Happy Women Day!
I don't really like this day (It's like women were a some sort of minority, while, at least in this country, we are more than men), but, who cares. We need an excuse to celebrate something, so, here's.
Happy Women Day People!
Happy Women Day People!
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Of course they count. It's Women Day!
I don't know whether you're being sarcastic, so I'll save the whole biology lecture to just say:
That's one helluva understatement there, buddy.
So I'll subvert the day and wish everyone a happy Human Day instead.
That a good idea too.
No wonder I have a headache. Epitome of femininity.
November 19.
Also women are more since men die more, statistics for you
Whooo Now I can annoy my homophobic male friend even more!
And that's why are widows clubs and not the way around.
Also, today is a holiday in France. Not because of Woman Day mind you, but as a kid I thought it was.
No idea. Once, in the College, they give me a poem.
But, just like I say it, I just need an excuse to celebrate =P
I thought there was a women day in every month. According to a friend of mine, it's even a "women week".
Also, when they* perfect the method of harvesting sperm from female bone marrow, WE WON'T NEED MEN AT ALL! MUHAHAHAHA!!**
*You know, they. Sciensists and whatnot.
**Which is a shame because I am, in fact, a male.
I think the same thing. Apparently, here the men buy gifts to their wifes, and I had no idea. But the men day just take the cake. I feel better with that.
My mom said some day that sexism was created by women to control men by make them believe we can do nothing and they have to protect us. Or something like that.
HA! There's a ton of women who can tell you that's not true.
As my good friend Colin Mocheri said, wives live longer than husbands becuase they arent married to women:D
Wow, that's a very uh... Bizarre theory. Yes, I will leave it at that.
Unfortunately, probably not. There's still and probably always will be a large amount of people who consider one certain group inferior. Maybe not to the extreme of how history did it, but if they don't consider that group an absolute equal to everyone else, that means they consider them inferior.
Anyway, whether it is legitimately sexist or not to do this sort of thing depends on two things: what the holiday is actually all about, and whether you believe that gender is real or not.
First off, if the holiday is just about appreciating women, then it's perfectly harmless. Women are a minority group in lots of countries. And minorities don't always have to do with numbers, it's usually more of a social status thing. Like I said, people are not fully considered equal throughout the world, and this is why we have these "appreciative" things like black history month, gay pride parades and the like, because until they are absolutely accepted in society, they will continue to exist.
Now what you said about the "actress" and "waitress" thing, those are terms that have to do with gender, and not sex, which are two completely different things. A person that is considered biologically male can still be considered an actress or waitress, for example. This is because they can still fit into what society considers are the mannerisms and behaviors of a woman. Now, I personally don't believe in gender, because I think that like race, it's a social construction and has no biological merit, but then again, there is still insufficient data to prove whether what we believe classifies gender is influenced scientifically also. Different hormones might play into this for instance, but then again people have claimed the same for homosexuals, so right now, I just say I don't believe in it.
Though I don't agree that it's sexist, I agree that we don't need so many sex-specific words. (after all, "doctor" is unisex, let's have more of those please) Sure it helps us to imagine the physical appearance of someone, but quite frankly I'm tired of writing "he or she," "him or her" etc. in essays.
Welp, this is what history has done to us.
And, yes, it's a bizarre theory, but, at least here, some women are more sexist than some men and then that start to make sense. Anyway, my mom is feminist and raise us to demostrate the fact girls are bad at math is a social contruction: My sis and I are engieneers (or at least students) so, looks like she was right.
Edit: Oh, Doctor is not unisex in spanish. Female for Doctor is Doctora
I'm a spanish speaker myself, (born in Cuba, and my dad's side of the family is Spanish
No, not really. It's a bizarre theory because it ignores history. Sexism today lingers from the history of how women were treated in comparison to men. To say that it was created by women is far'fetched since it basically says they allowed themselves to be treated in certain ways and to not have certain freedoms in order to manipulate men. Unless of course, I misunderstood what your mom was saying.
Of course she was right, and that isn't the only false stereotype about women. Pretty much everything that tries to demonstrate inferiority of women over men is a construction, unless we are talking biological things that even so don't relate to inferiority and are more like physical disadvantages. (which men also have)
It actually wasn't always like this. Up until the 80's or so, female doctors were still commonly called "doctor" in spanish in some countries, even though "doctora" did exist. Same thing for actors and other professions. But anyway, I was only talking about the usage in the english language, since those were the words the person I quoted brought up.
In fact, the unisex usage of the word "doctor" in english made for an interesting social experiment to reflect upon our norms. Try telling this "riddle" to some english-speakers you know, and see how many get it right. You'd be surprised how many have no idea what the answer is or take a very long time to figure it out, even women!
"A father and his son are in a car crash. The father is killed instantly but the son is only injured and is taken to the hospital. He is rushed to the operating room, the doctor comes in, looks at the patient on the operating table, and says, 'I can't operate on him, he's my son.' How can this be?"
Answer: The doctor is his mother.
It's just a stupid way to make us understand the plural thing. And the fact when a manual use "él" or something like that it's not necessary only a male. All depend of the context.
Anyways.
But sometimes only one "gender" is used. That's often the case with animals (mouse is feminine even for males, snake is masculine even for females), but sometimes with jobs too. Recently (relatively) a trend started of getting a feminine equivalent to every job that's masculine. To which I say sure, why not, but I feel it's a shame that jobs that are feminine (such as sentinel for instance) never got the same treatment of getting a male equivalent.
I'm not sure what Ginny's mom meant, but I'll say that in western countries nowadays two things coexist: injustice against women that's still there in several ways, and injustice against men that seems to be there to "compensate". Like, some females seem to hate all males because "males are sexist" Like saying that isn't sexist, too >.>
And there are women who are just accusing everyone who doesn't favour women of being sexist, if you know what I mean. And that's annoying, because it's just as sexist as when it's the other way around. But people are so afraid of being called sexist that they don't do anything about it.
I also dislike the word "feminism". Who had the great idea of taking the word "machism", replacing the part that means "male" with a part that means "female" and use it for people who want both sexes/genders to be treated equally?
I too have some trouble with sex and gender, by the way. The way I see it, sex is biological, and gender is what you feel you are. But if that's the case I don't have a gender. I don't feel like a woman. I don't know that being a woman is a feeling. I happen to be one biologically, you know, but I only feel like a person. I feel that I'd be the same if I was a man, except I'd be gay.
But some people feel there is a difference, and you can't tell people their feelings are wrong, I mean, they're experiencing them. If they feel like a man/woman inside, there must just be something I'm missing. Maybe I'm just exactly in the middle or something.
Probably a sexist guy who strongly believe in machism and use feminism just for make believe is the same way but inverse. Somehow. But still, some people believe girls has to have advantanges for demostrate they are good at something and that make me mad even more.
Anyway, I don't feel like I was someday degraded or anything for been biologically a girl, a feel the same as a guy, gender talking. Ironically, I have a friend who is actually sexist and homophobic, and another friend who's gay, but those guys are the best friends around, mostly because my gay friend is still in the closet, and I know because, well, I'm a girl. That probably the only moment I felt, gender talking, a girl, because this poor guy can tell that to anyone except to his "girl" friends. After that, I promise of course don't tell to anyone, but at the same time I started to check around my friends about the idea and, except for my homophobic friend, all those guys are pretty open to the idea. And still, no one knows except me (And my sister and another girl friend), because I'm a girl.
(If the situation can't suck enough, I actually has a crush on him before I knew he was gay. It was like everything was over before even start. And I'm still friend of him, because now I see him as a, well... "girl friend". It's the same as before, except that negate the part of the crush. It's stupid, I know, but if he trust enough me for tell me his biggest secret, dammit, I think that must be for something...)
Make sure the kids got the best genes around, for which the mother then has to to care (pretty much alone).
So, yeah, it's no surprise that females get the roles even to this day because we are born different for that specific purpose. It's only because of "rules" and "regulations" and the silly notion of love that we actually do other than what our own inbred nature tells us to do (and f*** up the genepool and evolution, making humans "worse" per generation as opposed to better, according to the the evolution theory).
"Feminism" is pretty much an attempt to defy nature, but then again, all humans are freaks of nature, so it shouldn't made much difference anymore.
frankly I find the issues about "names" and the origin of sexism or feminism exercises which miss about the whole point of the International Women Day.
Which by the way is not about appreciation (even if it can be also expressed that way, and I find nothing wrong with it), it's about freedom and the right to self-accomplishment.
A fact is that all over the world there are still so many realities of strong subjugation of women, when not total enslavement, and limits or all-round negation to the access to education and legal support and bank credit and whatnot.
Amnesty International reports about the situation are astonishing, ghastly.
A fact is that here in Italy - and I have no data under hand for the other fully developed countries but I suspect it's rather common - on the average women are still today paid significantly less than men to do the same job.
So, there's still a lot to do in that respect. And IWD is an occasion to gather around and support the initiatives in that direction, which then will continue for all the rest of the year.
So, happy IWD to all ladies, and good luck.
Personally, I've never heard anyone make a distinction between sex and gender before, but I do see your point. I do, however, think that there definitely is an innate difference between genders. That is, I believe that some gender differences are nature, not nurture. For example, there was a study done a while back where they left some young Apes in a room full of human toys, and the male Apes went to see the boy toys (toy trucks etc.), while the female Apes went over to see the girly toys (cosmetic stuff). This is, I suppose, because male primates classically go out to hunt and are more fascinated by tools and practicality, while female primates classically stay with their societies and socialise. Obviously there is a massive overlap, and these things don't apply with everyone, but I do think that differences exist to some extent. I don't believe that either sex is better/worse off for these differences though.
You can usually get around that sort of stuff. You could use the words "they/them" as pronouns (e.g., "a person could do this if they really wanted to" rather than "A person could do this if he really wanted to"). You can also address letters with "to whom it may concern" rather than "dear sir/madam" or assuming "dear sir".
Also, I also dislike the word "feminism". I consider myself a feminist, and when I tell people that (which isn't often to be honest :P), they're like "What, you think women are better than men? But you're not a woman!" and I have to explain that it just means I think men and women are equal.