Even my dog is victim of sexism

[Kendodd]

Quite a few people have said to me that they can't think of my dog as a female because she is such a hunter. She is more often than not referred to as he. "I can't get my head round the fact she's a girl" is a typical comment.

She should be outraged!

If it helps my friend has a beautiful, statuesque cat - who is also a great hunter btw- and a bouncy dog (the cat is male, the dog female) but no matter how many times I visit her I cannot get their genders right. It's like an in-built cat is female, dog is male thing. (I've no idea why, I grew up with hunners of animals).

Serious point. Are are views of male and female behaviour/roles, so entrenched we even impose them on animals?

Absolutely. I remember one of my private student's parents got a couple of kittens, a male and a female. They were playing and the father said, 'she's so timid and sweet, I'm afraid she won't come out of her shell. He's ok, bit of a handful - really adventurous and boistrous.' They were behaving exactly the same as far as I could tell.

I said, 'is she showing advanced language skills though?'

Cats are girls, dogs are boys. Everyone knows this.

(ginger toms excepted)

Some mens' reluctance to get their male dogs neutered. They can show remarkable empathy with their dogs. It's annoying.

If too much empathy for dogs annoys you then I'd avoid a certain thread that's been around today...

I always forget my chickens are all female and think of some of them as male and find myself referring to them as 'he'. Then I remember about them laying eggs.
Maybe there is some kind of obscure connection here with more girls doing Physics in an all-girls school (but am too porridge-brained to express what I mean.)

My ginger tom is most definitely a princess though. Strangely, I've mostly only had men cats and women dogs. 50/50 on gerbil gender. Only bloke guinea pigs though.

What irks me is that in pet shops, they have pink and princessy toys and accessories for female animals and blue or macho looking things for male pets. As far as I'm aware, dogs and cats are at least partly colourblind, so wtf really?

re the princessy dog toys. O.M.F.G.

Dogs are partially colourblind but I don't think they care what colour their collar is even if it is a colour they can see -- the pinky princessy is all for the humans' benefit.

All pets are boys (tongue in cheek emoticom)

All the pets I have ever lived with or owned have been male. As a result I always refer to cats and dogs as he unless I know the sex of the animal. It has nothing to do with sexism, just my ignorance own experience.

I have a friend who sometimes calls her cat "she" even though it is a (ginger) boy cat because cats are feminine in German so calling the cat "she" is like if I were to call the cat "it".

Friend is GErman btw.

at TrillianAstra's posts.

Sorry, have had too much to contribute anything meaningful myself.

a vapid idiot I used to.see regularly at a dog run said 'can't you get your dog a pink harness or something? How are we supposed to remember she's a girl? '

I pointed out that she was wearing a brown suit and demanded that she show me her penis that she must have cos look no pink!

she showed me a pink bra strap. Not that bright.

Trillian, sorry but you're wrong. Ginger toms are girls, too. I have considerable expertise in this area due to my having spent my childhood with not one but two of them.

To be fair, that was in Switzerland. The German speaking part to be exact.

German does have the word 'der Kater' though, which refers specifically to a male cat. It also means hangover...