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Stereotyping Heterosexuals

While I find Michael Tan's op ed column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer interesting reading,I found his latest column Wanted:Female nothing but plain stereotyping of heterosexual males and their mothers! Awful!

While it is true that some mums do spoil their bratty boys, I don't think that all mums do spoil their kids. Also many boys do household chores though there are still some gender division of labour on the kind of chores done. If boys do chores, will they be as bratty as Mike Tan thinks they are? I know classmates from elementary school who come from a family of all boys and they do chores. Now no one doubts their masculinity. I also know a classmate who comes from a family of all girls. Now she had to do boy things like help dad fix the car. No one in his/her right mind would say she isn't feminine.

And what's wrong with "Diskarte"? Females also practise their own kind of "diskarte"? And what's wrong with "pare"talk? If the men are dealing with men then a man will need to be understood by other males. Now that doesn't mean that a man isn't gender sensitive.

And this takes the cake in pure gender stereotyping and prejudice and Tan writes " You won’t find women or bakla sleeping on the job." Oh puhleeze! Dear Mike the first research assistant I hired after getting my PhD was gay. Now his being gay never factored in my decision to hire him. I hired him on the basis of his qualifications. Unfortunately he was a slacker and slept on the job in the lab. I had no choice but to let him go. Apparently his night life affected his performance in his day job!

My mum's "kasambahay" was gay. She had to let him go since he was goofing off on the job. She had to let go her macho chauffeur (who had three common law wives). His having three women had nothing to do with his being let go but his laziness and attitude. The gay katulong and the macho driver had the same attitude.

Sleeping on the job has nothing to do with gender at all. Males have been fired for goofing on the job. Females have been fired for goofing off and so d0 gays. Laziness knows no gender!

If Mike Tan wants to prove the thesis that females and gays are more competitive in the workplace (as more females are now in the supervisory workforce) then don't make gender the issue. Use work performance and attitude. As laziness knows no gender then good performance knows no gender also.

If Mike Tan wants men to change then women and gays must too. In short everyone has to change his/her attitude. Gender must not be made the reason why a person cannot be a nurse or that a person cannot be combat soldier.

Now stereotyping gender isn't the way to go. Now in the name of political correctness in some places heterosexuals have been discriminated. Now discrimination also knows no gender.

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