Okay. We need to talk.

I need to understand something.

You see, I always thought the word “equal” meant “equality”. In other words, I thought that it meant that equals were judged on a level playing field with no “exceptions”. And, I thought the old segregationist slogan, “equal but separate” meant that there was no equality whatsoever. 

With all of that in mind, I’m about to make a statement that, to me, seems anything but sexist and unfair, but I’m sure it will be misconstrued by any perennial malcontents and perpetual victims who read this.

These days, many people artificially try to make things equal by assigning new labels to old concepts and completely throwing out many labels that are considered sexist.  (And, I must admit that a lot of the old labeling system was blatantly sexist.

A lot of it was subtly sexist too. For example, my father would always differentiate between men and women professionals.  A male lawyer would be a lawyer. A female lawyer would be a woman lawyer. A male general practitioner would be a doctor. A female general practitioner would be a woman doctor. And the same would hold true for engineers, politicians, scientists, etc., etc., etc.)

On a related topic; I was a kid growing up in the 1950’s we, in our ignorance and insensitivity, referred to black folks as colored people.  (Even Martin Luther King did! And so did the fine folks who started the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). When As I grew up, society told us that that label was incorrect. So we started referring to those folks as African Americans. Then, African Americans morphed into Blacks. AND NOW they refer to themselves as People of Color! “Colored people” versus “People of Color”! Like I said, sometimes I just don’t get it!

Here’s something else I don’t understand; there are no longer actresses in the theater. Everybody acting in the theatre today, no matter what their sex, refers to themselves as an actor. Just like there are no waiters and waitresses anymore; they have morphed into servers, airline stewards and stewardesses have become flight attendants, and so on.

Okay. That’s all well and good. I can accept that.

But then how come, if people don’t identify themselves as actresses any more, nobody ever told this to the folks on the governing board of The Academy of Arts and Sciences? You know, the people who hand out The Oscars?  Every year we have the following categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress. And, funny as it seems, every ACTOR category is won by a man, and every ACTRESS category is won by a woman!

Go figure, huh?

How come, if we are all exactly the same, we don’t have just ONE category for BEST ACTOR, and have just one for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR also, and men and women don’t compete for the same award? I mean, isn’t that the logical conclusion to this politically correct train of thought?

Or maybe, as someone recently suggested, we have awards for Best Male Actor, Best Female Actor, Best Male Supporting Actor and Best Female Supporting Actor. I don’t get it.  How in the hell is Best Female Actor better than Best Actress? Or, for that matter, how is it better than my father saying Woman Doctor?

But, as it stands now in Hollywood, we still have men and women actors competing for separate awards…separate but equal.

And why is that?  Is it because roles for women and men are freaking different? Gee, do ya think? What makes for a great performance by a leading man is different than what makes for a great performance by a leading lady.  Why? Because life experiences for men and women are so different!

It’s more than just physical differences.

I mean, when I park my car downtown at night, I really don’t pay any attention to if I’m parking in a well-lighted area or not.  When I used to date, I never worried about if a new woman was going to hurt me or date rape me or not.

I’ve never worn heels, and, if a new pair of shoes hurts my feet when I try them on in the store, I don’t them. There’s none of this, “Oh, they’ll be fine after I break them in.” Nope. I don’t buy them.  I don’t care how cute they are.  I don’t spend a half hour every time I go out putting paint and stain on my face to look attractive to the opposite sex. 

There ARE differences!!!!!!

Okay, so what’s my point?