Of course a woman would say sexism is more common than racism. Doesn't make it true.

(OK, bring on the beating.)

I do wonder if she would have made the parallel if she had experienced both?

Hogan's comments are ridiculous. She can apply this to any women in any workplace situation. "Oh I think it is crazy that a woman is a CEO in big time finace company- Id be so pmsy and crying all the time" or "Oh I don't know HOW a woman can be a doctor -I'd be crying one minute and laughing the next". This is not about a woman's biology and hormones but her capabilities and ability to do a good job. And the issue is that women think they have to do it all and be good at it all. True equality is having the choice to do what men can do and not be made to feel less of a person for it.

p.s. I don't think couric's comments are valid or based on truth - how does she know that sexism is more prevalent than racism? Has she done studies? And seems she is basing this on Clinton vs. Obama not any actual evidence.

So, given the superhero mentality that is prevalent in feminism, would you agree that it is women who are holding other women to this standard, and not men?

Maybe in Brooke Hogans world, where her biggest decision of the day revolves around which bikini she is going to wear out...such emotions would persist. What an idiot.

YUCK! Brook Hogan is so much that is wrong with girls today, the kind of girls who prance around in bikinis or less on the cover of maxim and don't think that their sex is capable of anything other than entertaining a man. This ideology is so oppressive because most people don't see it that way and condone it!

As for racism-sexism comparison, I think it's apples and oranges, while sexism is wrong and can have serious consequences, I don't think it is as damaging as racism - mostly b/c of the history of slavery but also b/c of the unavoidable contact men and women have with one another, the constant interaction between men and women teaches us there are limits to stereotypes and shows us some positive sides to the other sex - lessening the hate in our judgments (which is why sexism is more humorous and more accepted) - while races are still very much separated, only recently (relatively speaking) could the different races sit at the same table or go to the same place - this leaves more room for generalizations and misunderstood actions - making it more hateful.

UnDave - I think that it IS other women holding women to that standard. Sad to see it but we can be our own worse enemy. I am lucky to not experience it as much in my line of work but many women judge others for their choices. There is an article I read recently - I wish I could remember the source- about how women are made to feel as if they are bad mothers for choosing to work and the stay-at-home women are made to feel as if they are unintelligent for not working. But I won't let the men get off the hook -one of the comments in that article was a male psychologist that said that children "suffer" from working mothers because they don;t have a support system at home. (I totally disagree - I know PLENTY of kids myself included that had two working parents and I turned out fine).

I agree with your entire comment Geebers! I'm an only child who had two working parents and even *I* turned out fine!

I think that for whatever it is you choose to believe, you can find a quote somewhere, or a collection of quotes to support it. All this really says to me is that Katie Couric has an opinion, and Brooke Hogan is an idiot. If I had no work to do today, I might try and do some research to decide who is crazier, Charlie or Denise. Right now I'm Team Denise, so I'm naturally going to gravitate to bad press about Charlie. That is if I had no work to do.

"but also b/c of the unavoidable contact men and women have with one another"

That is an awesome point. It's possible to grow up without knowing people outside your race, but not really possible to not know people of another gender. pretty much everyone knows a variety of women and men, but maybe you only know one person of a race and you base your ideas on that one person (consciously or not) or base them on movies or tv.

I agree geebers about women holding women to that standard. Have you ever read the book "Slut"

How much racism has Katie Couric experienced? She sounds like a spoiled brat. For a woman who pretends to be well-informed, she should know that most important measures prove the lie in her statement. On Savvy this morning, there's a post about women's salaries dropping in recent years - and I think sexism still is alive and well but it's not as overwhelming as it was.

If you take the Townhall columnist's premise and apply it to the Townhall's natural readership, you find the problem with her point.
If the Christian right took her advice, and focused on one family values cause, which would it be? Fight abortion or support abstinence education or fight gay marriage propositions? Don't they interconnect?
Feminism does take on issues on a number of fronts because equality and justice interconnect.

"I wish I could remember the source- about how women are made to feel as if they are bad mothers for choosing to work and the stay-at-home women are made to feel as if they are unintelligent for not working."

How true.

I agree that the psychologist doesn't know what he is talking about. Both of my children are very well off because of the time they spend each week at childcare. My daughter is 4 1/2 and is able to handle a first grade curriculum. It may be my genes (and my wife's), but the day care facility is what prepared her for this. I won't go so far as to say there aren't bad day care facilities, but they are not the norm.

I actually agree with this statement to some degree. America has put so much effort into being PC with race that its being beaten into peoples skulls. We've become so accustomed to watch what we say around other races as to not potentially offend them. On the flip side with sexism, theres not much to be regulated there unless, again, it is a race issue. In todays day and age sure we have given women more rights but at the end of the day the race card wins over sex.

sorry Katie people dont like you not because you are a woman, but because you are a bad reporter with an attitude problem.

and brooke hogan doesnt have one ounce of femininity to be a spokesperson for womens issues.

While I do think that sexism (like racism) can be overexaggerated sometimes, I don't think it can be argued that it isn't prevalant, even rampant! I hear an awful lot of "I will never vote for a woman" declarations (yes, from both men AND women... but mostly men) that echo Brooke Hogan's comments - that all women are too hyper-emotional and unstable to be great leaders. I actually hear these remarks more often than I hear the "I will never vote for a black man" vows... and in the area I live, that's saying something.

While it is true that women and men are more "exposed" to each other than two different races/cultures can be, I think we all often still fall to generalizations, double standards, power struggles, etc when it comes to dealing with one another.

I wonder how one measures the amount of discrimination there is? Do people actually follow around bigots with a counter to see how many times they abuse women or minorities?

I think that would actually be a fun job.

People are judging this issue based on the elections - the elections aren't everything. Of course sexism will be at its peak in the job of US president - we are talking about a traditional male role. Man is the leader - a woman as president is 100% against that - while a black man as president is not so strong since the notion of white as president is not as prevalent at male president. People's sexist beliefs are directly threatened in this case, while racist beliefs are in directly threatened.

Pick something neutral and compare sexism to racism. For example, I don't have the statistics, but I bet if you look up accounts of sexism and racism in police records you would find that most sexism complaints are just that, based on something someone said, anything involving physical harm would most likely be minor in terms of violence (I am excluding rape since I don't think that is about being sexist) but on the other hand race crimes almost always involve violence - this, to me, shows one is more serious then the other, there is disrespect in sexism, but there is hate in racism and hate is more dangerous and more serious than disrespect.

Wow I am mad brooke said that!!! But yes I think that women one day will have truely equal rights.

And yeah I aggree with that racism right now is bigger than sexism, when we talk about race its a touchy subject. But when it comes to sexism its not as widely( um.. how do I say) talked about or gets people as upset ya know?

oh yeah I want that shirt...

i aggree with zeze. I didnt think about it that way. A black man as president is historic but its still a man. A women would 100% change the pattern.

I feel that the racism that exists in our country is more serious and extreme, but that sexism is more prevalent. Does that make sense?

For example, on the news last night, they had a story about Jason Taylor getting signed to the Washington Redskins. They interviewed women and said women were excited because of Dancing with the Stars, like a woman couldn't possibly actually be a football fan! Of course, they interviewed men with they angle that they were excited because of Taylor's football skills. This didn't really harm anyone the way racism does, but, to me, is still incredibly sexist.

I try not to take any stock in what Katie Couric (or Brooke Hogan) says.

Oh, and that makes perfect sense to me, lilkimbo.

Yes, Sexism I believe is much older and deep rooted than racism and I also agree that in the way of percentages there is a greater population that practices sexism than racism. The only difference in my opinion is differences in racism have had a bloody history of violence, genocide and all out war between cultures and nations.

Where as the differences in sexism have pretty much been relegated to picket line, court rooms, and boys vs. girls.

As for Ms. Hogan she has committed one of my pet peeves. "People who place their self imposed limitations on others presuming that because they think they think they can't, you can't either." boy do I hate that. If Ms. Hogan thinks she's limited than she can swim in her own stew and stop projecting that B.S. Someone by the lady a copy of Elizabeth the Golden Age.

I do believe that more women need to push their way to the top when it comes to business, politics, science etc. The world has run on testosterone for far too long. It's time for an alternative fuel.

Well put, Hypno.

I think sexism and racism are equally bad. The bottom line is that there is ignorance in both lines of thinking and large scale efforts to repress whole groups of people from achieving their full potential.

Acts involving racism are often more emotionally charged, but sexism can be just as violent. I do count some acts of rape, because what else can you call "if she dresses a certain way, then she's asking for it" but sexism? Race crimes aren't always violent either. It's also not giving a black man a promotion, when there's a good enough white man running.

Even so, just because sexism isn't announced with an act of violence as often, that could be due to a number of things like: Perhaps women aren't considered threatening enough to deem violence necessary? Perhaps the "I will never hit a woman" comes into play? Or they are concerned about revenge from an angry, protective husband?

Just because racism is more blatant and violent, that doesn't mean it's more common. Regardless, I don't think it's important which is more common. They are both extremely detrimental and should be taken seriously.

i am black and i am a woman, and i would definitely say that i have felt the effects of racism much more than i have felt the effects of sexism. it bothers me that couric could make such a claim without having experienced both types of discrimation.

as zora neale hurston said, "the black woman is the mule of the world," or something like that...

i agree with Hypno. and KathleenxXCouture, i hear what you're saying, i do think people are hypersensitive about being pc regarding race issues, but i think that shows that sexism is simply more tolerated, not necessarily more common. not that being more tolerated is a good thing.

I fail to understand why some idiot starlet's verbal diarrhea is worth analyzing. I would say that the demographic of d-list spoiled young white girls is small enough that it's okay to ignore.

As for Couric's claim about racism vs. sexism - how do you quantify this? And when did she become an expert on racism? How can she even know? So annoying.

Whining never helps any cause.

I am sick to death of all the competition about who's the bigger victim.

Katie Couric is the last person who should be complaining.

As reported by (black) radio talk show host Larry Elder, who broke down the numbers in a January 25, 2007 commentary at HumanEvents.com:

Although Couric sits in last place in the ratings of the Big Three, she earns a reported $15 million a year. [ABC's Charles] Gibson, in second place, clocks in at a reported $7 million. NBC's [Brian] Williams, who sits atop the ratings, reportedly makes $4 million per year.

Do the math. For the week of Jan. 15, [2007] Williams attracted 10.25 million viewers, which comes out to a salary of $.39 per set of eyeballs. Gibson, in second place with 9.5 million viewers that week, earns $.74 per viewer. And Ms. Couric, who had a whopping 2.45 million fewer viewers than the first-place Williams? At her $15 million per year salary, with her 7.8 million viewers, CBS pays her $1.92 per viewer! This means the third-place Couric gets five times the amount of money per viewer than does the first-place Williams. (Memo to Brian: Fire your agent.)

lain!

Can't we just wish Brooke Hogan away?

"truestory: Way to go lain! I have met Katie Couric before and she's very nice, however I think there were/are more deserving women who should have been an evening anchor before her.

ahh should have been :truestory:

haha well never mind that, you get the idea. Mad props to lain. haha

My mom said that because Obama won that the country is more sexist than racist. Well I'm not sure if I agree with that, but it would be a cool study.

I meant to address the whole "working mothers" thing. I'm a double offender because I worked and went to school a couple of evenings a week.

Kids are resilient. They need parenting, but you have to sure they're fed and clothed, too. However, I do wish I had more time to spend doing things like volunteering at school. I would really like to have more time to monitory my son's homework!

I think the schools have suffered from having fewer volunteers available to assist and be involved, too.

I also kind of resent what the women's movement has become. It started out as "you can do anything," then it became "you can do everything," now it's "you have to do everything, or you're not fully optimized as a human being."

Seriously: trying to do everything means that very little of it will be done well. I do have to shower and sleep, y'know?

Your break down on the big three anchors financials is a good point Lainetm but that's just about one person. What about women in general?

If we lived in a world where those who do not fit in the point can not make the point as you may be suggesting about Katie Couric than in my opinion too many points would go unnoticed.

I think she's sort of right. I don't know if it's really more common, but I do think that people are more comfortable with it, and more open in being sexist than racist. Everyone knows you can't say the n-word on television, and that if a television star makes a racist comment, his career is toast. But sexism is so ingrained in our society that most people don't even recognize it. For instance, insulting a woman who gave up custody of her children but not finding a man who gave up custody out of the ordinary; calling a girl who doesn't get married an old hag but a man who doesn't a bachelor; paying women much less than a man for the same work. It's still weird for a man to stay at home and take care of the children. The sexes aren't equal and people want to keep it that way, and I think that's sexist.

what was the line from office space? I can't remember exactly, but it was something like "what would you do if you had a million dollars?" and the answer was "absolutely nothing."

well, there's no reason a woman can't do "absolutely nothing!" if you're happy, and financially stable, do nothing. If that's what makes you happy, so be it. You don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Also, I don't know of many women who would want their husband to stay at home, while they went to work, if they had the choice. My wife basically told me to go to work...

wadewifey, there are some flaws in your mother's argument.

The primary flaw (as I see it) in your mother's argument is that gender and sex aren't the only distinguishing factors between Obama and Hillary.

It would be like saying that ageism is more prevalent in American than racism if they pick Obama over McCain.

That statement ignores the human differences and policy differences of the candidates.

The second flaw is that she's making a broad generalization based on one situation. Even if we sexism trumps racism in one instance, does that mean it does so in ALL instances? Hardly.

For example, based on Lain's post above, one could conclude that men were discriminated against because Katie Couric's salary is much higher. Yet, we are smart enough to see that as an isolated instance and not as "the way things are."

To really make a claim about sexism vs racism, you'd first have to establish criteria that defined what each entailed, and then you'd have to go about measuring it.

I don't see anyone ever even coming to a consensus about what constitutes each "ism", let alone doing a good job measuring it.

Let me clarify: Those numbers were Larry Elder's, not mine. I was making an observation about the degree of Couric's victimhood.

Something that gradually penetrated my thick skull about feminism:
the genders are equivalent, but not equal.
They are and will always be different from one another.

And that's a good thing. There's a wide range of individual differentiation, but overall we have different skills and aptitudes. I wish we could all just recognize and celebrate that.

I agree frogandprince, sexism is definitely more accepted in our society. People are bombarded with sexist images everyday. You can't really compare the two but I think people are more likely to dismiss a comment that objectifies woman than one that makes fun of a minority.

*women

'I wonder how one measures the amount of discrimination there is? Do people actually follow around bigots with a counter to see how many times they abuse women or minorities?

I think that would actually be a fun job.'

Especially if you got to blast a buzzer at every offense.

'I wonder how one measures the amount of discrimination there is? Do people actually follow around bigots with a counter to see how many times they abuse women or minorities?

I think that would actually be a fun job.'

Especially if you got to blast a buzzer at every offense.

Sorry, I only hit post once! Computer on the fritz.

I also wanted to point out that women have typically gained rights after blacks have (e.g. the right to vote, right to own land) and reached new milestones behind them as well. I don't know if that means we're more sexist, but it's interesting.

Also, it is way more acceptable to be sexist than racist, but I don't know that means sexism necessarily causes more harm. In our country's history, for example, being a woman means you had to wait to vote. Being black meant you were a slave. Neither is desirable, but I would rather be deprived of the vote than be deprived of freedom.

frogandprince you nailed it on the head. Unfortunately in our society we have become so comfortable with sexism that we don't think of it as serious, sometimes even when it is happening we don't realize it is.

I believe one of the problems with sexism, and one of the reasons it's so 'accepted' is that women have been been considered second to men since the dawn of civilization, across almost all cultures. The concept of women being equal to men has only existed in human history for a relatively short time. And even today, in certain cultures it still isn't the norm. It's sad, but that type of thinking will take a long time to change, especially with it being so ingrained in our history.

She sucks at the evening news. How's that for gender discrimination.