FEMINIST

I’m not sure if this is going to go the way I want but I’ve been looking for some words to describe my perspective on the state of male/female relations today. I don’t know if I’ve found the words but I definitely found the image, the scene, if you will, that sums it up for me.

Here’s what I saw:

There was a boy, about 8-10 years old, in pajamas, in one of our local pizza joints. Close behind was his mother. There were headed to the video game arcade at the back of the restaurant. My immediate thought was “would I let my kid come out to a public pizza place, or any public place for that matter, in his pajamas?”. That thought was immediately followed by the question that seems to come up more and more for me today…”what’s his mom like”. Is she a “Me Too” woman? What type of “Me Too” woman? Is she a feminist? What type of feminist?

I thought, is she the type of woman who would look or speak disapprovingly at me if she knew I really liked the ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ song? Is she the type of woman who would roll her eyes at me if I had any other opinion about Judge Kavanaugh other than “immediately guilty”. I thought she was, that was my judgement, no other data.

And that’s when it began to hit me.

The electronic machine guns mounted in the enormous gondola of the video game were going off, drowning out everything else in the area with digital bursts of simulated, rapid fire guns. I looked over, the kid in the pajamas was seated, both hands on the grips of his toy machine gun, another kid had joined him seated in the enclosed structure. Both guns were blazing and both boys were focused on digitally destroying whatever was in front of them on the screen. They were gleeful, as boys will be in that situation.

The mom had turned away and was already onto whatever was next for her, finding seats for her family, getting a waitress, whatever it was and as she turned and walked by me I looked up and there it was, beautiful and crystal clear written across her sweatshirt.

FEMINIST.

In big, black, block letters. Nothing else.

FEMINIST.

And the feminist turned away from her boys. Left them to their machine guns and simulated, glorified destruction.