Gender Equality

Gender Equality

I don't feel I've been holding up my end lately on the gender war discussions. I derived new inspiration from Megan McArdle's latest post, which started out as something incomprehensible about the First Lady, pedestrian deaths, and those smug high-fructose-corn-syrup ads about how it's "natural, and fine in moderation," but quickly shifted in the comments to a useful discussion about gender roles:

Why, just this morning as I was enjoying one of the blueberry muffins my wife had made, I remarked about how glad I was to be having her home-cooked food, b/c it's blessedly free of high-fructose corn syrup, transfatty acids, & other commonly maligned bogeymen of our foody-age. Well, she came right back at me with all of the facts & figures that she had dug up last night during one of her regular exhaustive visits to the Corn Refiners Association website. I gotta tell you, it really opened my eyes about a few things . . . Mostly it made me question why I had ever thought marrying such a pedantic bore might be a good idea. Well, at least there's the blueberry muffins, I suppose.

A commenter responded:

It's appalling to witness such rigid gender role assignment in this day and age. Shame on you (in a self-esteem promoting way, of course) for not holding a family meeting to discuss a less discriminatory and more unisex arrangement. For starters, consider banishing such outdated strictures as "wife" and "husband" in favor of "Spouse 1" and "Spouse A."

To which came the reply:

That is an excellent suggestion. I particularly like "Spouse 1 & Spouse A" even though it perpetuates the long-held discrimination in favor of the allegedly 'first' numbers & letters. In that respect, "Spouse 67Q and Spouse %6y" might be even better, though perhaps a bit unwieldy in everyday usage.

Regardless, my Spouse 67Q is a perhaps unenlightened, old-fashioned sort. She even changed her name after we got married. She changed it to "Rogers" rather than mine, but still, it's the thought that counts.