Saturday, January 03, 2009

 

Think Before You Speak - About Males

I've seen several of the thinkb4youspeak ads on TV regarding the derogatory use of the word "gay." While I have no problem with the ads, my immediate reaction was "Why don't they have a similar ad campaign regarding males?"

I have yet to see a t-shirt with slogans insulting to gays but "Girls Rule, Boys Drool" t-shirts can be bought in any mall in America. I saw the calendar below at a local mall last August.



My 12 year daughter says the popular saying about boys now is:
Girls go to college,
To get more knowledge.
Boys go to Jupiter,
To get more stupider.
There are also t-shirts that have "xx>xy" on the front. Who hasn't seen the bumper sticker "Women Make Great Leaders, You're Following One." Another t-shirt "It's a Girls' World. Boys Just Live in It."



One t-shirt headline says "The Rules for Relationships." The first rule is "The female makes the rules." And, it goes from there.

"Women belong in the HOUSE and the SENATE."
"Sure, It's fun & games... until some girl kicks you BUTT!"
"Chicks Rule"
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
"Girl Power"

There are any number of the "Girls Rule" theme, Redheads rule, Italian girls rule, etc. You can find all these sayings with a simple Internet search.

I've never seen a male equivalent of any of these. Have you? If men commonly made these statements, wore shirts and had bumper stickers like these with the male gender being promoted, all hell would break loose. There would be red faced, screaming feminists on every cable news channel.

But at answers.yahoo.com, the "best answer" declares wearing "Girls Rule, Boys Drool" t-shirts as "harmless fun." There you have it. decades of insulting males, assigning them to the lowest rung on the social ladder is just "harmless fun." Why is it that so few women care about their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers that they don't make a peep about this.

What the thinkb4 ads point out as much as anything is that males continue to be assigned to the lowest caste. Not only does no one care what insults are commonly hurled at males but its a hugely profitable business.

Comments:
I'm reminded of a couple of misogynist t-shirts I saw back in my college days.

"On your knees b*tch"

and

"No fat chicks!"

Both were regularly condemned in the college paper.

I doubt the "Girls Rule..."-style of shirts would face similar condemnation.
 
I've never seen any of this stuff condemned in the popular press/media.
 
A few months ago, while driving down the highway in our truck, my seven-year-old daughter asked me what the t-shirt meant on the guy on the motorcycle who was driving in front of us. It said, "The b*tch fell off."

I actually see that one a lot more often than I see the 'girls rule/boys drool' shirt.

They're both disgusting.
 
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