[Ads-l] Still Further Antedating of "Sexism" (Prejudice or Discrimination on the Basis of Sex)

[Shapiro, Fred]

sexism (OED 1968)

1965 Birmingham Post-Herald 16 Jan. 10/6 (Newspapers.com)

[Letter to the editor:]  The United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the United States Air Force Academy and the United States Coast Guard Academy are all rigidly segregated institutions. ... the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination because of sex.  None of the above-mentioned institutions has, so far as I know, a single ... female student.  And, so far as I know, Uncle Sam has made no pledge of compliance as to these institutions.  Think of the wretched lot of those students who are being brought up with their psyches twisted by an outwardly benign Uncle Sam.  Deprivation of "those qualities incapable of objective measurement," the Supreme Court informs us, leads to a terrible form of spiritual leprosy.  Uncle Sam's image can not stand this terrible blot.  He must reform and quit the practice of sexism.  ERSKINE R. LINDSEY

NOTE:  In reading this citation, it occurred to me that Mr. Lindsey may have been posing as a champion of women's rights in order to mock the rights of African Americans and trivialize the rights of women.  I Googled Mr. Lindsey and it does appear to me that he was an Alabama attorney who was a critic of the rights of African Americans.  Nonetheless, this seems to be a usage of the word "sexism" to mean "prejudice or discrimination on the basis of sex."

Fred Shapiro

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