I Like Trees

I will work for the health and wholeness of our larger society so that we are free of the limitations which would impede that personal work.

                “Man up, Jamal!” I looked up. The subject of the order toddled by, clutching his juice bottle.

            I’ve never forgotten that command, or the tender age of its recipient. Both the force with which it was given, and the gender-age slant of it, caught my attention.

            Someone brought to my attention recently that they hate it when parents call their son, “little man.” A lot of ideas about this were raised, but the question remained: Is it wrong to call a child, “little man”?

            To determine right or wrong, we have to ask the base question: is it harmful?

            That’s a tougher one to answer, and we won’t arrive at an answer here and now. I’m not even going to try. I do want to address one of the points raised as we discussed it, which was that there is no cognate for females, and that’s part of the problem.

            “Little lady,” has been suggested. The problem with that, the problem with both of these labels, is that they are not two-way.

            We can settle this right now. Close your eyes, and think of a good man. The qualities of a good man, and what they are to you. Choose the top three.

            Now think, “Good woman.”

            If those same three qualities were not the first things you thought of- since you already had an example of them in a good man- there’s a separate and unequal going on that you’ve been suckered into.

            There’s a distinction, in “little man,” or “little woman,” (little “lady is an apposite of  ”little gentleman,” and not of “little man”) that doesn’t need to be there. Those are a problem. If you don’t believe me, here’s sentence A, with no irrelevant distinction:
“Would all students come up to the front to get your certificates?”

and sentence B, with an irrelevant distinction thrown in:

“Would all the black students and all the white students come up to the front to get your certificates?”

            Now, part of the problem is that “little man” is actually used for something when it’s said. It combines the baby with the idea of being a mature adult. Unfortunately for everyone who would like to stop being gender-biased in their speech, there’s really no adult word that suits. “Little adult,” doesn’t work. “Little person,” is me without my heels on, struggling to reach the kitchen cupboards. “Little engineer” only works if they’ve shown a pronounced interest in either trains or electronics.

            “Little buddy,” is almost invariably male. “Little miss,” is hideously gendered unless you’re referring to my aim, which is improving.

            “Little Darwinian,” is great, but decribes too much of how they got here.

            So what are we left with? The ridiculously inclusive, “little humanoid?”

            If we gave it up entirely, they’d be fine. Children are astonishingly good at placing themselves in contect by age, and even by gender, as they grow. I have proof…     

            They will not grow up confused, they will not grow up broken. The only thing that our gendered speech reveals to us is our own bias, and so now we come to the next question (you knew this would be the next question): what do we do about it?

            As for, “Man up,” I don’t even know where to start. No one says, “woman up.” No one says, “Hey, woman up! Get yourself together!” No one sits down with their child and says, “hey! Get your Sojourner Truth on!” (Now that I think of it, that’s an awesome slogan, though.) “Woman up,” just doesn’t exist, not because women are not tough or strong or up to the fight, but because the whole idea is a macho statement that bears little relation to the actual capabilities of human beings. “Woman up,” is still like telling someone to “passive support up!” The misperception of “woman” is something we have to fix, but not by producing yet another separate but equal phrase.

If no one told you before… hear it now- adding a division, like “girl” to a word like “power” only weakens it. Forget girl power. I want… POWER.

       Jamal, telling you to “man up” only gives you half your superpowers. You’ve been gypped, and I’m terribly sorry.

            Un-man up. Woman and man up. Human up. Wise up. Get your human going. Do anything, anything, but man up.  No, we can’t  always remember to be gender-unbiased everywhere, but where kids are involved, we can freaking try, right? We can make an effort. PARENT up, and let’s try.

            I do have a disclosure to make, one gender-reliant secret. I’ll be honest. There’s one person in my life who calls me little miss, and I let her. Only one. Does  it all the time and I won’t say no. That would be my baby sister, heading off to college as I type this. (Congratulations, sweetie! Break several legs!) “Sister,” not “sibling,” because she says so, and since she’s an adult, I don’t argue. I let her because it’s funny, and because I get to call her anything I want in return. (No, I won’t tell you what I call her.)

            And as for the “little man…” Jamal, wherever you are, I’m so sorry. Don’t man up. Kid up, toddler up, bibbitt up. Or better still, here; I’ll man up, with you, because I have no problem with the distinctions as long as I get to be on every team. We’ll all man up, woman up, monkey up, and everything else up, until it’s all so up that it’s even. I’m with you on it, and we’ll humanist up as much as we can. We can face it all all down together. But don’t just man up. It’s too far a jump in the wrong direction, and none of us need to go there.