>I really don't know what statement I made that you're referring to as
>'sexist'.
how does structural gender oppression work? it works primarily through implicit norms, ideals, and assumptions about what older sociologists call roles. eg., the graduate student, in an idealized manifestation, is most successful, on general, if he lives the life of a single white man with no responsibilities and (quite likely) a wife to take care of his needs and alzheimer inflicted parents.
similarly, the conception of activism put forth here is about what an activist SHOULD be; it is most conducive to the life of a single person with a job and no one to support. (this is why my point about how a feminist critique of grad student role is important to ALL grad studs.)
dennis was critical of a workerist, sexist, (and i'd add racist) conception of organizing in which one should spend all their time organizing.
you aided and abetted that conception be/c when you complained to dennis, you sloughed off any differences between a person with a full time job and a child and a single person with a fulltime job and no dependents (i don't care what the specifics are in this case. but consider that if you want to get specific, then note that i am a grad student, too, and i have two ill relatives i'm occasionally responsible for. no, i'm not bragging since i know people who have it worse and are more involved than i am.).
you support an individualist analysis that refuses to see how, embedded in her idealized notion of "the activist", is a blame individuals analysis of why some people don't spend as much time as others do organizing. you denied that a worker with a child has different burdens (less time, a bigger budget for even just necessities, let alone raising a child with a decent home, a decent education, and decent time with his parents and kin)
you also support an individualist analysis when you try to insist that each case could be different, thereby denied the _STRUCTURED_ character of oppression. how? when you said, "well gee some grad students have parents with alzheimer's". that's not the point since a feminist critique would see those grad students as unfairly penalized by workerist conceptions of activists, grad students, workers. in fact, a feminist critique of workerism sees ALL people has burdened by workerist conceptions of these "roles".
that, steve, is what churchill (and what you and yoshie) did: he denied a structuralist analysis and, instead, blamed individuals for caring about what kind of outfits little johnny wore. he trivialized their lives. you trivialized the lives of parents. no one, least of all me, would trivialize the life of a graduate student, single and childless or not. but, in fact, the world of work and yoshie's world of the activist are sexist and racist because white women and men and women of color (hey jannuzzi, i got round the ampersand problem there. just seeing if you're reading. ) have a more difficult time fulfilling the role of the worker and activist (on average). again, my point about the value of a feminist analysis of the grad student role as applying to all graduate students is important here. that is, all people have difficulties filling idealized worker and activist roles, roles that make and remake structural oppression, but, on average, white women and men and women of color have a harder time.
for more help understanding this critique of your equivocation, see Andersen and Collins, _Race, Class, and Gender http://sociology.wadsworth.com/book/andersen_hill_collins/bookhome.html
if you still don't get it, how about i send your comments to a couple of feminist listservs. i'll bundle up their answers and send em your way. put on your armour, though, because you'll need it after they get done explaining what you should have learned in sociology 101.
kelley