Is the Occupy Movement Sexist?

Perhaps a better question would be: "Is it any more sexist than the rest of the world we deal with every single day?" That's not to justify sexism, but lets get real. Sexism is still rampant throughout our country. What are the odds that an uprising of the great variety of people in our country, would not also contain the great variety of social ills already existing within our country? Protesting one social ill does not magically purify a crowd of all the other social ills rampant in our country.

Two steps forward, one step back. That is the sad truth about how all social progress has been made in our country. Just because the progress is slower than we would like does not mean that it is not happening.

I've seen a lot of posts about this, though I haven't been very involved myself as I'm traveling at the moment, and often don't speak the language well enough to get involved.

That said, I've been involved in many social and political moveents and its always the same, because it reflects the world: if people in a multi-gender, or multi-race, multi-ability, multi-class group don't set a goal of being actively anti sexist, anti racist, etc, then they'll end up being sexist, racist etc.

You can't avoid it if you refuse to talk about, to hear from the people with experience (the women, the black, the asian, the diabled). So they label issues that affect only women, or mostly black people, or only gay people, as divisive.

Men think that if an issue doesn't affect them directly, it isn't important, because that's how they experience the word.

I think a lot of women who would like to be there can't because they're either working to support a family or home caring for children. If I wasn't a mom to a young toddler, I'd be out there in the trenches myself.

I attended an Occupy Miami meeting: Firstly, I must say they were friendly, organized, and welcoming. I did notice that, aside from one prominent organizer, most attendees were male. I counted about 5 women out of more than 30 participants, including myself, two other first-timers, and a journalist. Interesting that women are not more involved!

I attended a rally in Victoria, B.C. The speakers were mainly white males. After hearing one middle-aged woman speak with passion and conviction about the homeless, the imprisoned, and the disenfranchised, a young white male took the mike and said, "I'll just wipe the spit off of this." He then proceeded to call for us to all come together!

It does seem like the Occupy movement has a very White, male face to it. Or perhaps those are the voices that have received all the coverage?