*sniff* What's that smell? Is that estrogen?
in any event, as much fun as it is watching you put forth your highschool toughgirl persona (and no really, I hope you stick around the forums) this is not a strength and power topic. I'll share with you my experience tonight: I'm in an EMT academy and tonight we had to perform a scenario after getting pepper sprayed. Full on, face full of ghonorea type burning, peper spray. Whi gender fell apart? the women. now I have nothing against them, everyone performed and completed their tasks, and it wasn't easy for anyone (except one guy, who's been sprayed like 100+ times), but the females were those who had the greatest dificulty with the drill. Emotionally and physically they had more trouble than most men. Is this genetics or social conditioning, I don't know (people hold babies different based on gender, and this tendency continues throughout their up bringing)
Consider the dumb shit guys do to eachother growing up (from practical jokes to drinking games involving lit cigarettes and forearms) that really toughens eachother up. Women have their rite of passage: giving birth, and to a lesser extent marriage. Men however do not have that, they therefore create all kinds of goofy shit that proves they're manly. So when you take one gender and give them dolls and tea sets, then give the other gender and give them toy guns and football pads and tell them to "suck it up" when they get injured who do you think is going to end up tougher? We raise girly girls, so when a man exhibits traits of the opposite sex (traits contrary to those expected by their fellow men) you can bet they're going to be harrassed about it, they were supposed to have that beaten out of them through some rite of passage.
Now, some day you're going to get dolled up and want to be feminine (even if it's just for a night), and if on that night somebody calls you a butch tomboy, you're gonna feel it. If after having your child somebody attacks your femininity or mothering abilities, you're going to feel it. If after becoming what is commonly perceived to be a man (afer going through all the horse shit initiations, pulling 4 plates, out drinking his friends, bending a 60 penny nail, enduring the practical jokes, lifting a stone, slapping a bear, killing a lion, WHATEVER) somebody calls a man feminine, he's going to feel it, cause that's not what he knows he's supposed to be at that point... HE WENT THROUGH EVERYTHING EVERYONE ELSE DID!
I said it before, I have nothing against women and don't hold them inferior in the least (I'd much wrather be a man for a number of reasons... makeup and periods being two of them) but calling a man girly has a much different effect than calling a mother fatherly or boyish. thems the breaks. When a physical or biological rite of passage into adulthood is not present, any society will create one. and to strip away the worth of somebody's completion of a rite is an easy way to aggrevate anyone.
