(Originally published in the Mar-Apr 1994 issue of the Albatross, Vol. 39, no. 4)

Confessions of a Congenital Sexist

Edward E. Frost

 An accipiter flashed overhead and banked sharply into a stand of oak, scattering a lunch time gathering of Ravens. "Cooper's Hawk," I shouted. "Wow, look at him go!" A few minutes later my two companions and I walked down a country road examining the little dickey birds perched along the fence. " Aha!" I said in a sort of pleased stage whisper, "there he is-our first Lark Sparrow!" Not long after that, as we drove along the meadowed rim of a low canyon, I sat up so quickly I nearly bumped my head on the windshield. “Look, look, look!" I stuttered. "Stop the car, stop the car. See him? Up there. Two O'clock. An immature Golden Eagle! No, a pair of them!”

Now, what's wrong with this picture? 

At the time, as far as I was concerned, absolutely nothing. A warm sun moved majestically across a fresh blue sky, a clean breeze stirred a rich tapestry of spring wildflowers and new birds poured out of this south Monterey County cornucopia. With Robert Browning I could sing, "The lark’s on the wing, The snail's on the thorn, God's in his heaven: All's right with the world.” ­

My two companions, however, thought differently. Bonnie Bedzin raised a quizzical eyebrow in my direction and Debi Shearwater, with dry irony in her voice, said, "Some of those 'he's,’ Edward, could be 'she's'.”

Ouch! Ugh! Whoosh! Direct hit, and I was sinking fast. The alarm bells rang wildly in my head and my brain shouted, "May Day, May Day, Abandon ship.” But there was no lifeboat, no convenient way of disappearing. I stood there exposed, caught with my language down and my unconscious bias open to these women. How humiliating. I could think of nothing to do at that point but 'fess up. "All right, ladies, you got me. Somewhere deep in my core, yes, I am a sexist, a male chauvinist pig, a not-so-secret member of the good ol’ boys club." I figured that to apologize would be meaningless, like asking forgiveness for having brown eyes, so instead I thought I’d appeal to their parental, nurturing side. "Please," I said, "help me. Help me change. If you're willing, whenever you hear me call a bird a him or he when there's no way of knowing that for a fact, tell me. Point out the error of my ways.”

Well, bless them, and damn them, they did.

Do you have any idea what it's like, as a man, to spend two days with two strong women of the 90's who are keeping track of your sexist bird language? At your own request? I ate a lot of humble pie. Once-and this was after we had made our agreement and I was supposed to be concentrating on doing better-they counted twelve inappropriate him's and he's in a brief ten minutes. I admit that apart of me felt some relief when the
trip ended and we parted company. Embarrassment was over. I no longer faced the constant strain of trying consciously to think in politically correct bird language and simultaneously maintain my natural, unconscious enthusiasm for birding. That had proved exceedingly difficult, like patting your head, rubbing your tummy in a circle, and whistling the national anthem, in key, all at the same time. Along the way I found myself getting defensive. No doubt I was looking for some excuse for what seemed like my
congenital sexism. It's the fault of the stupid English language, I grumbled silently. There's no good neutral personal pronoun. "It" just doesn't cut it.

Birds are quite personal for me. They are friends. Never in my life would I say about a friend of mine, There it goes. No. There she goes, or there he goes, but not there it goes. And, I must admit, with friends I almost always know their gender, so there's really no problem. But with my bird friends, when I don't know whether they are male or female, what am I to say? There "it" goes? There "the bird" goes? There "he/she" goes? Having opened this Pandora's box, I'm sure the furies will continue to plague me for a long time to come. Over the years I have observed that change in these matters comes slowly and painfully. It' s not easy to go from being an unconscious MCP (male chauvinist pig) birdwatcher to being a conscious PC (politically correct) birdwatcher. In the process, I’m sure I’ll bite my tongue a thousand times. Life, it seems, is just one long, informal, consciousness-raising seminar.