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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

If MY grandson is learning sexism....

Jasi & I are sitting on the grass having a conversation - him talking & me kinda listening - about moving a REALLY REALLY REALLY heavy bridge from one point on the river to another better point.

He tells me he must get 7 men to lift the bridge and move it over.

My full attention snaps in gear as my initial amusement pauses, morphing into disbelief. His mom is a strong, resourceful single mom; I am his grandmother active in his life since the beginning.

Furthermore, what 7 men are really active in his life? Not many.

I test him hoping to find out he might be using the generic 'men'.

I tell him I know 7 women who can help us move it.

He is startled, smiling like maybe he doesn't want to hurt my feelings, shaking his head sticking to his 7 men (not even big strong men).

Well, grandmother, he strives for a conciliatory solution when I insist I'll ask my 7 women friends, we can ask 100 women and 1 man then.

I'm sure he doesn't even know how many 100 is, just that it is an unbelievably huge number and that we would need a LOT of women to have the equivalent strength of 7 men. 

So very sadly, my grandson already knows men are strong, men are to be called upon, relied on, especially when there is a difficult task to be accomplished.

I raised my daughter in what I thought was an anti-racist, anti-sexism, progressive home, school, and community that I traveled over 3000 miles to seek out and find. We had no tv and I arranged my work and school time to coincide with her school hours as closely as I could - so I was the one mostly raising her.

We had no tv, yet my daughter came home from her progressive school one day, at 7 or 8 years old, grabbed a towel to drape over her luscious afro, and began swinging it back & forth like a white girl's mane, declaring she was now a Charlie's Angel!

That is when I learned, if you allow your children to breathe the air in this country, to eat the food, to drink the water, they are going to be filled with racism, sexism, misogyny - all the values that are so prevalent and pervasive in our society they permeate the water, the air, the food.