I just thought it was one of those insipid, boring things you have to sit through when you’ve got a little kid. All that time I was microaggressing against my daughter, and missed the fun of knowing it.
By way of Insty, here’s the tale of the violence – or at least the sexism – inherent in the system of the Isle of Sodor…
Mrs Creagh said: “In the Thomas the Tank Engine books there are almost no female engines. The only female characters are an annoyance, a nuisance and in some cases a danger to the functioning of the railway.
“There is a preponderance of men in the transport industry and I am very keen to unpack some of the myths that stop women from taking up what are often highly paid and highly skilled jobs.”
Y’know, there are skilled trades out there to this day that employ very few women. For example, back when I was wrenching in dealership back shops in the seventies and early eighties you were more likely to meet a gray alien than a woman in a grease-stained uniform. If you had asked me back then if this was a sign of sexism in the automotive industry I might have agreed that it was – but I’d have insisted that it wasn’t the women who were being oppressed. Later, when I grew older and a bit more mellow, I settled on the conclusion that the gender mismatch was clear evidence that women are smarter than men.
Clearly, both versions of me are wrong. If there aren’t enough women represented in a dirty, hard, unpleasant and dangerous trade, it must be because men are picking on them.
There was a book a few years back addressing this very issue. Sadly, I don’t recall the name.
How many sewer workers, garbage men, those guys profiled on Dirty Jobs are women?
My roommate, the feminist, insists I take out the garbage!
They ARE smarter!
gfa
I remember well my first male nursing student. When we did our clinical practice in the nursing home, he managed to duck out often when we were dealing with demented elders and their uncontrollable body fluids… Then, the first time we had to practice drawing blood in the lab, he fainted.
Had to counsel him to consider a different line of work. He was a swell guy, just not geared to do much with poop and blood. Some get by enough to graduate, and then go on to administration. Some of the guys who came along later were terrific, no more traumatized by poop and needles than most of the girls. And yes, there were more than a few girls who couldn’t cut it either.
It’s all about what one wants to do, what one is geared to do, and what one is willing to do. Sex doesn’t have a lot to do with it. These people who whine and bitch about “sexism” don’t have much of a grasp on the real world, unfortunately. They want to get their way by emotional blackmail and pull, and bulldoze everyone else along with them. A pox on them all.
Funny I never saw all that when being subjected to Thomas with the grands. Senior attention deficit???
When I was about 4, I asked for a train set for Christmas(way before Thomas and who knows why). What a huge teary disappointment that Santa made a mistake and didn’t bring me one. Mom later told me it was because Daddy said “girls don’t play with trains”. I think girls today do have more choices, but are still mostly being raised not to get dirty.
Oh, women get dirty all right. It’s just usually a less pleasant form of dirt than men are used to. 🙂
I can’t get either side of the usual debate – the one side that says various members of a group must or must not do some form of work – or the other side that says representation of all groups in all professions must be equal. Both side are simply insane. No one is satisfied by just letting people have a go at it on their own.
A Godless corporation is thumbing its nose at all Christianity by eliminating candy stripes and mistletoe decorations from our cardboard coffee cups, and you are worried about Thomas the Train? Where are your priorities man?