When You See Sexism, Say Something
When you see sexism, say something. That’s the message from one city councilwoman in Ohio, who is taking a page out of Leslie Knope’s playbook.
Jill Miller Zimon is responding to the racketeering trial of former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, in which secretly recorded phone calls reveal unsavory details about Dimora and his especially negative names for women.
Dimora’s behavior was apparently nothing new to most city employees, but Zimon refused to let the blatant sexism just slide. In an interview with The Cleveland Plain Dealer she says:
“That anyone would say ‘it’s just Jimmy being Jimmy’ only serves as an indictment of other people’s acceptance that it is OK for a person with power and money and influence to speak about and treat women as he did.”
Zimon goes further, to say that tolerating this behavior is only slightly less vile than sexism itself and gives a shout-out to Name It, Change It when she advocates women stand-up to the sexism.
“This tolerance – only slightly less vile form of sexism – is, in large part, why such sexism continues to exist, after all these years of other people continuously calling attention to such rampant, ingrained, shameful and indefensible sexism in our societies’ circles of leadership.”
Name It. Change It.’s research clearly shows that calling out sexism when you see it only helps women and it brands the aggressor a sexist. Misogynists like Dimora are a dime a dozen, so don’t let them get away with it. Dimora may be on trial for racketeering, but by Name It, Change It standards he should be charged with Severe Misogyny.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 02/02/2012