PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Really, I didn't mean to insult the guy.

A library book that I'd ordered had come in, but I couldn't find it on the reserve shelf. Finally I gave up and went to check with a librarian.

The cute straight guy with the big beard came over to help me. The book had been misfiled on another shelf, but he managed to locate it right away.

“Thanks: I could have looked all day and not found that,” I say, taking the book and shaking my head. “Librarian's intuition.”

There was an awkward pause. I'd intended a compliment, but instead I'd just insulted him.

I'd been riffing, of course, off the phrase “women's intuition.” Inadvertently, I'd just compared him to a woman, which of course—as every man knows—is the most insulting thing that you can do to another man.

Gods. Two (I'm intuiting here, myself) feminist guys, and it's still an insult for one to compare the other to a woman. I'd probably even insulted his choice of careers by implying that it wasn't sufficiently manly work.

I'm sorry, but that is so f*cked.

It's an old, old story. Famously, in ancient Athens, a youth was tried for having murdered his lover.

This was a blog I wrote a long time ago, before I was introduced to the glorious world of trans. This post applies not just to the plain usage of "Women and children first" but the potential for stripping men (trans or no) of their value and dignity. It also applies to how some practitioners, especially Wiccans, identify womyn with receptivity and passiveness rather than passion and power. Hopefully you find this thought-provoking.

It's August, it's hot, and I'm pissed. Regrettably, only the first two are seasonal.

“What part of their bodies do men dry off first when they get out of the shower?”

“Hunh?” I reply inelegantly, thoroughly lost.

My friend explains.

“We noticed in the bathhouse this morning that when a woman gets out of the shower, the first thing she dries off is her face, so I was wondering about men.”

The observation is an interesting one, certainly. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd never really thought about it before, but when you're wet all over, of course you dry your face first. Just what this may say about our species, I'll leave you to suss out for yourself.

But the act of “othering” inherent in her question annoyed me, not to mention the sexism. I figured that a stupid question deserves a stupid answer.

Have you ever wondered why “midlife crisis” is such a taboo subject? If everybody who lives long enough goes through it at some point or other, then why isn’t it openly discussed? My sense is that there’s a lot of stigma around this phase in life. Being middle-aged often means feeling vulnerable and vulnerability isn’t particularly acceptable in the kind of world we live in.

Words matter.

That's why I'm laying a curse upon a certain word.

Not wishing to draw said curse onto my own head, I will refrain from writing the word here, for indeed it deserves neither to be written nor spoken.

But this much I will say:

The word that I hereby curse is a portmanteau of “romance” and “bro” (sic).

This sneering, belittling, condescending term denotes an intimate emotional relationship between two men.

And everyone knows that men shouldn't have those.

Maybe it was naïve of me, but it never occurred to me before this morning that a person could be a racist feminist.

Personally, I find all forms of oppression and bullying equally abhorrent.  I believe all humans (all sentient life, really) deserve love and respect from the beginning to the end of their lives, no matter what they look like, who they love, how much they have, what language they speak, or what they believe.

The oldest living organism on Earth is detailed. Plans are made to transform Chicago for the future. And fires burn out of control in Indonesia, threatening the global climate. It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly take on science and Earth-related news. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!