equality for us guys

OK, I'm irritated! I just read an email in which someone referred to this as the Complegal blog. Now I realize that Complegalitarian is a big word. Blogger John Hobbins has even called it an unpronounceable name. I know that those who actively participate in gender debates often abbreviate, referring to people on the one side as comps and on the other side as egals.

But we need to think twice about the impact of some of our abbreviations. Yes, men have domineered for far too long. But aren't egals and complegals over-reacting by abbreviating as they do?! Shouldn't they at least give some kind of verbal equality to males? Why not use the parallel to "he/she" and "him/her" and abbreviate to complegals/compleguys? Or at least footnote "complegal" with some indication that that abbreviation is not intended to be sexist?

And while we're on the topic of sexism and language, have any of you women ever been put off because so many churches call their songbooks "hymnals". Wouldn't it be nice to have at least an equal number of "hernals"? And that car rental company, should they be sued for discrimination for calling itself "Hertz"? Why don't they have a division called "Histz? And universities, which have some fairly strict gender non-discrimination codes these days, continue to have "history" majors. Don't women deserve to have their stories told also in "herstory" departments?

Sorry, folks, this is the best I can do today. It's quite sorry, isn't it?! And, yes, I know, I remember that I owe you all another post on Biblical Submission. I will get it written and posted, one of these days. In the meantime I'm still a little groggy under the influence of turkey tryptophan. I wonder if tryptophan influences females and males equally?