Sexist Street Names

A tiny proportion of streets in Rome are named after women, while nearly half are named after men - and it is a similar story in other major cities around the world. Outrageous sexism, a simple fact of history, or both?

Seriously? Don't feminists have more important issues to tackle?

Here's the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17203823

(edited 12 years ago)

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Reply 1

Left Hand Drive

Uppity feminists, nothing worse.

Reply 2

najinaji

Original post by Playa10

Outrageous sexism, a simple fact of history

There. Answered that question easily enough.

Inb4WW3

I believe you're referring to this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17203823

There are so many women in the world today who are genuinely being oppressed, it's quite odd that these feminists are focusing their efforts on going through 16,550 streets in Rome noting how few are named after women.

Reply 5

-Someone-Like-You-

Lol, i'm not even bothered. Some women, eyy? :rolleyes:

That said, I wouldn't mind a street named after me :colondollar:

Reply 6

elenii

Who cares? In some countries women are forced to marry their rapists.

Reply 7

MrHayden

Completely ridiculous, why the hell do they care? What difference to reality could it possibly ever make?! The fact that feminism finds problems with stuff like this almost seems demonstrative of the end of their struggle for equality: they have now achieved the goals of being allowed positions in government or business but don't want to stop being angry at men, so invent other "sexist" issues to find fault with.

Reply 8

Mazzini

Ooh, there's a Via Mazzini :love:

Reply 9

ForgettingWhatsername

It's people like this who give feminism a bad name.

Reply 10

goape

I'm going to build a new road, and call it Feminazi Drive.

Reply 11

ser00

EDIT: oops, read the title wrong :/

Reply 12

Pawsies

I think its just about naming new streets after women which is fine, they aren't trying to rename the old ones which I'd have a problem with.

Reply 13

someonesomewherexx

Fantastic comment:

"With serious issues in the world, feminists really need a reality check here. Streets typically were named after great historical figures, prior to women generally achieving great things on their own. The numbers of streets named after men reflects those historical figures - digging up the name of a woman just to name a street after her would be sexist, but sexism only works one way, right?"

You'd think there were more important issues.

Reply 14

emilybradstreet

When I opened this thread I expected to see a link to an article from The Onion :s-smilie:

Reply 15

Dragonfly07

I don't understand this obsession with "feminism" going too far. I've seen plenty of men label themselves as "anti-feminist" simply for that reason.

The definition of feminism is simply the belief that men and women should have equal opportunities in life. The fact that these women are feminists and the fact that they think street names assigned some billion years ago are sexist have nothing to do with feminism. It has to do with the fact that this particular bunch of women are stupid as ****, nothing else.

It's like a random black dude coming to London and complaining that there's no street called Abimbola, therefore London is racist. No one will pay any attention to him.

Reply 16

StartSomething

Lol what crap. I bet those street names are well old. Who cares anyway?! It's only street names.

Reply 17

screenager2004

It's a bit pointless to say "in the past men dominated the social world" - that's bloody obvious. Why is this academic even shocked?

To answer the question - it was sexist THEN. In the past we lived in a highly patriarchal society. This does not, however, have any implications on reflecting modern Italian society TODAY.

Reply 18

pr0view

Typical tax payer funded ****e been churned out by the BBCCCP.

Reply 19

Studentus-anonymous

Original post by elenii

Who cares? In some countries women are forced to marry their rapists.

This, and a good point. I think it's more important to raise the well-being and rights of women in genuinely oppressive countries/cultures before we make a massive non-issue out of whether a street is named after a man or a woman.

Most cultures have been paternalistic throughout history, doesn't mean we should protest against museums or whatever that display their artefacts.

What is important is now, and making sure women get fair treatment presently.