Really!? Who was it? A man, of course. I mean, no woman in her right mind would agree to this. So, who was the person who started this cluster fuck? And what has my baggie bloomers in a twist this time? It’s the latest male jargon I’m hearing too much of lately. And God help the next man I hear who with a smirk says, “You sound like a girl. Man up!” Or “Oh look, he’s got his girl on.”
Excuse me? (Note one finely plucked eyebrow raises in irritation as these three syllables are exhaled.)
Let’s dissect these sentences.
To say one sounds like a girl is to imply there’s something negative about being a girl. Are we not equals? Do we not breathe the same air? Do we not vote and carry our own Visa cards?
This is 2013 and yet some of us seem to want to revert to the 1950’s when women were thought of as weak, less intelligent, less valuable as men. And it really jerks my feminist chain. Please ladies, I implore you, don’t allow this to happen. When you hear a guy—stranger or lover—express this ancient mentality, call him on it.
When he can tug on a pair of pantyhose and stilettos and dance backwards, then he can talk about being more coordinated.
When he, who whines over a headache, lives through a case of bad cramps, a series of hot flashes and, God forbid, childbirth, then he can talk about being stronger.
When he gets up early to get things ready for the children’s day at school before going to work so he can rush home to make supper, throw a load of laundry into the washer that he’s had to gather off everyone’s floors, help with homework, soothe cranky kids, and STILL have the energy for monkey sex, then he can brag about being able to do more than a woman.
Until then, stop inferring we are “less than.”
We’ve fought those battles, my darlings, don’t allow the male gender to drag us backwards.
To suggest women are whiny or cry easily over little things is damn insulting. Makes me so mad I could just bawl. That’s right, you heard me. A woman’s DNA is programmed to express more emotion or to fall in love with a pair of shoes. While a man’s DNA is programmed to cry over a lost sporting event or scratch his balls when he’s in deep thought. Yes, we are different. Thank God. But let’s not build up one sex by degrading another.
Men are wondrous creatures.
I love everything about them: their muscles, their deep laughter, the way their whiskers upbraid the skin and elicit both chills and heat, the feel of their arms about me and the different ways they view the world. I’d sooner converse with a group of men than women. I love them.
What I don’t love is their need to belittle us. I’m not having it. Not one damn bit of it. So the next man I hear berating another man about sounding like a girl, I’m going to smile and sweetly say, “Really? Gee, I didn’t know he was that smart.”
Sometimes you just gotta fight nasty with nasty.
