ABSTRACT
The notion of sexism is fast becoming an endangered idea. It is disappearing from everyday parlance, as well as from academic writing, where it is frequently presented as crude and unsophisticated, not worthy of attention from the subtle minds of the theoretical literati. Whilst ‘racism’ and ‘homophobia’ retain their critical force as key political and intellectual concepts, ‘sexism’ – the term, though not, unfortunately, the practice – seems on the way to extinction. If it were an animal, charities would be springing up to cherish and nurture it, with advertising, public education and fundraising schemes, but there is no campaign to defend the term ‘sexism’, and few people are seemingly even contemplating how the loss from our critical lexicon of this powerful idea might impoverish our political and intellectual futures.
