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EDIT: So Cam is annoyed because I misinterpreted what he meant. So, let's imagine a hypothetical person asked: "I do action X. Does that make me a sexist?"
A metaphor to explain why that's not a useful question:
Suppose you're having a conversation about whether or not it's ok to cut people off in traffic. Suppose someone says:
"I cut someone off in traffic today, does that make me a bad person?"
Either you say "no", and they say "Oh good, so it's ok to cut people off in traffic."
Or you say "yes" and they say "But I can't be a bad person! I give money to charity!"
It's not about whether or not you're a bad person, it's about whether or cutting people off in traffic is an bad act. If it is, and you do it all the time, then maybe you are a bad person, but you can be an overall good person and cut people off from time to time. Everyone does both good and bad things.
Similarly, "Am I sexist for doing this?" isn't a very useful question. We are all sexist(*), in the sense of having sexist biases and being complicit in a sexist society. So the point is to figure out which acts are particularly sexist, and avoid doing them, not to figure out which people are sexist and punish them.
That said, you can draw a line in the sand and decide that anyone who is, overall, more sexist than that is a "sexist person", and some acts are so horribly sexist that you might decide that doing them means you've crossed that line. But most sexist acts (like most unethical acts) are, by themselves, pretty minor in the scheme of things, and doing them doesn't make you inherently worse than anyone else. Though that doesn't mean you don't have s responsibility to figure out the negative consequences of your acts and try to mitigate them.
I'm going to keep this relatively short so I won't go into all the complications of doing harmful things by mistake etc. I just liked the metaphor and wanted to share it :)
Relating to the original version of the post: I will say: I think liking a sexist show isn't a sexist act anyway. You can't help what you like!
(*)By my definition, and definitions vary
A metaphor to explain why that's not a useful question:
Suppose you're having a conversation about whether or not it's ok to cut people off in traffic. Suppose someone says:
"I cut someone off in traffic today, does that make me a bad person?"
Either you say "no", and they say "Oh good, so it's ok to cut people off in traffic."
Or you say "yes" and they say "But I can't be a bad person! I give money to charity!"
It's not about whether or not you're a bad person, it's about whether or cutting people off in traffic is an bad act. If it is, and you do it all the time, then maybe you are a bad person, but you can be an overall good person and cut people off from time to time. Everyone does both good and bad things.
Similarly, "Am I sexist for doing this?" isn't a very useful question. We are all sexist(*), in the sense of having sexist biases and being complicit in a sexist society. So the point is to figure out which acts are particularly sexist, and avoid doing them, not to figure out which people are sexist and punish them.
That said, you can draw a line in the sand and decide that anyone who is, overall, more sexist than that is a "sexist person", and some acts are so horribly sexist that you might decide that doing them means you've crossed that line. But most sexist acts (like most unethical acts) are, by themselves, pretty minor in the scheme of things, and doing them doesn't make you inherently worse than anyone else. Though that doesn't mean you don't have s responsibility to figure out the negative consequences of your acts and try to mitigate them.
I'm going to keep this relatively short so I won't go into all the complications of doing harmful things by mistake etc. I just liked the metaphor and wanted to share it :)
Relating to the original version of the post: I will say: I think liking a sexist show isn't a sexist act anyway. You can't help what you like!
(*)By my definition, and definitions vary
no subject
And (keeping in mind I'm very tired) is it such a bad thing to be a little bit sexist/racist/blahist? I mean, if you're aware of it, or the fact that you worry about it at all, I would regard as better than people who think they're not at all biased. Being completely neutral in the real world is an absurd premise.
Liking a show that someone decibed as sexist, to my mind, is more like "I once drank tequila, does that make me Mexican?"
I'm too tired to explain that metaphor, so I hope it makes sense.
no subject
It all goes back to the fact that "discrimination" means "choice" when you get to that level. In some ways the issue is more that people are unthinking, than that people have preferences, in my opinion.
There needs to be a distinction drawn between striving for a society in which individuals will actually believe that all people are fundamentally equal*, and striving for a society in which all individuals willingly submit to a law that treats everyone as equally worthy, and carefully avoid abusing status, circumstance to undermine that equality.
* Equality of opportunity? Equality of outcome? Nah. Something more like "equal in value and dignity, and equally worthy of the trust of the citizenry" to my mind.
no subject
Absolutely, that's the point: criticising an act for being sexist (or whatever) isn't about judging people, it's about judging actions. Bringing up "But I'm a good person" is a distraction.
And (keeping in mind I'm very tired) is it such a bad thing to be a little bit sexist/racist/blahist
It's a little bit bad. Being very sexist is very bad. And so on :)
"I once drank tequila, does that make me Mexican?"
*is perhaps a little too literal-minded about your metaphor*
The problem with that is that drinking a LOT of Tequila ALL THE TIME doesn't make you Mexican either. Tequila drinking is at best loosely correlated with Mexican-ness.
But doing lots of bad/sexist things all the time does kind of make you a bad person/sexist.