of behaviors or institutions—it points to an argument, an argument of the form “these institutions favor this gender and that’s bad for these reasons”. Some people would like it to point more specifically to an argument that goes something like “If, on net, society gives more benefits to one gender, and puts more burdens on the other, then that’s unfair, and we should care about fairness.” Others would like it to point to “If someone makes a rule that applies differently to men and women, there’s a pretty strong burden of proof that they’re not making a suboptimal rule for stupid reasons. Someone should probably change that rule”. The fight is over which moral argument will come to mind quickly, will seem salient, because it has the short code “sexism”.
If I encounter a company where the men have a terrible dress code applied to them, but there’s one woman’s restroom for every three men’s restroom, the first argument might not have much to say, but the second might move me to action. Someone who wants me to be moved to action would want me to have the second argument pre-cached and available.
In particular, I’m not a fan of the first definition, because it motivates a great big argument. If there’s a background assumption that “sexism” points to problems to be solved, then the men and the women in the company might wind up in a long, drawn-out dispute over whose oppression is worse, and who is therefore a target of sexism, and deserving of aid. The latter definition pretty directly implies that both problems should be fixed if possible.
Well, I certainly agree that a word can have the kind of rhetorical power you describe here, and that “sexism” is such a word in lots of modern cultures.
And while modeling such powerful labels as a fixed resource isn’t quite right, insofar as such labels can be applied to a lot of different things without necessarily being diffused, I would agree with something roughly similar to that… for example, that if you and I assign that label to different things for mutually exclusive ends, then we each benefit by denying the other the ability to control the label.
And I agree with you that if I want to attach the label to thing 1, and you want to attach it to mutually exclusive thing 2, and thing 1 is strictly worse than thing 2, then it’s better if I fail and you succeed.
All of that said, it is not clear to me that caring about fairness is always strictly worse than caring about optimality, and it is not clear to me that caring about fairness is mutually exclusive with caring about optimality.
Edit: I should also say that I do understand now why you say that using “sexism” to refer to unfair systems cuts off the use of “sexism” to refer to suboptimal systems, which was the original question I asked. Thanks for the explanation.
“Sexism” is a short code. Not only that, it’s a short code which has already been given a strong negative affective valence in modern society. Fights about its definition are fights about how to use that short code. They’re fights over a resource.
That code doesn’t even just point to a class of behaviors or institutions—it points to an argument, an argument of the form “these institutions favor this gender and that’s bad for these reasons”. Some people would like it to point more specifically to an argument that goes something like “If, on net, society gives more benefits to one gender, and puts more burdens on the other, then that’s unfair, and we should care about fairness.” Others would like it to point to “If someone makes a rule that applies differently to men and women, there’s a pretty strong burden of proof that they’re not making a suboptimal rule for stupid reasons. Someone should probably change that rule”. The fight is over which moral argument will come to mind quickly, will seem salient, because it has the short code “sexism”.
If I encounter a company where the men have a terrible dress code applied to them, but there’s one woman’s restroom for every three men’s restroom, the first argument might not have much to say, but the second might move me to action. Someone who wants me to be moved to action would want me to have the second argument pre-cached and available.
In particular, I’m not a fan of the first definition, because it motivates a great big argument. If there’s a background assumption that “sexism” points to problems to be solved, then the men and the women in the company might wind up in a long, drawn-out dispute over whose oppression is worse, and who is therefore a target of sexism, and deserving of aid. The latter definition pretty directly implies that both problems should be fixed if possible.
Well, I certainly agree that a word can have the kind of rhetorical power you describe here, and that “sexism” is such a word in lots of modern cultures.
And while modeling such powerful labels as a fixed resource isn’t quite right, insofar as such labels can be applied to a lot of different things without necessarily being diffused, I would agree with something roughly similar to that… for example, that if you and I assign that label to different things for mutually exclusive ends, then we each benefit by denying the other the ability to control the label.
And I agree with you that if I want to attach the label to thing 1, and you want to attach it to mutually exclusive thing 2, and thing 1 is strictly worse than thing 2, then it’s better if I fail and you succeed.
All of that said, it is not clear to me that caring about fairness is always strictly worse than caring about optimality, and it is not clear to me that caring about fairness is mutually exclusive with caring about optimality.
Edit: I should also say that I do understand now why you say that using “sexism” to refer to unfair systems cuts off the use of “sexism” to refer to suboptimal systems, which was the original question I asked. Thanks for the explanation.