Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Man Up. Now, How Would I Do That

Man up.
Cowboy up.
Do you have balls for that?

If you have any doubt our culture is a patriarchy, you have 5 seconds (that's how long it took me to come up with those phrases) to type 3 phrases with the exact same meaning in common use that articulate the female in the exact same way.

I'll save you some time. You couldn't do that if I gave you 5 days. There are none.

Think about that for a second. It's women who regularly push something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon, but you need testicles to be brave.

It's women who raise the majority of children after divorce or breakup, by themselves, often with little or no help, but acting like an adult is masculine.

Women still, after all this time, make less than men and do more housework and shoulder more of the child rearing responsibilities, but we need to "cowboy up" not "mommy up".

Throw like a girl.
Scream like a girl.
Cry like a bitch.

It only took me 3 seconds to come up with those. Go ahead, you have eternity to come up with three phrases in common usage to express the exact same level of deliberate contempt, only using the masculine as the shaming device.

Go ahead, get back to me when you give up.

It's okay, I'm just a feminist with no sense of humor. It's not that you're not funny. And the patriarchy, it's fucking delicious.

6 comments:

  1. When my boys were about 5, they were riding in the back seat with their teenaged cousin, who was teasing them, and he finally said "You are such a girl!". One of mine said "Is that supposed to be an insult??? You lose."

    I almost pulled the car over to hug them.

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  2. Wait - it's a patriarchy because men are good at coming up with one liners?

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  3. Great post. The reponses bar one - prove this post to be true.

    Mutzali that's awesome!

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  4. the mother of all wars
    he's completely pussy-whipped

    but I grant your point stands

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  5. Mutzali, all the stories you tell of your boys make me wish a) they were my age, and b) polyandry were legal. (My current husband would basically starve to death in confused filth without me, so I wouldn't feel right abandoning him, ya know?)

    Actually, that's not true. He wouldn't starve. But he would eventually be buried alive in a massive pile of sushi delivery dishes.

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  6. Motherly love? Surely that's a positive typical saying. As opposed to fatherly abandonment. :D

    ReplyDelete

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