I was researching why ships are referred to as “she” and I noticed a particularly testy rant. This very angry man suggested in the comments that once upon a time you could refer to a boat in the feminine gender, because of our similar strengths and ability to sustain life, but the feminist movement basically put and end to all that.
He continued: so many females now have NO STRENGTHS at least in terms of relationships with men because they are totally incapable of dealing with men and the social dynamics have changed so much in this country that those embellishments no longer apply. Thanks feminists. Dealing with crazy females is GREAT. Where are all the "True Women"?
Geez, I thought. It sounds like he thinks we women are in a war against men. And here I am reading all the current rhetoric about the war against women.
According to all that I am reading and hearing, we women are in bad shape; bad, bad shape in the country. We don’t have enough women in legislative office, we don’t have enough women CEO’s, we don’t make enough money to buy our own birth control and now, if we support feminism, that is, by definition, the doctrine of advocating social, political and other rights of women equal to those of men, we are crazy, and not ‘True Women.”
It’s all so baffling to me so I decide to defer to my husband (who I work with), and his opinion, something I guess only “True Women” do.
“Husband,” I say, “do you support me having all the rights that you do?” “Are you crazy,” he responds, “you need to continue to have more rights than I, as must our daughters.”
He continues, “you one-upped me on the right to carry the children around for nine months while we were working (I had one and then became pregnant with twins a year later), give birth to them and get right back to work, nurse them while working, sing silly little songs at night so they would finally fall asleep and we could get back to work, and so on.”
Then, with a particularly impressive tone he adds, “And, by the way, you can handle a hot-flash while making a presentation like no other, a right I never even knew was out there!”
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the current Chairwoman of the Democratic Party, has some intense advice to share about how to be able to pursue a career in politics, and therefore help fight off this war against women. She says: “This is hard advice to give – I don’t know how to tell women how to meet a man like my husband. I didn’t have to battle to make him supportive. I had him at “hello.’”
Though I appreciate her sage advice, I am not sure that I would like a guy like Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ husband. I am not sure that he would be my type. I kind of like my husband and his type. I’ve rarely had to joust with him to make him supportive – hmm, come to think of it, we do joust from time to time, (which led me to the aforementioned pregnancies), and he’s always particularly supportive in that case.
I now tell my husband that according to a recent study that is highlighted right next to the article with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ advice about marrying a guy like her husband, I’ve lost about $400,000 in pay over my career because I am a woman.
Very, very supportively, he suggests we rebill all of our clients for the past thirty-two years to make up the difference.
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.' A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?' Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation. The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because: 1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic; 2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; 3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because: 1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; 2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves; 3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and ……. 4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.