But what should we change them to?
ANTI-SEXISM CAMPAIGNERS are calling for the immediate arrest of everyone on Earth. Excellent idea. This is because pretty much every country is littered with “Men Working” signs, which are blatantly sexist, according to Anya Das and Esther Leung, two feminist readers.
They were inspired to make this protest after anti-sexists at a US college last week demanded the removal of Men Working signs at a construction site (one report said several people then fell into holes).
But what should Men Working signs be changed to? “Men AND Women Working” is fine in Asia, but is inaccurate in the West, where buildings are erected by guys only.
“Construction Persons Working” is kind of fussy.
“Illegal Immigrants Working” would be more honest for many places.
One reader said the ladyboy district of Bangkok and most of San Francisco should have signs with extra quotation marks: “Men” Working.
Having seen the astonishingly low level of activity at building sites around Asia, I would move the quotation marks along a bit, making it: Men “Working”.
One friend, who I will not name because he will (and should) have his house burned down, said we could simply balance out all the Men Working signs around the world by placing “Women Working” signs in every kitchen. Careful.
A reader from Delhi pointed out that the word “man” comes from the Sanskrit word “manu” meaning “human being”, so we could “simply use the original term”.
Okay in principle, but “Manu Working” looks weird to me, especially since the only guy I know called Manu has a severe allergy to working, thinking, lifting a finger, or indeed any activity which involves using more than a single calorie of energy.
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IN OTHER NEWS…
THE RUSSIAN government just put out an official message to its panicking citizens will NOT die from the so-called Mayan “end of the world” prediction on Monday next week and can get back to their normal pastimes.
Dying from alcoholism, freezing to death, being shot, etc.
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WHEN CROWN Princess Mette-Marit of Norway visited a friend’s twin babies at a hospital in New Delhi recently, staff assumed she was a domestic helper. This is ridiculous. We’re talking about one of the most important, most challenging, most respected roles in the world. Yes, domestic helpers have big responsibilities, and no princess would be up to the job.
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TALKING OF royals, friends of the UK’s pregnant princess say she may name her baby after the place it was conceived—somewhere in Asia. Good thing they didn’t stop in Hong Kong. The kid would have ended up as King Kong.
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AS WESTERNERS discard the timeless wisdom of Buddha, Jesus, King David, etc, there’s been a corresponding jump in the number of people believing in zombies. Gun firms are now selling special zombie-killing bullets, US newspapers reported last week. Not sure this is an improvement.
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A NANJING woman, 54, borrowed a fortune from her friends and applied for a massive bank loan, since the ending of the world means she’d never have to pay it back. Her husband cancelled the loan, longhoo.net reported.
My advice: Have nothing to do with this sort of greedy, deeply flawed financial thinking. Leave that to Wall Street.
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LAST CHANCE for Hong Kongers to get an autographed copy of my new book: I’ll be doing a signing at Dymocks book shop in IFC on Thursday next week, from 6 pm to 8 pm.
Here’s the advertisement which will be appearing in the newspapers:
