Bias Passed from Generation to Generation

The concepts of race and gender are continuously being redefined over time. Depending on their definition in the community, they are used to justify different treatment between different groups of people. And although in the last few decades racism and sexism have been slowly becoming less and less acceptable, they still exist. They may not be as apparent as they were one hundred years ago, but when the two types of oppression begin to overlap they become much clearer. As Patricia Grogg argues, "Cuban women have to work twice as hard as men to get ahead in their careers. But things are even tougher for black women in Cuba, although discrimination by reason of gender or skin colour is prohibited by law and by the constitution itself" (1). Black women in Cuba face a double standard. They are hindered due to the stereotypes given to them not only based on their sex but their race as well. This overlapping of different types of oppression can hinder people so severely that they may not even have room to breathe anymore, or the freedom to do what they want. For example, in "The Case of Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson" by Joan L. Griscom, Sharon is oppressed because of her sexual orientation, physical limitations, and her sex. These three limitations encage her to a point where the law and medical system refuse her the freedom to make her own choices. The reason why these forms of oppression, especially race and sex, are so pertinent today can be explained through examples of history. The past explains how certain forms of oppression are passed on from generation to generation through the media, workplace, and law.

. The media is known for being able to influence people's opinions and ideas. Through means such as television, the newspaper, and internet, the media is able to address certain issues and pass on their own viewpoints of them. This has been going on for hundreds of years, even before television or the internet was invented. For example, "The Antisuffragists" consisted of a group of papers written by men who were against women's rights to vote. They write about how women were created for a specific purpose. Orestes A. Brownson states, "Woman was created to be a wife and a mother; that is her destiny" (545). When he says this, he's implying that women were created to serve men. Their only duties are to take care of the husband, be faithful to him, and raise his children. Brownson argues that women are given specific characteristics at birth in order to fulfill these duties, "For this she is endowed with patience, endurance, passive courage, quick sensibilities, a sympathetic nature, and great executive and administrative ability" (545). Some people who would read these papers would then begin to believe is being argued, that women are supposed to be a certain way because it is their God-given purpose in life. But if newspapers didn't exist or the printing press, these ideas would not have been able to spread far across the country, let alone from generation to generation. The opinions of Brownson written in a paper in 1869 and 1873 were able to endure the test of time, proven by their existence forty years later when people were arguing against the 19th Amendment.

Along with the media, the workplace has also helped to support certain forms of oppression. For example, women have always been treated differently there even if they are as qualified as a man sitting next to them. People may not believe that they are capable of doing their job due to lack of physical or intellectual abilities. Cornelia Dean cites, "...then the president of Harvard, gave a talk in which he suggested that one explanation of women's relative absence at the upper ranks of science might be innate intellectual deficiencies" (305). Even though this statement has not been backed up by any science, the fact that the president of Harvard said it shows that there's a huge problem of bias in the workplace. Proving the point further, in the same article with an interview from Dr. Barres, who changed his sex from a woman to a man, he answers, "It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don't get the resources to be successful" (Dean 306). So the problem isn't that women are less capable, it is that they aren't given the chance to succeed. This lack of chance can be explained by the history of the workplace, where women