“Sexism: A Users’ Guide”
By Kelly Anneken, managing editor
Jesus Christ, you people again? Don’t you have anything better to do than read a quarterly online absurdist humor journal? Like autoerotic asphyxiation? Or your taxes?
I got kicked out of Zuccotti Park and never got my handout. Even worse, Richard Parker didn’t maul the cast of Jersey Shore like he was supposed to — he joined them! Watch for him next season, I think he’s a love interest for Deena? Or maybe Paulie D, they all look the same to me.
I hitchhiked back across the country, and now I’m working as a psychic out of this efficiency apartment in the Tenderloin. Mostly I tell hookers their fortunes for a dollar. I always say, “Later tonight, you will suck a dick,” and it always comes true! I’ve finally found my calling, but Isa McStupidpants got my pager number somehow, and she won’t stop making my pager spell “BOOBS,” which I guess is her way of saying I have to write my dumb column for the Hobo Pancakes “Sexism” issue.
So here it is. I’m typing it on a computer at the library, so I hope I can get it done before my time at this workstation ends ten minutes from now. There’s a bum waiting to use it, and he looks like he really needs to rub one out.
Ahem. Sexism! What is it? Where does it come from? Why should you care?
- Wikipedia defines sexism as “the belief that a characteristic inherent in one’s sex necessarily adversely affects one’s ability even though that characteristic does not necessarily have that effect: Sexism is a form of discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, with such attitudes being based on beliefs in traditional stereotypes of gender roles. The term sexism is most often used in relation to discrimination against women, in the context of patriarchy.”
- Sexism’s origins can mainly be found in religious texts, most legislation, and advertising from the 1950s.
- You should care because… because…
***
I ran out of time, so I had to finish up my research on the street. Fortunately, I ran into my friend Beatrix, who is a real font of knowledge on most subjects. I’ve also heard that she’s the queen of the N-Judah reacharound and a real beast when she’s coked up, but I haven’t seen it firsthand because I don’t like hanging around with Russian mobsters. I figured she’d be a good person to ask, since before she was Beatrice, she was Bernard, so she’s seen the whole sexism thing from every angle.
Lucky for me, Beatrix was a Women’s Studies major at a community college in Iowa before she moved to San Francisco to fulfill her dream of being an actual woman, and she said that there’s a few different kinds of sexism. Misogyny is hatred of women, like Men’s Rights Activists and beer commercials. Misandry is hatred of men, like the Michigan Womyn’s Festival and beer commercials. Transphobia is fear of transsexuals, like my ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show with me and beer commercials. Then she started talking about misandrogyny, which I thought was the name of a pretty cool drag pageant, but Beatrix said it’s actually fear of intersex people, which I told her I totally understand, because I’m usually pretty freaked out by people who hang out in the middle of a street, even if it is a four-way stop. She said she meant people who were born with both girl and boy parts, like Jamie Lee Curtis, so I had to cut her off and just tell her fortune before I went back to the library. As if anyone could ever be afraid of Jamie Lee Curtis!
So that’s all I have for you this quarter, readers. I need to get off this computer, because another homeless person seems to need release. She’s* welcome to it. With any luck, Isa won’t be able to find me again, because I’m leaving my pager right here on this library computer desk. I’m sure some intrepid person will be able to use its vibrate function the way God intended.
*Actually, it’s another man, but I don’t want you all to think I’m a misandrist about public masturbation.
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