I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I think there is an impulse to label things sexist without addressing it, so I'm gonna ask a few questions.
If a woman wrote this about men, would it be sexist? (I expect you'll say yes.)
If a lesbian woman wrote this about other women, would it be sexist? (I feel like you're forced to say yes since you are committing to the idea being sexist independent of the sex of the speaker.)
Is it possible for a man like Barney to be honestly and accurately analyzing trends of the women in his life, given that he only ranks women shallowly?
Careful now. It's not necessarily sexist for Barney to _only care about looks,_ or at least: since we all care about looks to some degree, it is dangerous to imply that caring about looks is sexist. And if his analysis of his desires is based on his decision to only try for attractiveness, how is that analysis sexist instead of revealing the frailty of being so shallow?
So the comparison is basically that there are two orthogonal traits, one negative and one positive. It is not "Drives, like women"; it is "Drives have orthogonal traits, and evaluation of them therefore proceeds along the Barney Analysis."
I understand the argument, but this isn't about logic. Context matters. Sexism directed by men against women (well, "heteronormative" to use the jargon) is "worse" than the reverse because it exacerbates an existing situation.
It's easy for a typical man in our society to shrug off a comment equating his looks with his worth. It's much harder for a woman. "Should" it be? Of course not, but that's sort of the point: let's try laying off things for a while before demanding logical equality, OK?
A well put argument to establish a local subjectivity for practical effect.
The problem I have with it is that it is then used to marginalize _other_ local subjectivities like r/mensrights (which admittedly has its share of ludicrous opinions, do _not_ admit you don't care you were circumcised) for the purpose of serving the "most important" 'ism.
In reality there are a whole bunch of inequalities in a whole bunch of different directions, and it doesn't make sense just to target the one that _some_ people have decided is the most important. (In all honesty, for instance, I think racial inequality is a much bigger problem than sexism in our society now that women are becoming much better educated, whereas we still have a lot of 'bad part[s] of town.')
In other words, we are not escaping heteronormative forms until we can actually work with logical equality, and the quickest way through the forest is the straightest. Why not just admit the problem is with beauty and our valuation of it--and yes, men might be guilty of this more by percentage, but that's not the source of the problem--instead of with gender?
I'd be grateful if you could explain the issue, because I really don't see what the problem here is. I guess I don't understand what sexism is.
The way I see it, Barney only judges women by how hot/crazy they are (or he judges them by more than that, but those are the two primary factors in his judgement). Given that everyone judges everyone based on some traits, and these traits have different weights attached to them, why is it sexist for Barney to do that? He's just a shallow person, but not qualitatively different than anyone else (only quantitatively).
Also, he is not saying "this is how you should judge women", only "this is how I judge women". I would be fine with a woman saying that about a guy, or a woman about a woman. It wouldn't be a woman I'd like to date, but I don't consider it an attack on my gender as a whole.
If a woman wrote this about men, would it be sexist? (I expect you'll say yes.)
If a lesbian woman wrote this about other women, would it be sexist? (I feel like you're forced to say yes since you are committing to the idea being sexist independent of the sex of the speaker.)
Is it possible for a man like Barney to be honestly and accurately analyzing trends of the women in his life, given that he only ranks women shallowly?
Careful now. It's not necessarily sexist for Barney to _only care about looks,_ or at least: since we all care about looks to some degree, it is dangerous to imply that caring about looks is sexist. And if his analysis of his desires is based on his decision to only try for attractiveness, how is that analysis sexist instead of revealing the frailty of being so shallow?
So the comparison is basically that there are two orthogonal traits, one negative and one positive. It is not "Drives, like women"; it is "Drives have orthogonal traits, and evaluation of them therefore proceeds along the Barney Analysis."