Sexism in the City

I mentioned that I am blogging on a newspaper site in my old home of Des Moines. I try to be topical which it being Iowa and an election year means I do a fair amount of writing about issues and candidates. I have post a few of the things I have written for that site here. Two of those pieces being about sexism. My latest piece on the DM Register site is about an article I found on MSNBC about the difficulty Hillary Clinton is having in Iowa with wooing women voters. The article goes on to explain that aside from Mississippi, Iowa is the only state to have never elected a female governor or senator. In my assessment, I agreed with much of what was written implying that Iowa is a very traditional on gender roles despite the fact that more women work outside the home in Iowa than just about anywhere else in the U.S. and that it is so entrenched an attitude that even the women by into it. And this isn’t a new issue for me. I have been annoyed with the gender thing in my home state since I was a kid and couldn’t play summer little league baseball or join the Boy Scouts (because they actually camped and did cool outdoor stuff as opposed to the cooking and sewing the Girl Scouts had to do).

My latest efforts got my blog noticed and I received a flurry of responses - from guys - telling me I was full of shit (and those were the nice replies). So, I am wondering readers, my few and loyal, am I off base with the gender thing? Is the world, or at least the west, truly a gender-blind utopia - because it feels not so much different to me now than when I was growing up.

Any thoughts on sexism?