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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9523238" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Been meaning to address this so I'm gonna do it in two real sections:First, thank you for reaching out to old friends and connections who knew Gary directly and can confirm he was, actually, sexist. Intentionally sexist rather than just incidentally sexist. And specifically -even for his time-. It means a lot to me to have that information and cultural context. If you've got names you'd like to add to it, I'd happily take them, too.Second, good to know he was only ever unintentionally racist. That's nice to hear, honestly. I totally respect that he worked to deal with it in his life! End of section 1...Now for the difficult part: Because it's hard to get people to recognize or even acknowledge sexism in the world around them unless it's literally screaming in their face.Even on these forums you can see people coming out of the woodwork any time this issue comes up that he's not sexist because:1) He was right (the worst possible answer which usually leads to a ban)2) He wasn't that sexist for the era (minimizing and deflecting criticism)3) He was only joking (minimizing and deflecting criticism)4) What he said wasn't sexist (talking over marginalized voices)5) You shouldn't say bad things about the dead (minimizing and deflecting criticism)6) Shouldn't you worry about -REAL- sexism? (minimizing and deflecting criticism)7) Aren't you the real bigot? (DARVO)And permutations on the above.We continue to speak out against the above comments and other BS that gets rolled out every time the issue comes up because we have to fight back against these ideas. Why? Because otherwise they're accepted as the truth or correct answer or whatever. Because when sexism is accepted as normal, bad things happen to women. And as a woman I have a sincere interest in combating that sexism anywhere I can. Even if it is 'Innocuous' or 'Not Serious' it gets serious pretty quick.</blockquote>

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