While I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, I sort of bought into the notion that while vestiges of sexism and racism remained, the majority of people were getting to the point of being gender and race neutral. Sadly, it seems that this is nowhere near the case, and the prejudices run VERY deep in some cases. A certain senator referred to the president as an "animal," and I can see no way that such a derogatory label would have ever been applied to a white man. Likewise, women in politics, engineering, and in general society are not compared as gender neutral beings, but are compared to society's perception of what a women is, or should be. This applies across the board, even in some thing that are not obviously related, like school start/stop times. We have school district that came up with a scheme, during the recession, to get the federal student attendance dollars, but starting the day, not 1, but 2 hours later than usual, for "staff development." Great for the students and teachers, but sucks for working families. I would contend that there is still a notion that there is a stay-at-home parent that can deal with this disruption in schedules with no financial consequences.
One thing, though, to be fair, I believe that Mit the Romney was also labeled as being mechanical early in his presidential campaign.
TTFN
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