Friday, June 5, 2009

Subtle Sexism in the Workplace

The other day at work I happened to mentioned to a coworker of mine that I was interested in Cornelia Pinchot. "Of course you are," he said. I was taken aback by this for several reasons. Firstly, gender history is a hobby for me, my main focus is ethnic and religious pluralism in colonial Pennsylvania, which I had told everyone at work about when I started. But secondly I felt it was a little unfair that he implied that my interest in women's history was something that was typical because I am a woman. It got me to thinking about empathy, a word that has been going around in the media lately with the confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Why is it that women and minorities are viewed as having "special interests" that deviate from the norm, while white males are rarely accused of having particular biases or points of view that are attributed to their race or gender? To give an example, I have a friend with whom I graduated from Kutztown University, and who is focusing on U.S. diplomacy during the Korean War in graduate school. I never thought of saying to him, "Well Rich, it's pretty typical that you focus on men's actions in history since you are one." I never would have questioned his motives for being in that field. But when I say I am interested in the life of a female subject, it's automatically because I am a woman. So what? Maybe Cornelia Pinchot was just a remarkable person and it wouldn't matter what her gender was, I would always be interested in her. Or maybe I am interested in her because she was a woman. If that "special interest" is something that people construe as negative, then they should also consider all those male historians who are writing about male subjects as have a "special interest" as well, and hold them under the same suspicion.

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