> Don't know enough about it but I think "there's no such thing as reverse racism" is true because it would be just... racism. Or just sexism. Actually the definition given before ("sexism is sexism by the privileged") would allow for "reverse sexism" ("sexism by the non-privileged"). So it seemed kind of inconsistent to me.

As I said in my original post, most feminists assert that society is a patriarchy that is fundamentally oppressive to women. They use the term "sexist" for an act that results from the patriarchy. Because their model of power dynamics does not allow for the notion of males being structurally oppressed, it is by their very definition impossible for one to be "sexist" (or "reverse sexist" as some people say) towards males.

> I know I didn't upvote your comment because of:

I'm not sure I really follow. Are you saying that (1) you disliked that I attempted to clarify that feminists use the term "sexist" differently from how a lot of us use it or that (2) I didn't do a good job in making that clarification or (3) something else entirely?

If the first or third, I don't get why. If the second, what I meant is that a lot of commenters on this thread found the title misleading. I wanted to clarify to them that there are two commonly used usages of "sexism", one in mainstream English and one in academia, especially in left wing contexts. As a linguist, I don't find value in prescribing one definition as "better" to use than another. I just wanted to point out that people were really just having a debate about definitions.