I just like to say "Casper Weinberger".

Words are powerful.  Names are important. 

Remember the old Bloom County cartoon where Opus muses that he and Caspar Weinberger have had to work hard to overcome the hardship of their less than stellar nomenclature?

For the most part, I contend that courtesy titles are a form of self-perpetuating discrimination.  I ain't sayin' it's right, I'm just sayin' it is.  I like titles that tell what you've done (Doctor, President) as opposed to those that give your marital status.  I am 41 years old and I cannot remember a single incident in my entire life in which it was ever necessary to use the title Miss or Mrs. 

Words like chairwoman or policewoman discriminate because the very sound of the word tells you this person is somehow different from the norm.  Why not just be the chairman?  Or the officer?  Why do you need a different title to do the same job? 

Why do we need separate Oscar categories for male and female actors?  Why can't all actors compete against one another?  I do understand, given our currently regressing caveman culture, that this might result in a dearth of female recipients, but it just chaps that women compete only against women and vice-versa.  As if women need some sort of separate arena?  We don't. 

We do need separate bathrooms, but that's about it.

I worked with a court administrator once who preferred the term administratrix.  Thankfully, no one would actually call her that.  The called her some other things, though.  Administratrix - what century is that from?  It sounds like what you'd call the receptionist at a S&M club. 

And then there are the sports teams.  I realize that there probably ought to be some way of differentiating men's and women's sports teams.  And honestly, I've got no idea of how to do it, really.  I just know the current system sucks.  (Isn't this how these things normally go?  Someone gets all smart ass and bashes the situation without having thought through any sort of a way of improving things.)  I don't have the answer, I'm just complaining. 

Bulldogs are always a popular mascot around here.  And every school that uses it calls their girls teams the Lady Dogs.  Yet "Go Bitches!" is frowned upon when shouted from the cheap seats.

The little town just north of here uses the admirably unusual mascot of the Kangaroo.  The women's teams?  Lady Roos.  Lady Roo sounds like a ripoff of Lady Gaga. 

While writing this I am wearing a t-shirt that has "Lady Horn Softball" emblazoned across my chest.  Granted, the boys don't play softball, so they could have used Longhorn Softball.  But, no. 

The Lady Horn might well be an implement of male destruction hidden away from sight and perhaps the culprit behind all the anti-feminism pervading our legislative bodies these days. 

Lady Horn.  Watch for it.

It was all fun and games until someone put an eye out.  With the Lady Horn. 

You gotta say it like Peter Griffin says "Roadhouse":    Lady Horn.

Worse yet?  The reason I'm wearing the shirt is because my kid's team was playing the Sundown Roughnecks.  (A roughneck is a type of oil field worker/job.)  Of course they don't call their team the Lady Roughnecks.  Nah. 

The Roughettes!

Kid. you. not. 

The Roughettes.  Appearing nightly at the Emasculation Lounge with Lady Roo!  They'll be here all week.