Belief Persistance, the Declaration of Sentiments, and Hilary Clinton

Hey, it's Erin.

When we were discussing in class on Thursday, I remembered something I had read in William Lutz's "Doublespeak," the idea of belief persistance, when a person refuses to change their views no matter how much evidence or how many counterexamples he or she is shown. In Lutz's words, the person "places a disproportionate amount of credibility on the evidence that supports the established theory and tends to discredit the opposing evidence." The person might even make an exception for another individual ("well, so-and-so is okay"), but that individual is the rare exception, and the rule still holds. In a sense they hold opposite opinions at the same time.

In Euro, we talked about a double standard for women. They were to guide the morality of the family, but they were dangerous and more likely to be tempted, but then again they were also dumb and thus unable to be educated. There's still a double standard today. When we discussed Hilary Clinton in class, many pointed out that if she showed emotion, she would be labelled as too weak to run the country, but if she wasn't, she was labelled as cold and uncaring. Essentially, she will be criticized either way she acts. The writers of the Declaration of the Sentiments had the same problem. Whichever way they chose, someone would point out a fault (and of course that was because they were women). At the same time that some people might not vote for Hilary because she is a woman, there are those who will vote for her just because she is. I think that everyone should be able to vote for whomever they choose for whatever reason they see fit, but personally, I think that doing that defeats the whole purpose of voting. They are exactly like the person who won't vote for a woman because they are a woman - they don't care what they say and just choose based on something that no one has any control over, their gender.

People have the right to do what they want (as long as it's legal) and you can't make someone change their mind unless their open to change but I think that there are two sides to sexism. There are some people who go around thinking that men are just idiots and women are the best. Isn't that the same thing, simply in reverse? Isn't that just as bad?