Discrimination: under the skin

At its most basic discrimination is the positive or negative selective treatment of one group over another. The treatment may be unequal, unfair, or prejudicial; sometimes illegal. It is well on the way to being a ‘catch-all’ term for negative, perhaps toxic, attitudes particularly in situations of ableism, ageism, chauvinism, classism, heterosexism, racism, sexism; the…

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Battle over a Urinal: is it a Gender Issue?

Art Galleries, Art Books, Art Critics ascribe the signed and dated urinal, Fountain, as the work of Marcel Duchamp, the French-American artist and creator of ‘Ready-Made’ art. Only cursory research is necessary to realise that neither statement should be accepted at face-value. A rider is required: it is the principally patriarchal art institutions and male…

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Gender vs Sex: why the difference is important

Historical usage of ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ When I was a teenager the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ could be used to mean pretty much the same. Even so, it was more usual for ‘gender’ to be used in the linguistic context of feminine, masculine, or neuter cases. In the widely-used Modern English Usage (1926), Fowler stated,“Gender…is…

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