Now I'm pretty sure I believed some stupid things as a kid, but being raised in a liberal area in the 70s it didn't get quite that stupid. Oh wait, yeah it did, because I was raised feminist. I was raised on Marlo Thomas' "Free To Be You and Me" where the princess either didn't need rescuing or she rescued the prince. I had grade school rooms with tables full of books we were free to pick up and read that were ALL about famous women in history - Amelia Earheart, or this or that slave girl made good, or Amish girl overcomes oppressive background blah-de-blah. Library time was full of books and stories that either contained heroines or equal numbers of hero/heroines who had no gendered differences (such as the Secret 7 series, a group of boys and girls who solved mysteries together.) Even in kindergarten the boys were just as likely to want to play in the "house" section as the blocks section because A) girls liked blocks too and B) all the cool equipment (fake stove, sink, refrigerator, washer/dryer, tables/chairs) were in the "house" section and boys wanted to get their hands on those gadgets too. Whenever my mother was out on a weekend my father would vacuum, do dishes, cook lunch, do laundry, etc. He said he'd spent 4 years in the army and everyone ought to so they could learn to take care of themselves. Sure, she did it during the week, but then she also got to sit at the table and read a book for 3 hours at a time if she wanted, and he didn't get that. It never occurred to me that cats were female and dogs were male. Why should it? About the only dumb gender idea I can remember was that I thought when I was about 3 that kids grew up to marry their mothers - not because of gender, but because being married meant you live together.
So I think a better question might be...DID you have any dumb ideas about gender when you were a kid, and if so, where do you think it came from and does it even matter? Because we're...well some of us aren't anyway...not kids anymore, right? And most of us know where we differ and where we're pretty much the same, don't we? I can't tell you why I even brought this one up except it annoyed me. And I don't like to be annoyed by feminists.
>>.....e.g. thinking only women had the ability to cook because you never saw any men cooking, or thinking all cats are female and all dogs are male."
ReplyDeleteWell, I definitely never thought that only women could cook because I never see any of them cooking (except in fast food restaurants, where I eat most of my meals and where, even so, 70% of the individuals sweating on to the hamburger pattys are male).
However, I must admit that I have always thought that all cats were female and all dogs were male. (Are you sure that's not a fact? Because I'm fairly sure it is but... I could be wrong. My being wrong did happen once before when I said that Budweiser was the world's best beer, only to find out later that Duff is.)
I'm going to sign up as this blog's first "Follower". I hope you won't mind, even though I am gay and I'm an Obama supporter and a major Alan Alda and Phil Donahue fan. Is that OK? (If not, let me know and I'll discontinue "Following" your blog with no hard feelings retained.)
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
ZOMG a gay, Obama-supporting, Alan Alda (love him) Phil Donahue supporter? GET THEE HENCE LO SPIRIT! LOL. Yeah I think I can support that. DO YOU SUPPORT MEN? DO YOU HATE FEMINISM AND WHAT IT'S DONE TO MEN? Well, there it is. (As the emperor said to Salieri and everyone else.)
ReplyDeleteHey, get this, I saw this amazing Nova-type show about the deep sea (the last frontier, no?) and Alan Alda dipped down with them, and saw all the self-lighting fish and all the other things, and he went to sleep, see. After he went to sleep he had a dream; and in this dream he saw a big figure in a flying cloak sort of thing flying over the Nazis, and he hears this big narration that said "Nightgown over Germany". Now how cool is that?
Unless unlike me you don't care about dreams...personally I think dreams mean a lot; if they didn't, why the fuck would they haunt me so?
Heck, in my dreams I fly.
ReplyDeleteIn my dreams, buildings are made of ice cream
And the oceans are bodies of gin.
There are no feminists in my dreams
And the women that remain find me adorable.
I've met Jesus in my dreams.
He lets me follow Him around.
Yeah, you could say I care about dreams.
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
POSTSCRIPT:
"DO YOU HATE FEMINISM AND WHAT IT'S DONE TO MEN?"
Yes, I hate Feminism and what it's done to men... AND TO WOMEN. (Let's keep it equal, eh? ;o)
"Well, there it is. (As the emperor said to Salieri and everyone else.)"
Ha! Yeah, that's a great line! I also love Salieri's line about being forgiven for his mediocrity. I haven't fully forgiven myself for my own mediocrity yet, but I'm workin' on it.
The funny thing about the feminist movement is, when you put aside the ulterior motives, I think the world was a lot more "progressive" (sorry, I'm too tired to think of a better word) than women gave it credit for.
ReplyDeleteMy mother, who is 86, was college educated, had a career, raised six children and has stayed married to my father for almost sixty years in spite fo putting up with my bullshit (#5 child, fourth boy).
There was no woman's work in our house, only work. And while I am sure she experienced chauvinism (again, too tired to plumb the vocabulary and I know I frickin spelled it wrong but I'm too tired for that, too), can we really say that none exists today?
All the movement has done was esmaculate men and strip women of many of the fine qualities that made them a counterpoint to our more Neanderthal traits.
But I can't say that...that would not go well with the new world order.
Mr. Politically Correct-amundo
"The funny thing about the feminist movement is, when you put aside the ulterior motives, I think the world was a lot more "progressive" (sorry, I'm too tired to think of a better word) than women gave it credit for."
ReplyDeleteMore progressive than *feminists* give it credit for. More progressive than angry man-haters give it credit for. More than modern "progressives" give it credit for. Come on, it was only our progressive Western society that gave women full rights in the FIRST place! Let these women try and live under Taliban rule and get back to us with their oppression stories; they might learn just how damn good they got it here. I know suffragettes went through some truly heinous things to get the right to vote, but then I'm not saying that was the best course of action anyway. Let landowners vote. And there isn't too much wrong with one vote per household, either. I know, lunacy! Well there was a lot to be said for that lunacy.
Hmmm...getting too serious. Why, oh why wasn't I blessed with the ability to write hilarious things? I would just love to be a place people like us could turn to and laugh our asses off. We'll just have to do the best we can to make each other laugh, I suppose. Enough's as good as a feast and three are better than one. Let's enjoy :)