How to End Sexism

My father raised me to believe my mother was ignorant. “Your mother, (implying like most women) is irrational. Fickle. Full of love and lightness, but not really a [deep] thinker.”

All women were (are) not as… capable as men, according to my father, as the woman’s primary job — her role in society of mom, caretaker, homemaker — isn’t like a real job and doesn’t take much brain power. He actually said to me, “Isn’t it odd that women can’t walk and talk at the same time,” and stopped to tell me this in all seriousness, while we were walking.

My father thought he was inherently smarter than my mother, or any woman. He was a MAN, after all. He claimed to be well-read, that he had to be for business in the real world, unlike silly homemakers. (My mother read the newspaper daily, news magazines, non-fiction, and fiction monthly. My father read only Popular Mechanics and watched TV. Cop shows mostly, where the main white male character was rescuing ditsy, busty women.)

My mother graduated high school at 16. She attended Florida State University two years before most of the classmates she left behind in New Jersey. My father has no degree beyond high school.

My father went through five or more businesses, several of which failed, none of which ended up in substantial wins. My mother started a pilot magnet program at Cabrillo Marine Museum for underprivileged East L.A. kids, to teach them marine science. For almost 20 yrs she touched thousands of lives, many of whom I met personally, in the store or mall, when…