I never thought I'd say that there's a downside to not being oppressed.
I never thought I'd hear a feminist admit to not being oppressed.
No, I don't want to be stripped of my job, my salary, my degree, my right to vote or any freedoms I enjoy.
What kind of dullard would?
I do want to be able to explain to a 9-year-old boy in terms he will understand why I think it's OK for girls to wear shirts that revel in their superiority over boys.
One of my nieces (who is 4) recently decided that the bible is wrong. There are too many inconsistences in it for her and she has decided that science and religion don't mix, and is backing science (she wants to be a astronomer when she's older). This girl is very, very, very smart, but kids at that age tend to think in extremes, everything is black and white with yes or no answers. But isn't that what equality really is? It's black and white, not maybe's and probably's. I can't explain why people turn to god to my niece without using maybe's, because religion is a personal thing with lots of unanswerable questions. There aren't any unanswerable questions with equality.
The T-shirts became an issue when my son Corwin begged me to buy his dad an "I beat your mom at Mario Kart" shirt as a testament to my poor video game skills.
So by her own admittance she has bad skills at playing Mario Kart. Hardly the end of the world is it? But if her son wants the T-shirt for his father to wear
because his mother is bad at Mario Kart, then it's because he thinks (and she admits) it's true. Hardly very flattering though.
Ha, ha, ha.
I struck back and suggested we buy his sister a shirt that said "Boys are stupid."
The mother admits she is bad at Mario Kart and the sone realises this and wants his dad to wear a T-shirt saying this, so the mother fires back that her daughter should wear one saying "Boys are stupid." Does this mean that the mother believes this? In the eyes of her son, it might look that way.
"That's so offensive," Corwin complained. "Why are they so mean? You have to write about it."
In general, I support a girl's right to offend any member of the opposite sex who happens to cross her path. In fact, I'd much rather see a little girl wearing a shirt that mocks boys than one that turns them on.
How do you 'turn on' a 9 year old boy? I agree that a 7 year old girl wearing a T-shirt with the playboy logo on it is as stupid as it is morally irresponsible, but this woman has just shown us the way she will bring up her son. It is better for a man to have to suffer, than for a woman to have to suffer.
That's not a conversation I'm willing to have with a 9-year-old, though, so I used the equality argument instead.
No. You didn't. If you'd chosen equality, you should have suggested buying a T-shirt saying "I beat your dad at Halo" then that would have been like for like, rather than a garment making a sweeping statement about one gender.
The problem is that even smart boys like Corwin sometimes have a hard time seeing the big picture.
No. Smart boys like Corwin have a hard time believing bullshit.
Women have made big strides in the past few decades, but men still dominate when it comes to high-level and highly-paid positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Should Corwin be made to suffer insults because of this? Because Bill Gates is the highest paid guy in American, Corwin should be expected to be insulted and you'll do nothing about it? He wasn't even born when Windows 95 was released!
Maybe tomorrow's women will be propelled further faster if they obliterate the inferiority complex that apparently persists in some girls, especially when it comes to subjects like math and science. This "boys are stupid" thinking could lead to the obvious conclusion: Girls are smart.
Or maybe boys like your son will start to feel worthless. Maybe the suicide rate for men will increase even further, because even their mothers are happy for people to call them stupid. The inferiority complex exists in
some girls, not all of them. But I guess as long as
some girls feel inferior, bashing men is fine right. What if some men feel inferior to women, does that make bashing them okay?
Unfortunately, there was no way for me to bring this home to a boy who lives in a world full of bright and successful women, including his teacher, principal, doctors and even the governor.
His parents both have female supervisors and so does he. That would be me.
Yeah, I'd have trouble convincing my son that women are oppressed too if everyone who ordered our family around was a woman.
In Corwin's eyes, I'm the primary authority figure. He could be sitting six feet away from his dad and he'll still get up to find me in another room to open a container, help him with his homework or answer a question, except, of course, if it deals with video games.
Yes, and you're a primary authority figure who tells him that it's okay for women to insult his gender because they're so hard done by. Well, obviously none of the women he knows are hard done by. And I have to tell my niece that god is everywhere.
My second-in-command is his bossy little sister, whose powerful personality forces all of us to bend to her whims and wiles.
Good luck explaining to him how she is oppressed.
So don't try telling Corwin that it's women who need to catch up. In his world, it's the men who are lagging behind.
Yup, but still he must be put in his place, even though in his environment he is effectively being oppressed. Sorry, I meant 'lagging behind'.
It's not fair, he says, because everyone knows that boys are smarter than girls.
And don't forget that girls have cooties too!
Uh-huh ... And he wonders why I support a girl's right to put boys in their place.
He's a 9 year old fuckin boy for god's sake! He wonders why you don't go to Disney Land every weekend.
