Saturday, April 24, 2021

Politically Correct

 If I had a dollar for every time I heard:


"I miss when people could TAKE A JOKE"

or

"Why does everyone have to make such a BIG DEAL about everything?"

or

"I wish we could go back to when men acted like MEN"

or

"Any other various horseshit along this same line"


then I would have SQUINTY BILLION DOLLARS.

 

I know that's not a real number, but you get the idea.


They call it being politically correct or PC or, lately, being a snowflake. I get accused of this a lot. Mostly because, spoiler alert, I'm a snowflake.

I said I didn't see any big deal when I saw an ad of two women holding hands (I swear to God I thought it was two friends holding hands, I didn't look at this print ad in the Sunday flyers and think LESBIANS WHO PROBABLY DO SCISSORING WHEN THEY ARE NOT POSING FOR JCPENNEY AND COMPANY. I simply thought, "Oh that's nice. Those ladies look like they are friends and I really like that one's dress). I got called a lot of names that day. None of them were as nice as snowflake.

I said I didn't see any big deal when someone included their pronouns on their email signature. I said, in fact, I see that a lot on a lot of people's signatures and LinkedIn profiles these days. I got a big sigh and "What's this world coming to!?" I mean...it's just pronouns. It's not like they had, "I HATE MEN AND I WILL KILL ALL MEN DEAD SO YOU BETTER NOT SAY HIM/HIS"  in their signature. That would have been a line too far, even for a snowflake like me. If someone wants to let me know they identify as a he, I appreciate the information. I don't like to accidentally hurt people's feelings. Also, I have no idea why that's offensive to literally anyone, ever. 

I hear a lot about how the world used to be a much better place than it is today. How women were supposed to be at home, caring for their children, and men were supposed to be MEN which apparently means...I don't know? They were out killing buffalo or something? Or working for the newspaper and smoking cigars and mowing the grass in their Haggar slacks on the weekend? I'm not sure. I'm bad at history.

But that was apparently the good old days, even though black women weren't allowed to vote and schools were segregated and you could arrested if you married someone of another race and if you were a gay person? Forget about it. You couldn't even think of marrying the person you loved, you just had to hide in the closet and marry someone of the opposite sex and ruin their lives and the lives of any children you had. You know, for family values.


So, anyway, the good old days sound like some version of Hell to me, thanks.


My kids are adults now, but even when they were not adults I did not want to be a stay-at-home mother. Ever. I am not made for that. It is not among my talents and gifts. I am great at working. I am great at being a breadwinner. I am not great at being a stay-at-home parent.

Now don't get me wrong, I admire the shit out of anyone who is a stay-at-home parent. I know many women who thrive in this role. It's a valuable, important role and I don't look down on it- not even a little. It's just not right for ME. It was never right for ME. There were some days that I hated my job with the burning sting of a thousand suns, but that's just the job. Being a stay-at-home parent would have never been right for me, even if I was independently wealthy and didn't HAVE to work (which I always did, because I've never been independently wealthy). 

Even now as a 45 year old woman, I continually struggle with things like dinner. Why do we have to eat dinner EVERY SINGLE DAY?! Why do I only know like seven things to cook? People enjoy my cooking and I think I'm a decent cook, but it's just so time-consuming and taxing and it rarely sparks joy. I also eat a lot of chicken and chicken is delicious but it's just not that exciting. I'm sorry poultry-producers of the United States. It's just the truth.

I haven't ironed clothing in more than 15 years. I don't even think we own an iron. If we do, Jason knows where it is and is the only person who would use it. Because he does the vast majority of the laundry. Because we are REALLY BAD at The Good Old Days in this house. Really bad. 

So miss me with The Good Old Days. I am not interested in that BS.


If you are, that's fine. Cool. You might have been happier with the ways things were then, and that's FINE. I respect that, totally.

What I don't respect is you demanding that everyone ELSE be fine with what you want. What I am not okay with is you using the n-word or calling people "retards" because you did it when you were younger and NO ONE CAN TAKE A JOKE.

It's probably because using offensive language isn't funny. Weird.

You can miss those "good old days" when men were men all you want, but maybe just for a few seconds think about how much better life would be if men had been taught things that women were taught. Like how to cook and that it's okay to cry and that women are more than just holes to stick your penis in. How much easier and better your life could have potentially been if you had a dad who wasn't a task master or who wasn't afraid of feeling feelings or who felt like it was okay to be human and a little less than perfect. If you'd been able to see examples of men in your life who didn't feel like they had to work constantly to take care of everything and weren't angry at the world when someone suggests crazy things like equality.

Or maybe you could think about being a "non-traditional" woman such as myself and how much better and easier my life would have been if I hadn't spent the majority of it feeling like an abject failure because I didn't want to stay at home. How nice it would be to let women know that, yeah, it's okay to want to work. It's fine if you don't want to have 100 kids. It's cool to want to lift heavy weights and be strong. It's okay if you  and your husband have a partnership and you aren't looking for someone to rescue you. 

Think. Think how much money would have been saved on therapy. How far fewer anti-depressants would be floating around. How much happier and kinder and more sane people would be if WE. JUST. LET. THEM. BE.

How about if someone is born in the wrong body and struggles with it their whole life. They are miserable and sad and feel terrible. And you don't want to accept it. Because it doesn't fit your version of truth.

Guess what? You don't have to accept it. You truly don't. But what you DON'T get to do is make their life a living Hell because YOU don't accept it.

Political correctness is what us snowflakes call being "nice". That's it. I don't like everything I see out there in the world. Sometimes people have political conversations around me that make me uncomfortable. I walk away. I am at an age that I've given up on trying to fight people. You want to say or think something insane? Help yourself. Absolutely. Have fun with that.

I just want people to be nice. Just let other people live their lives. Even if it doesn't agree with what YOU think is the perfect way to live.



I just don't think is revolutionary. This just seems like...being human and kind. 


It's amazing how controversial being human and kind has become.

 

 

4 comments:

Jill said...

agreed with it all.
I have hopes for the next generation.

Valarie Nordstrom said...

Bravo

Valarie Nordstrom said...

Bravo

Mae Wagner said...

Well said. I am so over it. Maybe generalized pronouns like they/them is what we all need, instead of designating gender specific things. It's so stupid. a human decided blue was for boys and pink was for girls. In the end, it is all as genuine as monopoly money and yet people are acting like it is CONCRETE FACT and the "laws of nature" we are rebelling against.

I am so over people.

Which might be the opposite of "kind" I'm now seeing.