NO, YOU HAVE THE BURDEN OF PROOF.

From Jezebel:

Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don’t Even Notice

I am tired of being called a shrieking harridan for pointing out inequalities so tangible and blatant that they are regularly codified into law. I am tired of being told to provide documentation of inequality in the comments sections of a website where a staff of smart women documents inequality as fast as our fingers can move. Like, you might as well write me a note on a banana peel demanding that I prove to you that bananas exist. I am tired of being asked to "cite sources" proving that sexism is real (that RAPE is real, even!), because there is no way to concisely cite decades and decades of rigorous academia. Allow me to point at the fucking library. We can't cite "everything," and our challengers know that. It's an insulting diversionary tactic, it's an attempt to drag us all backwards, and fuck it. Do your own research like the rest of the grown-ups.

More here.

My old friend Stefanie sent me the link to this after reading and commenting on my post from yesterday, which I recycled for facebook.  Here's how I responded:

Sexism in the United States is so embedded, so ongoing and long-standing, and so extraordinarily well documented, that the burden of proof in any arguments about it automatically falls on the people who dismiss our sexist state of affairs. She's absolutely right. Arguing about the existence of sexism at all is a total chump's game. It's like arguing about global warming or evolution or the shape of the Earth. I have problems getting this across even to enlightened liberal (male) friends of mine, and I've already got lots of facts in my head ready to counter the old BS.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to "win" an argument with a person who has his head so far up his butt that he doesn't know that he lost the argument before it started.

My current strategy for this situation is to listen to what the other side is saying, looking for irrationalities and weaknesses in hopes of exposing it all as the absurdity it is. Frontal assaults don't work with this mind set. They're being driven by something deep within the subconscious, I think, and it's almost impossible to get them to listen to reason. That, and to speak as authoritatively and aggressively about sexism as I possibly can: sexism is a fact of American life, and we're drowning in it; YOU have to prove ME wrong because this is self-evident.

Of course, I have no idea if that strategy will ever bear any fruit. But I do know that simply telling people that sexism is alive and well in the twenty first century doesn't seem to be changing any minds. In the end, what it's going to take is for men to stand in women's shoes for a while, to see what that kind of humiliation and oppression is about first hand. I got lucky, myself, in that I ended up dating a young feminist when I was a sophomore in college who called me out on my sexist humor. I had gay guys in the theater department at Texas hitting on me from time to time, and I had the realization that my discomfort with the situation was probably akin to what women feel all the time. I participated in film class discussions with feminist women who, in the end, had the best points, and I didn't like losing the argument. But I can't expect most American men to be as lucky as I was.

And, you know, there are lots of women who don't seem to understand what's going on, too. Sexism may very well continue to exist long after we've passed away.

'Nuff said.

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