« Robert The Counter | Main | 10 Helpful Tips for Wal-Mart »

Is Varifrank a sexist pig?

Uh, well, if I am, I don’t mean to be. As the son of a mother, brother of three sisters, husband to a wife and a father of a daughter I can safely say that I’m pretty fond of and often in awe of women. However, several readers and fellow bloggers have written to ask if this post was meant to exclude women, both by my use of the masculine word “Man” instead of the gender neutral “Person” and the fact that all of the people in the list of people who died last week were, ahem, “men”.

Lets deal with the first charge first: Shouldn’t I have said “Person” instead of “Man”?

Maybe...

I just prefer to say “Man” as I consider it gender neutral and dealing with my species and not my sex, as in “mankind” rather than the subject of a great song by Martin Mull. I freely admit that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing when it comes to the English language, so I will now commit myself to watch my choice of personal pronouns. I grew up in Southern California where the word “Dude” has nothing to do with ranching, and can refer not only to men or women but it can mean just about damn near anything no matter how its used and only depending on the voice inflexion in the sentence. So, not only is there precedence, but once again I get to blame my parents…

Second Charge: Did I purposely exclude women from my list of people who had died in the week prior? Honestly, “scouts honor” here kids, I didn’t “exclude” women from my search, it just worked out that way, I didn’t look for “men only”. I know, it looks suspicious as all get out, but I certainly didn’t set out to go that way.

Here’s a bit of insight on how I went about making the post. I was bugged about the whole Terry Schiavo situation. First off, I didn’t blog about it, because I thought to do so was disrespectful. That was my choice, if you did, that’s ok too, I just didn’t feel comfortable talking about it, frankly I don’t feel like talking about it now either. For the record, you should know that my “living will” says there are three ways I prefer not to be killed, first is being burned to death, the second is being eaten by insects and the third is starvation. Short of those three options you have free reign to do what you think is best if the case arises where you legally get to be the instrument of my death. To me, there was a certain ghoulish voyeurism that overtook the whole sad spectacle and I honestly couldn’t stand to hear another word about it, I’m pained that I even had to write this short passage on the subject. At the same time, I thought there was something about the story that did need to be talked about that wasn’t being discussed. I thought about different angles to attack the story, and I finally decided on the “ Do individuals really matter?” angle that served as the core of the story.

At the same time I was wrestling with not writing about that story, Pope John Paul died. Now, this also bothered me as well as now we suddenly were up to our navels in 24 hour news coverage of the Popes death. Here we had news of the Pontiffs death and the very same news agencies that derided the man just-the-week-before were now praising him to the high heavens, and then of course pleading that the next Pope not be so, well you know, religious. At one point I thought someone was going to put forth the case that the best candidate would be someone with a non judgmental hipster-like swinging personality like, let’s say Dean Martin, rather than a serious man who has given up everything of earthly desire and dedicated his life to working in faith.

Oh damn, I said it again. Look, its not me that did it this time. Catholics insist that only men can be priests, only priests can be Bishops, Archbishops and finally Cardinals and only Cardinals can be nominated to be Pope on the occasion that they find themselves in need of one. So the way it works out is while none of us knows who the new Pope will be, we all know he will be a man. I don’t make the rules here folks, I just live under them. So, don’t heap all your bourgeois suburban gender guilt on me daddy-o.

I like women, I like them a lot. Now to make up for the unintentional slight on the gender that has made my life worthwhile, I will spend some time thinking about a post on women and what they have meant to me.

Can I post about my mom and not cry?

Like Niagara falls baby…Niagara falls…

To honor to my fellow bloggers who happen to be women and who have given me repeated yet undeserved encouragement, I encorage you all to go and read thusly from...

My Favorite Women Bloggers

The Anchoress
Da Goddess
Baldilocks
Red Sugar Muse
Megan Mcardle
Cathouse Chat
Middle Class Mom
Ranten N. Raven
Sissy Willis
Little Miss Attilla
the square slant This lady stopped by the other day to borrow a cup of sugar. Like I said, I'm a lucky guy.

Update: D'oh! Ranten N. Raven - NOT a woman... but visit just the same

Posted @ April 06, 2005 08:23 PM | Current Events

Posted by: Sissy Willis at April 7, 2005 02:47 AM

Posted by: Romeocat at April 7, 2005 04:46 AM

Posted by: Ray-Ray at April 7, 2005 12:40 PM

Posted by: LargeBill at April 7, 2005 07:48 PM

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 7, 2005 11:03 PM

Posted by: Juliette at April 8, 2005 12:35 AM

Posted by: Uncle Mikey at April 10, 2005 09:45 AM