"You Sound Like a Girl" ----Grrrl!

I crack down on anyone who makes sexist remarks around me (unless they are senior citizens - you know, old dog, new tricks, etc.). But as my son gets older, I am finding it harder and harder to counter the kind of casual sexism that prevails in age groups as young as eight- or nine-year old boys. On a playdate, recently, as I did the mommy thing and popped corn and cut strawberries, I suddenly heard this cry, "You sound like a girl!" Aaargh! I almost dropped the knife and rushed out to reprimand the boys. What is wrong with sounding like a girl, eh? Don't your mothers and sisters sound like girls? Then, instead, I decided to talk to them while they ate their snacks, but as they played, the other mother came by and in the general conversation, the little episode was forgotten. And I know that somewhere in my son's brain there has been planted the lesson that girl=bad, inferior, laughable, silly. I need to be a more vigilant mommy.