I just had to throw out the Old Maid.
The game was part of a package of four simple card games
that I bought for my 5-year-old grandson for Christmas. Crazy 8s, Go Fish, War—and
Old Maid. I took a hard look at the ugly photo of said Old Maid, and my
immediate impulse was to throw the cards out. But I hesitated. Was I taking my
feminism too seriously? Just a harmless children’s game, right?
I left the deck of cards in the box overnight.
By morning, my mind was made up: into the garbage it went.
My grandson will no doubt be exposed to the sexism that
still pervades American culture. He’ll observe the obsession with women’s boobs
everywhere from the sidelines of an NFL game to eye-candy ads for of all kinds of
products marketed to men. He’ll see women trivialized and rescued over and over
again in movies and on TV. He’ll hear coaches buck up their players with taunts
of “Nancy” and other slurs that equate female
with lack of courage, persistence and endurance.
But I won’t contribute to the brain washing. He won’t learn
from me that being an unmarried older woman is to be a loser.
I buried the cards under the scraps from last night’s
dinner.
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