Girl Talk

Lately I've been doing some work for some friends helping them with a project. First it was me and one woman. When I work with her on the project we talk about a variety of subjects: politics, philosophy, culture, etc. When her friend shows up to help, the two of them click up and I 'm pretty much left out while they talk about their husbands, and kids etc. Some might think this is normal discourse between women and I am left out because of course a man would have nothing to say on the subject or they aren't as comfortable talking to me as with each other "just between women".

The point I'm trying to make, is that society passes this off as normal. I am saying, that it is not ingrained in the species but mere enculturation. This is another manifestation of an old problem, gender segregation. To prove my point, my sister has often complained to me that she has trouble talking to other women. They began talking about husbands, children, one even asked her what color of underwear she liked. My sister found this strange, prying and creepy. However, when the company is an even mix of men and women, she has no discomfort what so ever. I contend that the phenomenon of "girl talk" and female bonding, male bonding etc. is purely a cultural aberration and a symptom of deeper problems within the society.

Men and women seem to have been so segregated that they do not pursue common interests. Men talk about sports, and cars, and work, and women talk about fashion and, children, and family matters. Each sex is tightly segregated ,and neither is allowed to enjoy the benefits of subjects or activities assigned to the other. My sister, for instance loves cars and mechanics but other women want to talk about her under wear choices. I on the other hand love fashion, and enjoy sewing but you can imagine what the guys at work would think of that. Or better yet, come a little closer, let me lean in and tell you a secret that you already know in the back of your mind, some where, behind work, and kids, and volunteering, let me show you something unimaginable, something perverse and rotten.

Imagine the" guys at work" like those things to, but their natural artistic and social interests have been so strangled and disfigured by a perverse and sexist society that forces roles on us based on gender that they feign hostility while secretly longing for them. How much has been lost, been destroyed, how many men and women's minds have been needlessly stifled and root bound to the point of mental disease by this "tradition". When you stifle natural inclinations, you are performing a kind of surgery on your self, on your being, you are cutting a piece of you off. How much of a persons self can be cut away? How much that is complex, and beautiful and, wondrous has been ripped and mangled into ugly pathetic approximations of some childish stereotype of what a man or woman should be?

Lets stop this. Lets be who we are, throw off this nonsense it's ugly, it's a disease, and it's holding us back.