Ugh. It happened again! Lis and I went for a seat belt safety class last night, which had some really great information. We learned all about the safety labels, expiry dates, weight and height restrictions, installation techniques and more. Did you know, for example, that kids are now required by law to stay in booster seats until they're 4'9"? For a lot of kids, that can be as old as 12 or even more. I'm so happy we signed up for this, because we're now feeling extra secure (haha) in our car safety knowledge.
What we didn't sign up for, however, was the lesson in gender discipline that came along with the class. There was a lot of, how shall I say it, peripheral instruction going on about who we were supposed to be as men and women. Apparently all men install car seats, and they consider it a point of pride, but they always get it wrong and should find this very humiliating. It's their role, after all, to do everything requiring technical ability, and to screw it up because they're really just a bunch of barely functioning brutes. Women, on the other hand, are a bunch of harried, overemotional hens whose only purpose in life is to peck at their husbands and worry constantly about all of the things that their bumbling male counterparts are too stupid and stubborn to realize. There was a real undercurrent of hate in the the instructor's thought, and I found it infuriating. She was relentless. It was a peculiar version of hell on earth.
I felt, in fact, like I was stuck one of those horrific Leon's furniture commercials. You know, the ones where the wife fakes a headache until her husband buys her a fridge? This is what adult relationships look like without an awareness of egalitarian politics. This is an all out war of the sexes where nobody knows what they're fighting for, they just know they want the other one dead. We will claw and kill and maim just to get the upper hand. We will ridicule and humiliate and belittle any way we can think of, because the thing that matters is not the relationship but the person who has the power. Be forewarned, love is an illusion, and anyone stupid enough to believe in its power will be culturally scorned and socially ostracized.
To be honest, I don't have any problem with other people playing out their relationships however they want, but to impose such a worldview on others is both oppressive and offensive. It also has no place in a car seat belt safety course. Relationships should be configured however the couple sees fit, and this can include women or men occupying whatever roles they like (technical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, fashionable, physical). There may be tendencies, but there are no inherently "masculine" or "feminine" traits; binding activities to bodies is a dangerous practice, in no small part because it distracts us from learning about the things that matter.
What we didn't sign up for, however, was the lesson in gender discipline that came along with the class. There was a lot of, how shall I say it, peripheral instruction going on about who we were supposed to be as men and women. Apparently all men install car seats, and they consider it a point of pride, but they always get it wrong and should find this very humiliating. It's their role, after all, to do everything requiring technical ability, and to screw it up because they're really just a bunch of barely functioning brutes. Women, on the other hand, are a bunch of harried, overemotional hens whose only purpose in life is to peck at their husbands and worry constantly about all of the things that their bumbling male counterparts are too stupid and stubborn to realize. There was a real undercurrent of hate in the the instructor's thought, and I found it infuriating. She was relentless. It was a peculiar version of hell on earth.
I felt, in fact, like I was stuck one of those horrific Leon's furniture commercials. You know, the ones where the wife fakes a headache until her husband buys her a fridge? This is what adult relationships look like without an awareness of egalitarian politics. This is an all out war of the sexes where nobody knows what they're fighting for, they just know they want the other one dead. We will claw and kill and maim just to get the upper hand. We will ridicule and humiliate and belittle any way we can think of, because the thing that matters is not the relationship but the person who has the power. Be forewarned, love is an illusion, and anyone stupid enough to believe in its power will be culturally scorned and socially ostracized.
To be honest, I don't have any problem with other people playing out their relationships however they want, but to impose such a worldview on others is both oppressive and offensive. It also has no place in a car seat belt safety course. Relationships should be configured however the couple sees fit, and this can include women or men occupying whatever roles they like (technical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, fashionable, physical). There may be tendencies, but there are no inherently "masculine" or "feminine" traits; binding activities to bodies is a dangerous practice, in no small part because it distracts us from learning about the things that matter.
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