Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

And there is still so much we still have not learned how to do – like treat other with fairness and compassion.

Did you hear about the day camp kids that got kicked out the swim club pool because they changed the “complexion” of the club? We have an African American president and people are still behaving as if skin color were a catching disease or something.  You would think, by now, that people would have gotten past that, be we haven’t.  According to many people, if you’re skin is the wrong color, you’re less than, you’re not worth knowing. In the language of the playground – you’ve got cooties.

That article kept me up most of the night. Can you imagine what those kids have gone through? They signed up for a fun daycamp. Their parents have paid money so their kids get to swim and play and do crafts. They made a contract with a private club to use the pool. And as soon as they showed up, they were shown the door. It begs the question why the club made the contract to begin with? Were they idiots? Or were they maliciously trying to hurt those kids and their parents on purpose?

I shouldn’t be surprised, I supposed. Hell, we STILL think the worst thing in the world someone can be is a woman. *sigh*

I had the good fortune of attending a taping of an Alec Mapa show for Bravo. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s a comedian who calls himself America’s Gaysian Sweetheart.  Like many good comedians before him, Mapa uses humor to bring up and get people to think about social problems. It’s a common practice that writers and others have been doing for centuries. Can’t get the English to pay attention to the Irish poor? Then write Castle Rackrent and have them laughing at a dark comedy while feeding them the reality of the situation. Can’t get people to accept that gay men and lesbians don’t have cooties? Write a sitcom about a gay man and his best friend and you have Will and Grace. Suddenly, everyone’s gay and it’s fashionable to be gay. (Can’t get married, but at least it’s fashionable.) The point is, when people laugh, they are more receptive, more willing to think about the other side of something.

One of the things Mapa brought up that got me thinking was that sometimes one gay man will call another gay man a “bottom” in a disparaging manner when he thinks the guy is too effeminate.  He was pointing out that it’s a form of self-hatred since, well, the definition of gay sex for a man is taking it up the bum. And it’s a good point. But it got me to thinking, to extropolate out past that. So, one gay man calls another gay man a “bottom” as if it were a bad thing (although, as a straight woman I can only assume that’s what many gay men want, isn’t it?). And those men use that term when they think someone is too “nelly” or too effeminate – too much like a woman, in other words. Check the gay personal ads sometime. It’s full of men asking for “Str8 acting” men.

So, okay, that’s just one population in the world and only some men who say that and don’t even think about what they’re saying – that the worst thing a gay man can be is a woman. And, I mean, it’s kind of assumed that in the straight guy community if a guy acts too effeminate, the male tribe will give him a bad time, and possibly beat him to death. So, then in the straight male community, the worst thing a straight man can be is a woman (which also doesn’t make any sense to me since straight men want to be with women and they like hanging out with their male buddies… i.e., therefore, ergo….what’s so bad about having an effeminate male friend, or a woman as a friend – which is another thing men can’t handle).

But then, there are women who do the same thing. They will try to be one of the guys and when a guy shows the least bit of non-masculine behavior (or what they perceive to be non-masculine behavior) these women will call a man an old woman, or “you’re such a woman.” Or say about a guy, “he’s too effeminate.” So, isn’t that a form of self-hatred, too? And that means, that in the female tribe, then, the worst thing anyone can be is a woman.

It just pisses me off. It really does. Yet, I find myself buying into it as well. The other day a friend made a joke and said, “just play the dumb girl.” I laughed along with it and didn’t think about it until later. He probably didn’t either. It’s a common saying in our society.

It starts young. There’s nothing wrong with telling someone to “play dumb.” That’s kinda funny in some situations.  But we don’t just stop at “play dumb.” We say, “play the dumb girl.” And then we women, we laugh at it, make jokes about it. It’s something we’ve had to do to survive. We let the disrespect continue. But do we really want to teach the next generation of women to put up with that crap? Do we really want the next generation of men to feel less than a real man because they happen to feel a tender moment or want to have a good cry or like pretty flowers? It seems to me continuing this societal habit does more harm than good.

There was a woman who had a coffee cart on State Street, in front of the old Food Co-op, in Bellingham, Washington, years ago when I lived there. And she had come to the conclusion that this habit we have of calling people disparaging words based on their gender is just as bad as calling them names based on their color or ethnicity. So, just as she didn’t use the N-word or call Italians WOPs, or tell Polish jokes, or anything like that, she also decided to cease using gender-based disparaging terms. No more “bitch”, “dick”, “prick” or any word that was meant to put someone down based on their gender or genitals.

That’s hard to do. There are a lot of terms out there that we use to disparage women and men, using gender as their weak point. I’ve tried. I’m going to keep on trying. I have no children, but I don’t ever want to make a remark around any of the children, or even adults, I know that may reinforce that it’s okay to put a boy down because he’s affectionate or put a girl down because she’s strong-willed.

Perpetuating this ingrained societal habit is wrong, and a detriment to each generation we teach that it’s okay to make a disparaging and thoughtless remark about someone based one their color or gender or sexual orientation.

And I’ve been fuming about it for a while and the story about the kids at the pool put me over the top, so there you go. I felt the need to say something, so I’ve said it. Now you’ve heard it.