because most people think that racism and sexism are about prejudice, bigotry and discrimination. most americans think this is wrong.
recently i had a discussion with someone about housework/the second shift. i was complaining about how the research is handled in this field. she talked about how men think it's perfectly okay to slough off the dirty work on women. i start yammering about how i was a discussant at a conference and i was chomping at the bit to nail a presenter on his claim that discordant gender relations in the home had been dealt with because in his research he found that couples resolved their second shift struggles by purchasing the labor and commodities that lightened the burden of the second shift. in turn, they divided up more equitably what was left over.
at the conference, i told her, i lambasted him for not recognizing that "discordant" gender relations had simply been shifted onto the labor market where there is a sexist and racist division of labor. you know the rave.
she replied: not me! my housekeeper gets paid quite well.
i replied: well, no, your housekeeper probably doesn't get paid quite well since i doubt s/he is paid enough to afford her or his own housekeeper is s/he?
that's institutionalized sexism and racism no? the woman i was speaking to wouldn't think of it that way at all.
she benefits because she thinks that paying someone a "decent" wage is enough without ever asking how that person she hires would ever be able to live in the same way. if that other person were able to afford the daycare and hired household help that this woman did, this same woman wouldn't be able to afford it! she benefits by imagining that the wages she pays are good wages without ever recognizing that they aren't.
that's how i'd talk to someone about structural racism and sexism.
so, then you'd ask her how we could ALL have what she thinks people ought to have: less of a burdensome second shift, affordable daycare, etc. the empirical analysis will get her to that point, as will pointing out how she manages to a live a decent life that other people simply cannot given our political economy.
kelley