Posted on 07/28/2003 9:41:28 AM PDT by dead
When it comes to chicks, George Morgan is lost for words.
There's a badge pinned to my noticeboard that my ex, the mother of three of my children, used to wear in the early '80s. It says "Women are NOT Chicks". When we split up, in 1995, I souvenired a jar of such badges, mementos of our radical student days: "Leave Uranium in the Ground", "Don't Dam the Franklin" - that sort of thing.
It's my week with the kids and I'm in the kitchen making dinner. My bright, stroppy, pretty 14-year-old daughter is telling me about her day: "I was waiting for the bus this morning and this chick came up to me and asked me if I knew . . ."
"Chick? Chick? You shouldn't call her a chick. Women are not chicks."
"What's wrong with 'chick', Dad? What's your problem?"
"It's demeaning. It implies that women are fluffy little animals, no substance, weak, decorative and vulnerable."
"It does not. It's just a word we use. It just means 'girl'. Why are you so bloody sanctimonious?"
"Your mother and women like her fought very hard in the '80s for women to be taken seriously."
"Oh f--- off, Dad. Stop lecturing me."
With that, she storms off to her room to listen to Kasey Chambers and read Cleo.
Two weeks later her mother rings me to talk kids' stuff: "Her contact lenses are ready. The chick from the optometrist's rang."
"Chick? Did you say 'chick'? I jumped down her throat the other day when she said 'chick'. Here I am trying to encourage a bit of feminist consciousness in our daughter, and there's you undermining me."
"I think the word has been reclaimed, George, like 'wog' and 'dyke'. It's OK to use it if you are one, but not if you're not."
Right.
The following weekend I'm playing soccer at a local field. It's relaxed and good-natured. At half-time we're sitting around when one player calls out: "Check out the boob tube, fellas. Hey, darling." This sets off a chorus of whistles and come-on calls directed at a young woman walking near the pitch.
I look up and my heart sinks. It's my daughter. She's wearing the sort of skirt that I enjoyed seeing on girls when I was her age but which I'd rather my daughter didn't wear in public.
When she's out of earshot I tell them they should be ashamed of themselves harassing a 14-year-old. Some of the youngsters smirk; the older ones apologise.
The next day I'm having a clear-out and find a tube of old political posters. One that catches my eye was published by the Australian Union of Students 20 years ago. It has a photo of a young woman walking through a neighbourhood in Rome looking harassed as she runs the gauntlet of scores of young men perched astride Vespas and sitting on stoops calling out to her. The poster reads: "Rape: At the End of Every Wolf Whistle."
It's tough being a sensitive New-Age dad in the noughties.
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It means "Westernized Oriental Gentleman". It was an insult from the Brits towards the Indians who attended the upper class Universities in England, and became a way for class concious Brits to slur upstanding people of other ethnic groups, as in -- they may be gentleman but they are still wogs. Get it?
Nah, he's not whipped.
Awww,the children of liberals say the cutest things, don't they?
Then don't be!!! Tell your daughter not to dress like that, and what was the "F#$% off" his daughter told him? Wha-wha-what? He's going to have more problems than not with her attitude like that already.
I'd still be picking myself off the floor if I spoke like that to my dad, and I was his only daughter!
Great daughter you're raising there, tough guy.
Had to check to see of this was written by Ozzie Osborne.
Like so many new-age types, this fool is worrying about the flowers on his dining-room table while the house is on fire.
His young daughter is dressing like a slut and using language that 20 year old BOYS used to make sure they didn't use in front of their parents, and HE'S worried about her using "sexist" language?
He's not only whipped, he's so out of touch he's comatose.
You and me both - and it would happen to this day and I'm in my 40s!!!
A month or so ago my husband heard our 5 year old call me stupid - I can honestly say I have never seen that man move so fast...............She has not said it since.
My how times have changed. If I'd have said that I'd be the victim of child abuse by current standards. My parents were so intolerable, conservative and controlling....
I hate to think of what will happen to this guy if his daughter is ever "forced" to care for him when he grows old.
Drunk Driving: At the Bottom of Every Beer
Addiction: In the Stub of Every Joint
Gun Violence: At the Bottom of Every Magazine
Zombies: Underneath Every Cemetary
Metrosexuals: At the End of Every SMH Byline
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