Hayes and I were watching Curious George yesterday, and before it began they had a “teaching” vignette with a woman and an animated chipmunk/rodent.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” the woman asked.
“I want to drive a red truck,” replied the rodent.
“Do you know what he wants to be?” the woman asked, looking at the viewer.
“A fireman!” I happily blurted and smiled proudly at Hayes. Damn straight I knew the answer!
“That’s right,” said the woman, “A firefighter!”
Firefighter? Oh, shit, right. Firefighter — a firefighter can be a man or woman. Do I need to remember these things? Is this like sitting “indian style” is now sitting “legs akimbo” (interestingly, akimbo is also used in the culinary work for what you do with the wings of a bird when prepping it to roast)? Sitting aside, in this situation, Hayes would be a fireman, right?
I don’t know.
Is this going to be one of those things that separates us from our kids if we don’t learn to non-sex our words? Is Hayes going to think of me as quaint when I talk about my buddy being a fireman and not a firefighter? Will he apologize to his friends for my sexist behavior? Maybe I’m thinking too much about this, but I suspect it’s in my best interest to choose more “politically acceptable” words.
What then would be a policeman? Right, a police officer. This is going to take some time.
Big Daddy Rob says:
September 29th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Wait a minute… you can say ’sit indian style’ anymore?
What if we changed it ‘Native-American style’? No wait, I think I read somewhere that that term was unacceptable.
How about we pick a tribe we are partial too? Personally, I’m partial to the Arapahoe; as a child of the ’70s, my father and I were part of the Y-Indian Guides (now politically corrected to Adventure Guides) and our tribe was (you guessed it), The Arapahoe Tribe. My dad was Big Bear and I was Little Bear (although a better indian name for me at the time would have been ‘Chews with Mouth Open’.)
I could go on, but I think I’ll save it for my blog. I’ll close by saying, Fight the PC!.
No wait… someone might take that a pro-Mac thing… Dang!
Eric Sagalyn says:
September 29th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
It’s not indian guides any more? WTF? I do need to learn this stuff.