Random Thoughts — 03 : We still live in a sexist culture

Waiting for the paradigm to shift can feel like “Waiting for Godot”

We’re all tired but the Jordan approaches

One of the best things to emerge from the study of the history of science was the idea of the “paradigm shift”. Understanding how sets of cultural memes, ideas, practices, and attitudes change and morph over time is illuminating and useful when examining one’s own culture.

One of the biggest takeaways for me regarding paradigm shifts is that they tend to be generational. Even in scientific fields where you would expect “the evidence would prevail”. Almost always a previous generation has to literally “die off” before new paradigms can replace old ones.

The implication of this, is that social change requires generational change.

Men born in the 50's/60’s were raised in a sexist paradigm. For most of them it’s always going to be their mental default setting. Short of a “road to Damascus” moment of epiphany they are always going to be sexist.

Their sons, born in the 70's/80’s, a time when feminism began to really impact the culture, learned that overt sexism pissed off the women. They learned to say the right things in public while still being…