Fight like a girl because you're not "just" a girl

Lively debate in the radio studio with Peter Ingemi (above) of DaTechGuyblog yesterday morning, then on to a "salon" at Borders Grille in Leominster with lotsa good food and drink and talk with local listeners, bloggers, radio talkers and writers.

"Mummy wanted a girl. At least one woman who didn't want a boy," we wrote our imail correspondent in high dudgeon in response to this bit of conventional wisdom that stuck in our craw this afternoon:

She: YET...for whatever reason, everbody wants a BOY!

We: In some cultures like Chinese, it apparently has to do with money ... inheritance and such ... course where does that come from? And where does it lead? [Not enough women for the men, not enough offspring to replace the old folks. Can you say Eurabia?]

She: Dowry is BIG, but … I feel blessed to have sons. I never had to go shopping at the MALL!!!

Peter invited Tuck into the studio, where he turned out to be a natural talker. Fun stuff. Then on to Borders for what our twitter friend Ginny aka ginthegin calls "Nip &Tuck."

We were discussing, of course, the latest bit of news from our friends on the genome side of the aisle about a new, relatively inexpensive lab test that tells you the sex of your prospective offspring before the life force ever has a chance to breathe free. There is something so wrong about playing God with that information, in our view. You're a married couple wanting a child, and you bypass nature's way to use modrin science to choose? So many unsavory things come tumbling out. The eternal sadness thinking about the little girl that might have been the light of your life. The way things turned out with the little boy who maybe didn't fulfill your dreams of him. Whatever. For us Thoreau's timeless words ring true:

The most alive is the wildest. Not yet tamed by man, it refreshes him.

Arrggghhh! We say that as the one-year-younger sister of a totally awesome older brother, best buddies when we were Joe and Mike having kicka fights in the early years, but then went our separate ways for years in the wake of this mentality:

We: I want to do it too. How come he can and I can't?

Mummy: Because you're a girl.

Don't remember the issue, but "because you're a girl" was seared, seared in our memory. We were a Sarah Palin "fight like a girl" gal from day one and never bought in to the boys-are-better narrative. When the Gramscian march through the institutions hijacked the feminist project with the postmodern woman-as-victim narrative, we were horrified. That's probably why we tossed our hat to the sky and shouted for joy: It's a girl? when Sarah Palin sprung onto the national stage three years back.

Update: Bill Quick of Daily Pundit links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Comments

[pb]

Hear, hear! But do remember that we are the bitchin' fighters we are because of that nasty phrase shoved up our noses.

My mother told me that we women got menstrual cramps and childbirth pain to offset the men going off to war! How's that a line to give our fighting women in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

[Gayle Miller]

My mother always wanted a girl and that's what she got. My father wanted a boy but discovered that girls can be fierce. By the time I was 5 or 6, he had taught me to fight (dirty) my older bullying male cousins and to fish and to hunt and to use a tractor in our one-acre WWII victory garden! He did, however, take my mother's side when she insisted I wear a dress to Mass on Sundays. My argument was that God wouldn't recognize me since he saw me in my jeans and overalls the entire rest of the week! My dad's argument was that my mother put up with a lot from me and that she deserved this one small victory. Why that worked, I have no idea, but it did! So scabby knees and grumpy attitude prevailed every Sunday until we got home from Mass and then back into my overalls for the rest of the day. I was such a lovely easygoing child! A belated but heartfelt apology to my late Mother; I still miss you and love you - 30 years after you left us.

[Lee]

I have 4 sons and three daughters and I love all of them. One of my sons is a Navy petty officer who is planning to go into the officer program. My toughest child, however, is my middle daughter, a Marine staff sergeant, who also is a CID officer.

She went into the Marines to show all of us who was the toughest. She did.