My women comrades and colleagues have in recent years pointed to a growing sexist backlash in society. Much of it has to do with a cultural push to put women back “into their place” as homemakers, caretakers and child-rearers.

I will readily admit that I don’t fully comprehend every aspect of what they’re experiencing. A lot of it an “atmosphere” or a “feel,” as they often point out, and that’s something out of my scope as a male.

At the same time, there are things that are indicative of this sexist pushback that are so blatantly obvious that you just can’t miss it.

For example, there was a not-so-minor uproar about Canada’s women’s hockey team celebrating their gold-medal victory in Vancouver with champagne, beer and cigars. Olympic officials were up in arms about the semi-private celebration, held in the arena after the public had left (and only a few media vultures continued to circle around), even raising the specter of removing women’s hockey from future Olympic games.

Numerous officials and pundits referred to the Canadian women as acting “un-ladylike” while the “official” line was that they were acting no different than U.S. snowboarder Scotty Lago, who was literally kicked out of Vancouver for his “celebration.”

Apparently, in the minds of the Olympic officials, women athletes having a semi-private celebration among themselves is tantamount to a male athlete tying his medal to the front of his pants at a bar and having women admirers go “bobbing for bronze.”

That’s an awfully low bar they’ve set for such accomplished women Olympians.

But while this story grabbed some headlines, another, more sinister, example of the sexist backlash went almost unnoticed.

Last month, huge majorities in both houses of the Utah state legislature passed a bill that would allow the state to prosecute women who have a miscarriage for murder if they think it was the result of an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” during pregnancy.

What exactly constitutes an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” worthy of prosecution is not explicitly outlined in the bill. That will be up to local officials to decide.

Opponents of the bill have pointed out that such great “crimes” as drinking one too many glasses of wine, slipping on a patch of ice or even smoking a cigarette. “This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder,” said Missy Bird, director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah.

“For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail’, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail’,” wrote the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women in her blog.

The bill now sits on the desk of Republican Governor Gary Herbert. And there’s little doubt if this chief executive of the semi-theocracy that is Utah will sign it or not.

As I said, these are two of the more blatant examples of the sexist backlash occurring today. But because these are more blatant and obvious, they are also easier to recognize and oppose, and, in the case of the “reckless miscarriage” bill, organize and fight.

More pernicious and damaging, though, is the “daily whisper” of sexism — in politics, the economy and culture — that reinforces the more blatant and over acts. From commercial and media portrayals to the ongoing attacks on “political correctness” to the growing influence of theocratic movements, this sexism is so omnipresent as to be virtually invisible ... yet felt at every turn, every day.

The fight against sexism and women’s oppression is not just about privacy or reproductive rights, or equal pay and the right of women to not be called “b***h” on the job or anywhere else, it is also about uprooting and killing the sources of that “daily whisper” and the social system that maintains it.

As we approach International Women’s Day, it is important for communists and working people to recommit to this fight.