Preaching to the choir

This morning, a friend, and a fierce woman who no one should mess with, made fun of Kobe Bryant's "I don't take charges" nonsense by asking him how big a tampon he needed for his giant vagina. And it just about made my head explode.

Can we please, for the love of all that is good and feminist and gender equal, PLEASE stop equating male genitalia with strength and female genitalia with weakness?

Let's stop saying that someone is being a "pussy" if s/he is being cowardly. Let's stop urging people to "sack [or nut] up." Let's stop accusing men of having vaginas when they're not being strong and let's stop talking about women having brass balls when they are being strong.

I know this is just the kind of language that we've grown up with and we don't mean it that way and it's just funny and whatever other excuse or justification you can come up with. But it really is insulting and offensive and lame and just wrong. Language matters and these subtle things that we all claim don't really mean anything matter most of all. This insidious linkage of female with weak and male with strong is doing more damage than we even realize. So let's just stop doing up.

I'm going to vagina up* and declare that I will do all I can to stop this language usage.






*I'm still working out the fine details.