The Guardian Writer: Your Bookshelf Might Make You Sexist, Racist

In an article published yesterday by the Guardian, Jessica Valenti explained how your bookshelf might make you a sexist and racist.

Titled, "You might not think you're sexist – until you take a look at your bookshelf," Valenti stated that people who do not have books by women in their collection are sexists.

"When you live in a world with outrageous, explicit misogyny - domestic violence, sexual assault and attacks on reproductive rights, to name a few - it’s easy to breeze by the small stuff," she explains.

She continues, "like it or not, your taste in music, books, television or art says something about you: it sends a message about what you think is worth your time, what you think is interesting and who you think is smart. So if the only culture you pay attention to is created by men, or created by white people, you are making an explicit statement about who and what is important."

Your book case, and the fact that women are underrepresented in popular culture, Valenti writes, "shows we still have a long way to go for equity in cultural representation."

Perhaps one solution is not quoting men at all. "Last year," Valenti details, "technologist Anil Dash, for example, wrote about a new years resolution to only retweet women - he came to the idea after realizing that even though he followed men and women equally, he retweeted men three times as often as women."

Ms. Valenti

She continues, "We all could" do better.

In her last paragraph, Valenti tries to temper people's reaction to her article against men, writing, "Yes, our tastes are our tastes - I’m not suggesting you put away all books written by men or only listen to female musicians (well, not yet anyway)."

However, "our cultural biases - as unintentional as they may be - are worth thinking about. Not just to address broad inequalities, but to open up our own minds."

In other words, in the last paragraph Valenti said that it's just something to think about, yet called you a sexist in her headline.