Gender neutralized

September 3, 2006 - 7:44 PM by

baby
David Bogner, who immigrated from the US about three years ago, finds that the little tricks he used to use to cover up for his “social ineptitude” (eg forgetting people’s names, forgetting whether a friend’s new baby is a boy or a girl) do not necessarily work when dealing with Israelis and speaking in Hebrew:

In the old days I would run into friends with their new babies and sneak a quick peek at the signs before speaking:

* Pink bag ( oh, c’mon… what the hell is a ‘onesie’?)? Check
* Hair ribbon? Check
* Minnie mouse pacifier? Check

Me: “Oh what a sweet little girl! How old is she now? Is she sleeping through the night?”

See how I did that? I identified the gender and followed it up with two questions containing the correct pronoun. The parents are so happy to be able to talk about their baby that they miss the fact that I don’t know the baby’s name… and that I can’t actually remember precisely when she was born.

Smooth.

The trouble arises when evil parents dress their babies in gender-neutral colors and give absolutely no outward hints on which the socially inept can hang a pronoun. In such a case I always say something like, “What a beautiful baby! You must be so proud. Getting any sleep?”

I know… smoooooth.

But here in Israel men don’t enjoy the same kind of cover for their mental lapses. In a country where even tables and chairs are assigned genders, you can’t get away with trying to finesse this point. Trust me… I’ve tried.

You can’t even use the admittedly undesirable ‘it’ because in Hebrew there are masculine and feminine versions of ‘it’ (‘zeh’ or ‘zot’).

To add insult to injury, Israeli parents dress their kids exclusively in earth-tones. And to make matters worse, so many modern Israeli names are gender-neutral that even the semi-miraculous event of actually remembering the kid’s name when it’s your turn to gush over the little dear won’t save you!

I really think that there might be something to that old saying, “Discretion is the better part of valor”. Just as I’ve learned the hard way not to mention a woman’s pregnancy unless I can actually see a baby coming out of her body (Me: “Hi, long time no see… when are you due?” Her [shooting daggers out of her eyes]: “Our youngest is starting 2nd grade”), I think my new policy about referring to a child who lacks obvious gender cues is to stand perfectly still and say nothing in hopes that the moment will simply pass.

Tags: • Category: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

Comments

2 Comments on Gender neutralized

  1. Gallil on Mon, Sep 4th 2006 2:05 AM

    2. This is pathetic. You have difficulty identifying faces? That\’s not normal. This doesn\’t make israelis look sympathetic. It makes them look crazy. Who\’s writing this crap?

  2. Idan Gazit on Mon, Sep 4th 2006 9:27 AM

    3. Cannot count the number of times this situation has happened to me — although I don’t think it’s a guy thing, I know plenty of women who suffer from can’tremembernames-itis. :)

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