or maybe there's some kind of local competition here to see who can be the rudest?

When people don't know what to say, sometimes they say something so absurd. 

My daughter was playing at her uncle Brooks' baseball game last week.  And a mother of one of the tween boys on his team came up to her and told her promptly how adorable she is how KEE--UUWWWWT! (translation: cute) she is--- which is pretty common in babyhood/toddlerhood parenting that some stranger becomes smitten and expresses their love for your child's ________ (eyes, dimples, shoes, hair, lack of hair etc). So I was prepared for the exchange, thinking it was another run-of-the-mill compliment  But then she says to my daughter...."it's too bad you are a girl.  Girls are devils." and then from my lack of response she must have gathered that I was not thrilled with this statement so in her infinite wisdom she repeated herself, as if it would be twice as true if repeated.  "Girls are devils."

my so-called "devil"

Usually I have ignored such silly parenting cliches-- "that girls are harder to raise than boys", that with girls "you must worry about all penises and with boys you only have to worry about one", that "girls are sassier", that "girls hate their mothers", etc ad nauseum, as if your temperment is somehow aligned with your biology. 

But this time I couldn't just sit by because what made me the most angry was that she addressed this comment TO my daughter. 

So I bent down to my toddler while weirdo-stranger was still within earshot and with my years of perfected stage diction told my daughter "there is nothing wrong with being a girl, nothing at all".  Then I kissed her on the forehead and let her continue to play in the dirt.   

I am a child not a cliche

my mama means business

What else is a mama to do but turn on her ani difranco Pandora station and rock to the sound of injustices everywhere? 

lyrics compliments of ani d...little plastic castle