There is a lot of discussion about gender, roles and what these all mean, and it is only gotten worse since I was a kid. And maybe because it is the end of pride month, but I've thought alot about it the last couple of days, and my MO is to write things out, so here goes.

Andrew and I have been watching an old show, Stargate, made in the late 90s early 2000s and one of the main female characters keeps impressing me. She's military, short blond hair they grow out later (probably just for a change) and keeps up with the boys, but by no means do they make her butch. She's a woman, a scientist, the smartest one of the bunch, yet has romance and feelings and wisdom and connection that they all look and need desperately.

At the same time, I'm watching the men in Venezuela rescue people from the horrific double tap earthquake that toppled building like they were mere legos. The rescues themselves are enough to give you goosebumps, but it's what you see and hear the men saying to people as they find them and pull them out that makes you cry without realizing it. They call them the Spanish equivalent to honey, darling, sweetheart, queen and king, my heart, my life and touch them with tenderness. These are strong, brave, daredevils of men, but their tenderness and kindness and compassion is so overwhelming you can't help but cry. You know those men go back to the beds last night and cry out all the emotions, hopefully with a partner holding them, but maybe not.

And graciously, at this moment surrounded by latin and arab and african men who believe in those things. By no means does it dimish their strength, their power, their intelligence and wit. I love their manliness, but their tender hugs and kisses to me, and in family situations, to each other. My boss son has started work with his, and he often walks into the office and kisses his dad on the cheek, just like my boss does to his own father.

I remember being pushed off my bike by a car, and the men that found me sprawled on the pavement were older cyclists, probably already retired. I found out one of them was the president of the Junta de Andalucia cycling federation. And they picked me up, dusted me off, changed my bike tube, and as only a Spanish man can, stood and looked the women in the eye who knocked my off my bike and said to her ,"Woman, you must pay attention and look for us, there are thousands of us every weekend". There is nothing like  Spanish man's quiet and firm scolding that makes you never want to disobey ever again.

Last month I stood in a party, and when everyone had had more than enough to drink, scarcely behind his back, the men were the ones who stood next to me and said, your boss, is one of the good ones. He is a noble man.Their bromance was solid, and through their words, you could see they want to be better men, because he is one already.

Last year, Andrew sat with a man who has experienced torture and some of the worst things in life you could ever imagine, and as he sobbed telling of his past, Andrew held him and hugged him and said, it's alright, now you are safe. The moment passed and healing came.

And one of our friends, realized that Andrew needed encouragment, he came and sat with Andrew, and together they ate and told old stories and laughed and cried, and the next day, Andrew was just a little bit better than before that meal.

This, this is what we need. This wisdom and emotional awareness the feminine grants us, the kindness and deep compassion that the masculine empowers us, the physical strength tempered by love and words of love, and the justice tempered gentle rebuke, we need this.

The shrewish woman, the deliberate dumbing down of the genders, the overcoming testosterone, the hieracrchy perverted into patriarchy, this takes away from the greatness that we have inside of us, and makes the world a horrible place. 

Finally, last night, we rewatched the Bird Cage. If you haven't seen it, go do it. I notice something every time. A gay couple raises a son, who realizes at the end of the movie, that no matter who they were or are, he was raised in a family of love. It doesn't matter the stereotypes conservative or liberal, it matters the love. And in the end, it is this family of love that covers the shame and embarraement of the other family involved and rescues them from an end of complete humiliation.

True love is that, that a person is willing to lay down his life for his friends no matter the gender, or who he or she calls a partner or not. Laying down the life is true love.