Is this actually sexist?

Jezebel is calling an article on push-ups "sexist" because it didn't focus the bent-knee "girl push-ups." Jezebel said:

I finally read the story, and now have reason to warn you against following suit: it is BLATANTLY sexist. There is, for one, extensive discussion of 93-year-old push-up pioneer Jack Palance, who set numerous world push-up records, but there is not a single word addressing any record-holders in the arena of girl push-ups, or even really much mention of the girl push-up at all. No, it simply assumes women should be not only able to complete male push-ups, even though the push-up is an exercise invented by males and for males which, like its brother exercise the pull-up and all those spacial analysis questions, has served for generations solely to fuck women on elementary school achievement tests. But what's more: the story suggests that a woman of forty should be able to complete sixteen of these patriarchal exercises.

But I looked at the article they were reviewing, and, well, it didn't seem sexist to me. I was honestly more offended that the women who wrote the Jezebel article seemed to think that women couldn't do push-ups. And why does celebrating the achievements of a man make an article sexist? It doesn't, in my opinion.

edited 14th Jan '11 10:52:53 AM by LeighSabio

This may be the years of martial arts speaking, but I've always been of the opinion that "girl push-ups" are copouts, not real push-ups, and invented solely so that high school girls wouldn't have to sweat in gym class.

edited 14th Jan '11 11:06:47 AM by Bur

Yeah, I, uh, think that might be a bit of an overreaction there. If it is indeed true that other kinds of push-ups are better for female physiology, you could just mention that the article isn't terribly useful rather than going off on a rant about it.

As is, I think we've got an exercise lightweight trying to hide behind accusations of prejudice.

edited 14th Jan '11 11:08:49 AM by Iaculus

Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.

...why are you expecting anything substantial.

Jezebel is essentially an online women's magazine with a feminist slant (and they fail at the feminist part sometimes) - its content isn't usually very deep or serious but can be fun to read.

I don't see the sexism in that article, either.

Thinking back to my years of marching band, we almost always had one or two girls that did more real push-ups than most of the guys, only outdone by the dude with a military background.

So despite being a man whose opinion doesn't matter I'm calling BS.

edited 14th Jan '11 11:20:40 AM by Pykrete

I feel a bit miffed about the differnce in the number of push ups. I think men and women should be more closer in this regard. But besides that? Nothing I saw.

I find it sexist to imply those push-ups are 'girl' push-ups, personally.

drops and does 28 military -style push-ups

I call BS, Jezebel.

Evaulating whether something is "actually" sexist is pretty difficult since sexist is one of those Personal Dictionary words.

"I feel a bit miffed about the differnce in the number of push ups. I think men and women should be more closer in this regard. But besides that? Nothing I saw."

That should be easy enough to check. You'd only need to ask a few hundred people how much they exercise and check how many push ups they can do, then you should be able to get a clear picture how many push ups for for a girl is equal to how many push ups for a guy

No, sexism does have a pretty clear definition.

1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women. 2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.

That should be easy enough to check. You'd only need to ask a few hundred people how much they exercise and check how many push ups they can do, then you should be able to get a clear picture how many push ups for for a girl is equal to how many push ups for a guy

For reference.

@TF: Fair enough, and it will of course be a pedantic issue for the ages. I'd say that if something containing a double standard is a good rule of thumb for deciding if it is or not. Obviously it's not perfect, but I think the fact that there are designated 'male' push-ups and designated 'female' push-ups can definitely fall into this category. Obviously males might have more upper body strength, so more will be able to do the normal push-ups than females, but the amount of females that do normal push-ups is far too great to consider splitting the genders.

While females might be ones that do the majority of the weaker push-ups, that does not mean the majority of females do said push-ups

edited 14th Jan '11 11:56:00 AM by MrAHR

This whole conversation is funnier if you think that "pushups" refers to bra's not the exercise.

Also, I don't think its sexist.

Wait, did the criticism just claim that girls can't do math? Please tell me this is a joke.

Yeah, it sounds like this 'feminist criticism' is by far and away more sexist (towards women!) than the original article. Not that the original article even sounds sexist at all, to be sure.

How ironic.

edited 14th Jan '11 12:45:32 PM by TheGirlWithPointyEars

Sometimes there are double standards because there are significant physiological or psychological differences between men and women on some matters.  ^*

Much as double standards annoy me, they sometimes make sense.

edited 14th Jan '11 1:39:48 PM by TibetanFox

I had honestly forgotten that those kind of push-ups existed.

Calling the easier variety of pushups 'girl pushups' seems way more sexist to me than anything else. I don't recall ever hearing them called that.

I too first thought it was referring to push-up bras.

But honestly, I agree that this chick's response to the article is far more sexist than the article itself (which isn't sexist at all, imo). She can't honestly believe that saying girls shouldn't be expected to do push-ups because they're scrawny weaklings is championing her gender, can she?

Also, I'm a girl, I'm not in particularly good shape, and I can do forty of them (real push-ups, back straight without bending my knees). You'd have to be pretty fucking weak to be unable to do sixteen.

Well excuuuuuseeeee meeeeeee, princess. I can do boy push-ups just fine, thank you.

@Leigh Sabio: I couldn't find what they were basing those categories on. If it's just comparing men and women in the general population without looking at how much they exercise then that doesn't work as a standard for a gym class becuase it penalizes members of whichever gender that on average exercises more

I'd have to say the Jezebel article was more sexist than the other one. I therefore agree with OP.

You'd have to be pretty fucking weak to be unable to do sixteen

Agreed. I was pretty surprised that there are people out there who can't do sixteen push ups.

edited 14th Jan '11 6:09:24 PM by LeighSabio

Well, she says "a woman of forty". Is that a woman who actually exercises, or any and every woman of forty, including people who are ridiculously out of shape?

You'd think the former, but the latter's the only way I can see that part making sense.