[Kde-women]Pauline Leet?

Amelie Zapf kde-women@mail.kde.org
Fri, 12 Apr 2002 19:09:46 +0200


Hi Eva, KDE-women,

> When I returned to visit two years
> after graduation, one of the older people I knew, a faculty
> wife, sat me down and told me what she had discovered. She
> had seen that women were oppressed much as black folk were
> in US society. She coined a word for it based on the term
> 'racism.' namely, 'sexism.'

http://www.lib.washington.edu/Ougl/fun/qboard/sexi.html mentions:

> When, how, and by whom did the words 'sexist' and 'sexism' come into being? 
> 
> "Sexist" appeared first, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It was 
> coined by PM Leet in a 1965 speech: "When you argue...that since fewer 
> women write good
> poetry this justifies their total exclusion, you are taking a position 
> analogous to that of the racist--I might call you in this case a 
> 'sexist'--who says that since so few
> Negroes have held positions of importance...their exclusion from history 
> books is a matter of good judgement rather than discrimination." 
> 
> "Sexism" appeared three years later, in a 1968 speech by C. Bird: "Sexism 
> is judging people by their sex where sex doesn't matter."
> 
> Both quotations are cited in the OED (OUGL Reference, PE 1625 O87 1989).


> Basically I know only a few famous feminists (apart from many the not so
> famous, but still hard working feminists ;-). The one I know most about is
> the german Alice Schwarzer who's is running a german feminist magazine.

I could recommend a couple books to you to remedy that situation ;-)


Cheers, Amy

-- 
Louey & Amy
Soul, Jazz & Gospel from Berlin

www.louey-amy.de