viva la difference?????

Sometimes I recognise, only occasionally mind you, that someone says something better than I can (in academic circles it's called 'quoting', but really it's an underhand and lazy way of getting to wordcount and still 'sound good'), so with that in mind I would like you all (12 followers now - hitting the bigtime, but I need help with this so please share and spread the word) to read the following as I believe it affects us all and it's something that we, as adults, should be very aware of. It comes from a column written by Erica Wagner in The Times Saturday Review on 16 July 2011:
On the one side it's impossible for little girls to escape the sexualised images of womanhood that are presented to them day and night; on the other, boys lag behind girls in reading skills and age and are equally limited by the macho culture that's meant to define them... So here's a little poem, for your summer entertainment. I learnt it decades ago when I heard Dick Cavett recite it, in his wry, dry tones, on a wonderful album, 'Free To Be You And Me'. Look it up-and in the meantine here goes:

My dog is a plumber. He must be a boy;
although I must tell you his favourite toy
is a little play stove with pans and with pots;
he really must like it, he plays with it lots.
So perhaps he's a girl, which kind of makes sense,
since he can't throw a ball and he can't climb a fence.
But neither can Dad, and I know he's a man:
and Mom is a woman, and she drives a van.
perhaps the problem is in trying to tell
just what someone is by what he does well.

You see, well I hope you do, this makes sense to me. I've got five kids, six grandchildren and another on the way, and I've been as guilty as the next person. These types of issues are much more important in the long run than the credit crunch, or wars, or anything else; because if we address these types of problems, we will make the world a much better, much more tolerant, and much wiser place - so then, just maybe, all the other shit may not happen quite as much! Worth  a try I think.

Well off to seaside with my two beautiful grandaughters (Morecambe would you believe?) to play with their dollies in the sand whilst the women get the picnic ready, and us men look all macho diggind holes and building sandcastles! 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.........