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Originally Posted by GA Russell
Thanks for the spelling correction sjfan! I knew that didn't look right.
In regard to your Rush Limbaugh point, there were liberals before Limbaugh came along. But the word "sexist" was coined by Steinem and her friends to be a criticism or insult, right?
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I’m not sure what distinction you’re drawing here—there was sexism long before the word was coined. The word “racism” isn't attested until 1903 (according to the OED), and it certainly didn’t come into widespread use until the 1930s. But it’d be pretty laughable to argue that there wasn’t racism in the world until then, and discussing the role of racism in culture, society, and books from earlier is both reasonable and common.
But, no, it wasn't coined by Steinem or her friends. It was certainly meant as a criticism, though not necessarily as an insult
per se; the early uses were fairly nuanced.
Professor Pauline Leet first used the word in a speech in 1965: ‘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”…both of them are making decisions and coming to conclusions about someone’s value by referring to factors which are in both cases irrelevant.’
The speech was transcribed and circulated somewhat widely in college and activist circles at the time.
Caroline Bird further popularized it in her 1968 book
Born Female (the first time it appears in print, unless you count Xeroxes and mimeographs of Leet's speech): “There is recognition abroad that we are in many ways a sexist country. Sexism is judging people by their sex when sex doesn't matter. Sexism is intended to rhyme with racism. Women are sexists as often as men.”
Steinem didn't become involved in the feminist movement until several years after Leet had coined the word, and a year or two after Bird's book had popularized it.