The persistence of isms

I was talking with one of my friends the other day about Hillary Clinton and how her run for the presidency has exposed certain sexist attitudes in the country. From there was also talked about Obama and racism. It was and is my opinion that Hillary has faced more sexist negativity than obama has faced racist negativity. But that got me thinking about how both sexism and racism persist in this country.

I cam to the conclusion that the vast majority of sexists are people who do not think they are sexist. Most people do not say that a woman, for no other reason than she is a woman, cannot do X. But I think that there are many people who say that a woman can be president but only if X, while never imposing that same restriction on a male. With racism, it is much harder to justify that kind of assertion. I think most rational people have a harder time justifying a race distinction, and for that reason there are fewer racists who do not think they are racist than there are sexists who dont think they are sexist. So I have come to the conclusion that even though I strongly oppose Clinton's run for the white house, and will vote for McCain if Clinton is the democratic nominee, I am grateful to her for having run because I think it has exposed some latent sexism. And recognition of the problem is the first step to solving it.