Name: Why are people sexist? | What's Behind Prejudice? Episode 3 | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-07-30T09:22:17.000Z
Duration: 4 min 54 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I was on my way home one evening, quite late at night, on the bus,

Past continuous

so I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me.

Past simple

and realised that the man sitting next to me had his hand on my leg.

He moved his hand upwards and grabbed me in the crotch.

Because I was on the phone to my mum, I said

'I'm on the bus, this man just groped me.'

Nobody stepped in. No-one challenged him.

"We don't want anything to do with this. This is your thing."

It made me feel that I was at fault, that I'd done something wrong.

I felt incredibly embarrassed and ashamed and confused,

who got such a powerful message that night.

He got the message, "You can get away with this."

It sent the message that this was just acceptable.

We're so used to receiving the message from all around us

all the time, that women and girls are sexual objects.

and that we really are the sum of our individual parts.

There are witchcraft cases from Europe 400 years ago

where, for example, a woman was accused of witchcraft

The idea that men couldn't possibly be expected to control themselves

But it's also something that's still really impacting people's lives,

You're like the fifth person that's asked me that today.

-To ask somebody what kind of underpants they wear?

-Could you? -No, what do you wear underneath?

You wear dungarees. You can't wear clothes under it it's like a wetsuit.

-Practically. -OK, so you answered my question.

Well I don't know, maybe it's a little bit more than a wetsuit.

I think the defensiveness here is really key.

This idea that he is immediately reaching to say,

"Well I haven't done anything wrong, you're overreacting."

And that he kind of gets a little bit of support for that

from her male co-star, and this is something that we see a lot of,

that if women try to challenge this kind of thing, try to speak out,

in a sense of, "No, no, no, you don't get to be upset about this."

In most British homes, parents clearly differentiate

I think what's really sad watching this now

is that it still feels a little bit revolutionary.

Wouldn't be fair for all the girls to buy princesses

Because girls want superheroes and the boys want superheroes.

And the girls want pink stuff and the boys don't want pink stuff.

She makes it sound so simple, doesn't she?

How is it possible that this child gets it

and yet every time a large retailer agrees to stop gendering its toys

or its children's clothes as for boys or for girls,

These kinds of stereotypes that are so insidious and so low-level,

they are so often dismissed as not a big deal.

In reality all we're saying is that kids should have the choice.

That, just as she says, some girls might like princesses

and some might like superheroes, but shouldn't they have the option?

The reality is that fewer than one in ten of our engineers is female,

and our Royal Society, one of our biggest scientific institutions,

So no, of course these things aren't the end of the world on their own,

but do they contribute to a world in which girls are very, very gently

and slowly told, "This isn't for you, this isn't for you"?

Of course they do, and actually the end effect is quite extreme.

Andy, Sam is the first US player to reach a major semi-final since 2009.

We are seeing an increasing number of male role models

and just to mention this stuff when it happens.

Not necessarily in a particularly aggressive or angry way,

but simply just mentioning it so that that isn't allowed to stand.

If you haven't experienced sexism yourself,

and to deny the reality of its existence.

It's easy to suggest that people are overreacting,

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Why are people sexist? | What's Behind Prejudice? Episode 3 | BBC Ideas

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