"Nice Job, Mom!"

For those of you benevolent, wide-eyed folks out there who think that sexism went out of style with large lapels, microwaved meatloaf, and the Ford Granada, think again. While our great nation is, admittedly, preoccupied with discriminating against homosexuals at the moment, we're still pretty proficient at gender-bias, too.

We still love to hire the girl with the biggest tits, and we also are pretty infatuated with paying her less than we would pay a man with comparably-sized bitchtits to do the same amount of work. We still call women "dear" and "sweetie", we still have women showing us to our tables at Friday's, we still think they're unpredictable and not-to-be-crossed when they're menstruating, and we still aren't wholly convinced that they really need more than 6 weeks to appropriately bond with their infant spawn. And every good ol' boy or schoolteacher or Junior Executive Vice-President worth his salt can come up with a Dumb Blonde joke that'll knock your socks off in a heartbeat.

However, in this society, in this day and age, we're also pretty adept at discriminating against men.

Yeah. That's where this is going. Sorry if you don't like it, you dumb fucking blonde.

I had the good fortune yesterday morning to sit down to breakfast with my wife-- something we really don't get to do very much anymore due to our conflicting work schedules. I glanced over at our soy milk carton and I cocked my head and squinted my eyes. With typically tactful pre-coffee grace and aplomb, I asked,

"What the fuck is this shit?"

Nice job, Mom? You're laying on congratulatory affirmations to the moms of America for shelling out $3.49 on a carton of your fucking soy milk? That's great that you want to blow smoke up people's asses, but why does it have to be not only centered around the asses of women, but women who just happened to have reproduced?

Want to make us feel good? Okay. How about, "Nice job, You"? Or, "Way to Go, Buddy!" I would be fine with that. The mom-centered-ness, though, really bothered me. So did the accompanying paragraph:

Are you fucking kidding me? Who was this written by: Robert S. McNamara? C. Everett Koop? Calvin Coolidge? It smacks of a time when America moved around at a higher rate of speed, and in black-and-white and everybody wore hats. (Except when they were indoors, of course.) I thought we had come so far but, apparently, we're still stuck in the 1950's where dad stays home, sucking on his pipe or the babysitter's clitoris while dutiful little mother scampers off to the supermarket, piloting the Buick's massive, chrome-emblazoned steering wheel with her dainty, white gloved fingers.

The only difference is that now the milk comes from a fucking bean instead of a fucking udder.

I got to thinking about 8th Continent's view of the world, and indeed Jif Peanut Butter's (they're STILL peddling that awful "Choosy Moms Choose Jif!" slogan) and it became patently obvious to me: men should not even be permitted in supermarkets.

Let's face it-- these products are not being marketed to us, so we clearly have no business buying them. Not only that, every sitcom and commercial ever produced on the subject of a man in a supermarket would have you believe that sending a male to a supermarket is just as advisable as sending a semi-retarded panda bear to do your grocery shopping. We're always buying the wrong thing, constantly calling our wives, girlfriends, mothers, tax-law advisors for advice/spiritual guidance from our cellphones in the aisles, we're breaking things or buying things impulsively or not reading or understanding labels and we buy diet soda when we're supposed to be getting caffeine free-- I mean, let's face it: it's a fucking mess and we of the be'penised sort should all just be banned.

EXCEPT, of course, on 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Super Bowl Sunday, and World Series time. Then we're allowed in, but only to purchase grill-related items/accoutrements. And nothing else.

For every other day of the year, there ought to be Protection From Abuse orders filed by supermarket chains against men. Supermarkets should have bouncers, clad in the store's color aprons to man all the entrances and exits to prevent men from entering the market. And, in the event that a male is dispatched to the supermarket on direct order from, and as proxy for, an ailing, incapacitated, emotionally unstable and/or otherwise physically unavailable female, the male in question must present a signed note, which must be notarized by an appointed official, stating the precise reason why a female could not be present at the supermarket on this occasion, a list (written in female handwriting) detailing exactly what the man is supposed to be purchasing, as well as an envelope containing any and all coupons the man is to utilize in procurement of these aforementioned comestible items. If said male attempts any unauthorized "male behaviors" such as purchasing a foodstuffs because of the tantalizing nature of the picture on the box or any product bearing the product name "Hungry Man" or "Dinty Moore" or "Bubba Burger", he is to be immediately and forcibly removed from the premises, and his affiliated female will be notified at once.

Nice job, Mom.

Bad, Minton

They say a headline has got to catch your eye, or it's basically a worthless piece of shit. And I've got to say, the "New York Times" had me, hook, line, and shuttlecock with the effective combination of "Badminton" and "Sexist" on Friday morning.

Of course, "Badminton" and "Sexy" would have been much more effective at garnering my immediate and undivided attention, but, hey, what are you going to do? It's not a perfect world. If it were, we'd all have badminton courts in our backyards. Hell, we'd all have backyards.

Anyway, the full title of the article was "Badminton Dress Code for Women Criticized as Sexist". Apparently, the Badminton World Federation (also known as "BWF", which is also the noise a 500 pound man in corduroy trousers makes when he sits on a Herman Miller aeron chair) has deemed that competitors in professional women's badminton "must wear skirts or dresses... [to create a more] attractive presentation".

Here's what struck me about all this.

People still play badminton?

Honestly-- I was stunned. I had no fucking idea. I mean, pants, skirts, nun's habits or lederhosen-- I just can't believe that there are actually people out there still playing that fucking silly sport. I mean, it's just... silly.

The tiny, innocuous-looking racket (excuse me-- racquet?) looks like an appropriate sporting implement if you're an eight-year-old. And you're hitting a... a shuttlecock. There's not much more I can or need to say about that.

I was under the obviously mistaken impression that badminton went out-of-style with things like sock-garters, the gramaphone, music by Franz von Suppé, and cars that rode on wooden wheels and/or bicycle tires. I guess I just never realized that modern man engaged in this sport that I thought had been forever relegated to the days when sepia-hued people all moved around in stop-motion animation like they were on crystal-meth.

Now that I think about it, of course, I remember playing badminton in high school. Well, I can remember trying to play badminton in high school. Before you start assailing me with unfounded accusations of snobbery and you start asking me annoying questions about the size of the crest on my navy-blue blazer, I went to public school, thank you. Admittedly, it was a public school in an appreciably affluent suburb of Philadelphia, but it was a public school nonetheless. And we just happened to play badminton.

And, when we weren't doing that, we did ballroom dancing. I, um, used to waltz with a girl named Estelle to the methodic strains of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose." And Estelle was at least two inches taller than 11th grade Mr. Apron. Thank you very much.

I never understood anything about badminton except for the fact that you weren't supposed to let the shuttlecock hit the ground. In that respect, in my mind anyway, the game was rather like hot potato-- you were just supposed to keep the fucking stupid thing in the air. It was like a yarmulke, in that respect, a holy object that, if it ever hit the floor, you were supposed to get very upset and contrite and kiss it and shit. I never kissed a shuttlecock, which is good, because that sounds nasty.

I've kissed many a yarmulke, though, because those fucking things just never stay on your head. You know what I mean?

Sexism

Since I'm kind of on a roll regarding incendiary issues after yesterday's foray into drunk driving, I thought we could all handle another dip into the pool of social issues by exploring a double-standard centering around negative, suspicious and hostile attitudes towards men.

It's called sexism.

Few people acknowledge its existence, and most who do are fond of calling it "reverse-sexism," but there's really no need to throw it in reverse, it's just sexism.

When a young man wants to become a pre-school teacher, what do we automatically think?

Well, he's either gay, or he's a pervert. Why else would he want to hang around children all day, right? A man, after all, isn't capable of being invested in the education and betterment of young children-- that's impossible.

Um... well, first of all, since when does wanting to be a teacher qualify you as gay and/or a pervert? Second of all, why are women automatically exempt from any type of suspicion when they want to be pre-school teachers? Or any kind of teachers for that matter? I suppose women aren't capable of molesting children.

The same way that women aren't capable of physically assaulting children.

Even if a man is allowed to become a pre-school teacher, we certainly have to have him co-teach-- you know, so a woman can... watch him, right? And, heaven forbid a child needs help in the bathroom-- well, a man certainly can't go help a female child out. Maybe he can help a boy out-- maybe... but he'll be watched very closely by that saintly female co-teacher.

Why is that? What is it about us men that makes us constantly suspected of doing the wrong thing? Must we all walk through this world with the letter A on our chest? Why? Why are we pre-judged simply for entering professions where there's a dearth of the male perspective and presence?

Male librarians? Gay.

Male speech therapists? Gay.

Male nurses? Gay-- this one is slowly changing, but there's still that perception.

Male department store clerks? Very, very gay.

Here's a curious question: why can a woman sell men's underwear in a department store and nobody bats an eyelash, but, if a man tried to sell women's underwear, he'd be burned at the stake?

Suspicion of men and their motives is deeply rooted in Western culture. With our sexual repression and our fucked up ideas about gender roles, stereotypes and paranoid delusions about protectionism and purity, we've created a world where men are pre-judged before they open their mouths and the hostility and ignorance projected against them has virtually barred them from entry into many occupations where many men would be perfectly suitable.

Back when I was on the street as an emergency medical technician, I had the misfortune of having a patient of mine fall. My partner and I had taken this woman by ambulance to a doctor's appointment, another example of a collossal waste of time and resources, but that's another blog topic. The patient was mildly obese and in her early fifties and was in rehab for a closed head injury. Because the doctor kept her (and us) waiting and waiting and waiting, she kept complaining that she had to go to the bathroom. I kept asking her if she could wait and she said that she could but, finally, she could wait no longer. Rather than bring her back outside to the ambulance, load her in, and have her use the bedpan, we decided to give her a little humanity and bring her to the bathroom at the doctor's office. It was a very small, cramped area and it was very difficult to move the stretcher around. Once we got her to the bathroom and undid the stretcher straps, we were faced with a dilemma.

See, as men, neither of us wanted to go into the bathroom alone with her. Not that either of us would have done anything, but we were afraid of being suspected of doing something. You know, because we have vile, filthy penises that whisper naughty things to our psyches.

"I'm not going in there with her," my partner said.

I expressed concern about her stability. But I wasn't going in there alone with her either. I asked her if she went to the bathroom by herself in rehab.

"Yes," she answered.

"Okay, well, we'll help you in, but do not get up from the toilet by yourself. Just call to us-- we'll be standing right outside the door, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

We left the door opened a crack and we stood outside and waited. Five minutes later, we were picking her up off the floor. Blood was everywhere. She tried to get off the toilet by herself and fell off, smacking her face against the cold, tile wall, slicing open her lip and bashing her nose. What was a simple trip to the doctor's office was now a lights-and-sirens adventure to the emergency room.

Why?

Because we were men.