I've been up there on that same soap box. Double standards are always unfair. Why is it that a sexually active man is a "stud," but a sexually active woman is called something else entirely? I've often wondered, if women are supposed to be virgins until they get married, but men are expected to sleep around, who are the men expected to sleep around *with*?

I was a teenage unwed mother. While I was pregnant, the father's mother let me know in no uncertain terms what she thought of me. I was a slut. It wasn't her son's fault. He was just being male, doing what came naturally. It's the girl's responsibility to "fight off the roaming hands," her words.

And even outside the realm of sex, the same behavior is seen one way when it's a man, and another way when it's a woman. He's stressed out from working too hard. She's in one of her moods, maybe it's PMS. He's assertive. She's a b... well, you know. He's calm, cool, and collected. She's frigid and uptight. He has the courage of his convictions. She's always harping about something.

Humor works sometimes. It can defuse the situation, and it can also expose the real feelings of those who are hiding behind "it's just a joke" to mask their honest-to-goodness hatred. The true misogynists just HATE it when we joke back.