Breaking through the foreground which is the Playboy’s Playgroung means letting out the bunnies, the bitches, the beavers, the squirrels, the chicks, the pussycats, the cows, the nags, the foxy ladies, the old bats and biddies so they can at last begin naming themselves. —Mary Daly—
Racial and sexual stereotyping, casual putdowns that consign another person to non-human status, is so demeaning that it’s hard to believe the speaker really means it. We’ve become so habituated to the put-down that it’s hard to be aware of how disrespectful this can be, to ourselves as well as others. This competitive attitude keeps us jockeying for position, leads us constantly to measure where we stand, and assumes that there’s only a limited amount of rightness in the world. We’re both all right,
and if we’re going to have a relationship that lets us be self-respectful as well as respectful of one another, we’ll act as if we’re both all right. We won’t call one another chicks, pigs, big apes, or foxes. We won’t call each other by our body parts or our ethnic groups, either; we’ll recognize each other’s full and individual humanity.
I will live today in honor of my name, and thus honor others.