I sat reading in my backyard patio while, on the other side of a large hedge, my neighbors were playing a rousing game of baseball. They were out of eyesight but clearly not out earshot. I cringed as the father continuously berated his 10-year-old son for miscellaneous baseball errors. "You're such a woman!" he spewed, "You play like a little girl."

Being somewhat alarmed by his choice of invectives, I listened more closely. "You're a little wussy, aren't you? You have no balls at all." This was, he believed, the lowest possible verbal assault he could impart on his son without resorting to profanity.

I wondered how this young boy could grow up to be a husband, workmate, lover, and co-parent to any member of the sex that was the object of such scorn and ridicule. The strongest lesson coming out of this father-son activity was that women are individuals to be despised, belittled, degraded and abused.

Aside from the verbal abuse inflicted on this child, the most tragic aspect of this episode was the realization that this is not uncommon. Many children are raised to believe that girls, along with their taste in clothes, toys and recreation, are dumb.

I've never heard a female teacher exclaim to a young girl, "You read like a dumb boy.Why don't you get some ovaries?" Yet many a frustrated coach will tell his young male players, "You're playing like a bunch of stupid girls."

If a mother does tell her daughter that she plays like a boy, the comment would most likely be taken as a compliment rather than criticism. Words and expressions like "tomboy," "She's got balls" and "You play like a bunch of boys" are favorable statements. However, it's quite the contrary when the sexes are reversed.

Terms to degrade boys such as "wussy," "sissy," "woman," "little girl" and "no balls" are heard frequently in our TV sitcoms, movies, sporting events and at miscellaneous other daily activities.

Seemingly innocuous statements such as "Stop whining and be a man," "Show some balls," "Act like the man of the house," "woman driver" and "You little girlie wimp" teach our future husbands, teachers, coaches and politicians that women hold a lower-class status than men. [...]

Certainly the parenting techniques used by my neighbor contributes to this contempt for women, but the rest of us shouldn't sit smugly in our own yards believing our children to be immune from such anti-female taunting.

Coaches, teachers, and especially peers (both male and female) are willing to degrade the female sex. When my 9-year-old son joined a city basketball league I listened in shock as the frustrated coach yelled out to his team in front of all the moms and sisters watching in the stands, "You're all playing like a bunch of girls!"

I called out to the coach, "What's wrong with girls?"

He looked at me and rolled his eyes in contempt.

The coach's criticism of the boys wasn't, in his mind, an insult to the females present. Apparently, women should passively accept the status of second-class citizenship.

Later that week I casually listened to my two sons' lively conversation through my open bedroom window as they played outside. One son was ridiculing his younger brother for not following the rules to their game. In an attempt to belittle his brother he said, "You're such a girl!"

I walked outside and said to my older son:"I was a girl and now I'm a woman. I don't find anything particularly unsavory about it. I feel degraded when you use the word 'girl' in a derogatory manner."

"Oh," he said, "I didn't mean it that way."

But that's the way it's etched into our subconscious minds. We shouldn't be surprised when study after study finds that women suffer from low self-worth and depression more often than men.

What can be done to change this women-as-scapegoats mentality? Intelligent, self-confident and non-threatend adults need to confront others when degrading terms are used. Coaches and others who work with children should not be allowed to degrade any group of people - due to race, religion or sex.

Certainly, when blame is due, women can and should shoulder it. But a woman should never be degraded simply by virtue of her sex.

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