Chrisonomicon

Sunday, April 6, 2003

Dave and I took Veronica to Sing Sing for her birthday, a dueling piano bar in Lodo that turned out to be quite a bit better than either of us was anticipating. Nonetheless, straight bar as it is, the air was thick with smoke and that awkward hetero vibe. The music program centered primarily around the differences between the sexes -- "song battles" between the women and men, stereotypical straight arguments (Men: "Suck my dick!", Women: "I can't find it!") -- and, while boisterous and fun, it had me thinking more about sexism's role in humor than the countless, dildo-wielding bachelorettes being brought on stage, one after the other.

Advertising has always taken advantage of our affinity for sexual differences, particularly on male-oriented TV channels such as ESPN (in part, driven by a desire to increase their female audience). I saw part of a Mercedes commercial today in which a man is being pursued by an armada of air and land vehicles that eventually succumb to the Mercedes' apparent superior speed. No sooner is he alone on the open highway than a woman pulls up in a similar car and speeds on ahead of him. Score one for women. A second commercial revealed shots of women in a variety of uniforms and activities -- kickboxing, guitar-strumming, fire-fighting, cow-wrangling -- ending with three men holding up bottles of beer in a toast: here's to women. However, the commercials struck me less as a true appreciation for the female sex and more as a display of male pride and property: look at our women doing manly things.

In a business ethics class I took recently we learned that one should praise in public and criticize in private. However, there are exceptions, such as when praising in public would bring attention to a previous failure ("Congratulations on conquering your meth addiction"). With political correctness becoming more of a habit than an intentional sensitivity, it seems entirely possible that we are overcompensating for millennia of sexism by "praising publicly" women and female equality, an act that simply makes the history of inequality even more obvious.

It is understandable that to gain acceptance, a certain level of empathy -- or at least sympathy -- is required of the oppressive group. What better way to do that than to show how women like the same things that men do? Much of the feminist movement has been aimed at earning women equality, but equality doesn't mean similarity. This has been a similar problem in the gay community as activists fight for equal rights by demanding gay marriage. Besides the obvious government backing including joint taxes, implied medical and property rights, etc., it seems rather superfluous for the gay community to tap into this heterosexual institution simply for the sake of equality.

More later. Mike's home!