Men At Work Signs Unfair To Womyn

July 10, 2008 / 3:07 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

When my girlfriend D. wants to drive her husband batshit crazy she says this in her most grating, sing-songy voice, “Men work from sun up to sun down, a woman’s work is never done.” It gets a growl every, single, time. Anyone who hears the exchange laughs. She’s meaning to be funny. And while her husband sits on the couch with the remote in one hand and a vodka in the other, it is funny.

Feminists are sooooo not funny when it comes to relationships and language. Words get morphed–like womyn and using “she and her” substituted for the better English of “he and him”. You know, really, really important issues like that. In America, the feminist issues have been resolved, and some would say the pendulum has swung the other direction, so here is what women kvetch about these days:

Across Atlanta they stood, orange signs with black letters that read “Men At Work” or “Men Working Ahead.”

Sometimes, the signs stood next to women working alongside the men.

Good demanded Atlanta officials remove the signs and last week, Atlanta Public Works Commissioner Joe Basista agreed.

Score one for gender equality, Good said Wednesday.

“They get it,” Good said about the city in a telephone interview.

Public Works officials are replacing 50 “Men Working” with signs that say “Workers Ahead.” It will cost $22 to cover over some of the old signs and $144 to buy new signs, said Public Works spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith said.

Good, founding editor of Atlanta-based PINK Magazine, a publication that focuses on professional women, said she’s not stopping with Atlanta.

“We’re calling on the rest of the nation to follow suit and make a statement that we will not accept these subtle forms of discrimination,” said Good, 48.

This is it? This is what women are reduced to fighting for? It’s embarrassing.

Dang, just when I think women have achieved equality, some broad goes and does something ridiculously superficial and demeaning and sets women back. “Men at Work” signifies the universal “man” and does not signify gender, to me. And even if it does, so what? It is stupid. For the city to be retrofitting signs at $25 a pop or buying new ones at $144 or whatever, is just insane. As a woman who pays taxes and too many at that, I don’t want my hard earned dollars to go toward making some silly woman feel better.

Identity politics are so freaking annoying.

Posted in Corrupted Culture • Isms
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  • tomw

    I think the signs are misleading. There are no ‘workers’ ahead, only people propping up shovels.

    Some people are more equal than others, and they have no problem telling you about it. What a waste of time and money. If the workers are equal in performance and value, replace the signs over time as they wear out, instead of kow-towing to those that will blame everyone but themself for their unhappiness. It is always ‘someone else who is being offensive to me’ in their minds. Too bad they cannot escape to reality. No one with a full head can understand why this dreck is so important to their well being.
    Sorry for the blast, but why not help people be productive and constructive rather than whine about trivia?
    tom

  • WayneB

    Oh, come on, at least tell your girlfriend to get the saying right. It goes:

    “A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”

    It at least rhymes that way, heh.

    ““Men at Work” signifies the universal “man” and does not signify gender, to me.”

    Well, that’s what it has meant for a long darned time, even though it IS a weird convention in English, using male pronouns when the sex of the subject is undetermined. I just wish they wouldn’t go changing the language unilaterally and basically unannounced, such as replacing male pronouns with female ones in just about every publication coming out today. For someone who grew up with the old convention, seeing “she” and “her” used for indeterminate gender has the grating sense of specificity and exclusion (which I suppose the perpetually outraged feminists decided was the case with using male pronouns, but that seems to be a deliberate ignoring of convention).

  • http://hogwhitman.com Hog Whitman

    And the Berzerkely City Council spent untold $ to remove any reference to “manhole covers” in all city documents and replace them with “personhole covers”. Maybe I’m just wierd but “personhole” sounds kinda dirty.

  • Ed Wallis

    Please be so kind as to inform me if this also means that, with such enlightened signs, one can reasonably expect “WARNING: female butt crack over the next 300 feet.”

  • http://paterzplace.blogspot.com Don Meaker

    I was shocked when, while working for a truck company we discussed the ability to start one truck using the power from another. For 80 years this was called a “slave” start.

    And someone who had never been a slave, took offense.

  • Jvette

    Saw this woman on O’Reilly last night with Laura Ingraham and couldn’t believe how serious she thinks this “problem” is for women’s equality. Really and truly pathetic. With all the true oppression and abuse of women in this world, this is what this mean spirited and shallow woman chooses to rail against.

    Let’s see, women forced into marriage, killed for behavior deemed a dishonor their families, sexual slavery, female mutilations, abortion of girl babies in favor of boys, denial of education, jobs….well I guess I could almost go on and on. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

  • http://melissaclouthier.com Dr. Melissa Clouthier

    Jvette,

    Come on now! You just know that Men at Work signs are high on the list. Who cares about silly things like genital mutilation–that’s just a cultural phenomenon. Are you saying American culture is better than Islamic culture?

  • Don Hoyt

    “Are you saying American culture is better than Islamic culture?” If Jvette isn’t, I am. Been reading, and highly recommend Carmen Bin Ladin’s “Inside the Kingdom – My Life in Saudi Arabia”.

    Every Feminazi twit ought to have to go live in Saudi for a couple of years to find out what REAL oppression is. Those poor women can hardly pass gas without seeking a man’s permission. They are virtual prisoners in their own homes.

    In that “culture”, women exist solely for the pleasure and convenience of men. Boys are taught that they are superior from the time they are very small. This is the social structure that provides the world with the charming concept of honor killings. You know how it works – you’re a man, and your daughter/sister/mother commits a heinous act, like talking to a man to whom she isn’t married, and you either kill her or pay someone else to do it.

    Islamoradicalism must not be allowed to do to the U.S. what it has done to Europe.

  • Jvette

    Dr. Clouthier, Yes, I am saying that, but I’m also saying that this kind of petty whining and intentional searching out of things to protest, trivializes the very real oppression of women throughout the world. Does this woman honestly think that when I’m driving down the street and see one of these signs, I think to myself, “Gee, women work at these sites too, why doesn’t that sign reflect that? Women are still underrepresented in our country.” Instead….

    What I thought when I saw this woman was a small minded, hyper sensitive bitch with nothing better to do that whine about the generic use of the word “man” on a sign. What I saw was a woman who brings ridicule to women instead of attention to the real abuse, violence and oppression of women and girls that is still in practice.

    I was a teenager in the seventies, I have reaped the benefit of the real struggle of women to gain economic, professional and domestic opportunities and respect. I am grateful for the progress in this country and throughout the modern world. This woman makes me angry. Pure and simple.

  • http://www.johansens.us Jay

    When you loudly denounce everyone who disagrees with you as a Nazi, what are you going to say when an actual Nazi comes along? Once people figure out that your screaming complaints about oppression and tyranny are whining about trivialities, maybe they will learn to dismiss you. Then when a true threat comes along, it may be hard to get anyone to pay attention.

    I’m thinking of writing a fiction story about this, maybe an allegory about a boy who keeps warning about imaginary wolves …