Hating is Serious Business

[494 words] Some of those reading this can recall a television show called “Our Gang.” It flourished in the 1920’s, ’30s and ’40s, but enjoyed a comeback in the ’70s. It featured a lovable group of kids who occasionally got into mischief. Viewers identified with “Spanky,” “Alfalfa,” “Buckwheat” and others of the regular cast. One of the funnier aspects of the show was to watch the little boys establish and join the “He-man Women Haters Club.” Everyone watching knew the little boys really did not mean to hate women, but they were expressing the normal feelings of little boys before they become adolescents, then men. Viewers knew it was a juvenile action and understood they really did not mean to hate women, and would “grow out of’ that attitude. Websters New Collegiate Dictionary defined hate as an “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger or sense of injury.”…