Sexist Shit that Pisses Me Off

Sexist Shit that Pisses Me Off (selections)

Mr. and Ms.

I'm in this world, okay, and the people identify each other by sex. All the time. It's like 'Female Person Smith' and 'Male Person Brown' or 'Person-with-Uterus Smith' and 'Person-with-Penis Brown' — I don't know the exact translation. But sex-identity is a mandatory prefix. They distinguish males from females. Before they do everything else. Before they do anything else.

It bothers me. It irritates me. It pisses me off. What's so damned special about my sex that it has to be part of my name? Surely my values, my interests, my abilities, my character — these aspects define my self more than my sex does.

And anyway, shouldn't I be the one to decide what parts of my self are important enough to be part of my name? Maybe I want to be identified by my ovaries, but maybe I want to be identified by my occupation. Hell, maybe I want to identified by my blood type.

The thing is, they consider it polite. Polite! To draw such relentless attention to details of my anatomy! In fact, they think that to call someone by just their name, without the penis/uterus prefix, is rude. So it's really hard to say anything. And it's even harder to do anything. I tried just saying "Dave" one time and everybody turned and stared at me. No kidding. I tried to hold my ground, but I heard myself say "Sorry, I mean, 'Mr. Brown'." And everybody smiled with relief.

I even tried variations once. I thought if I loosened up the custom a bit, it'd be easier to get rid of it altogether. Sort of like food that's dried onto dishes you haven't washed in a week.

So next time, I put on my best smile and said "Dickhead Brown". Everybody turned and stared. Worse than last time. Again, I found myself saying "Sorry, I meant 'Penis Person, Male Person, Mr. Brown'."

Surely this can't be good, this obsessive marking of sex, this insistent separating of human beings into male and female. Talk about paving the superhighway to sex discrimination. I wanted to shout "Look, it's not like it has to be this way!" Why not just call people by their names, 'Dave' or 'Mary'? Too familiar for the formality-prone. Then how about using their surname, 'Brown' or 'Smith'? Too rude for the etiquette-addicted. How about an all-purpose sex-neutral prefix like 'Doctor' but without the professional implications; how about just 'Person' — 'Person Brown' and 'Person Smith'? As for the pronoun problem, they already have a sex-neutral pronoun: 'it'. But, stupidly, it's reserved for animals. Go figure. In this world, animals are accorded the respect of a sex-free identity, but people aren't.

***

Whose Violence?

I read the other day that "Violence in our society continues to be a problem." One, duh. Two, no wonder. I mean, we haven't even got it named right yet.

"Violence in our society." It sounds so — inclusive. So gender-inclusive. But about 85% of all the violent crime is committed by men. The gangs are made up of men, the bar brawls are fought by men, the corner stores are held up by men, the rapists are men, the muggers are men, the drive-by shooters are men. This is sex-specific. The problem is male violence.

So it does no good to look at 'society', to look at our schools, our workplaces, our televisions. We need to look at our boys. We need to look at how we raise them — to become men. Because our girls don't grow up to commit assault and homicide on a regular basis.

For starters, let's admit that we stunt their emotional growth. From day one, we encourage outright denial: big boys don't cry. They don't cuddle and hug either. So hurt, pain, love, and affection are — not cards in the deck they're playing with.

And then there's the development of empathy. A grade eleven male student once told me that I'd wrecked hunting for him, because I'd described in some detail the awful last few hours of a wolf that'd been shot. The boy said he'd never thought about it before. Seventeen years old, carrying a loaded gun, and he's never thought about it. (Then again, it's no wonder — you can't imagine in another what you can't even see in yourself.)