I really enjoy infomania. In one of their recent segments "That's So Gay", they highlight the coverage of Johnny Weir in the Vancouver Games.
On the way to extended day today, one of the students had her umbrella. On the handle was a monkey. Nothing about it indicated sex except for the flower in the hair. Even then the color and face of the monkey were completely neutral. Yet, the student right away talked about the girl monkey. We talked about why we thought it could be a girl monkey and when it seemed to be the flower, she was not so surprised and only smiled a little when I mentioned that I'm sure boys can have flowers in their hair as well.
I wonder if/how this conversation can happen now. I think we need to challenge sex vs. gender now. It only seems awkward when we carry assumptions about what these words mean but deconstructing them seems no less important than deconstructing racial and vulgar word usages.
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