Saturday Morning Cartoons: Sir

Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, a segment where four artists take turns delighting you with their whimsy, facts and punchlines on Saturday mornings! Our esteemed cartoon critters are Cameron Glavin, Anna Bongiovanni, Megan Praz and Yao Xiao. Today’s cartoon is by Anna!


Sir1

Sir2

Sir3

sir4

sir5

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Archie

I'm a cartoonist living in Minneapolis. Co-Author and artist of A Quick And Easy Guide To They/Them Pronouns. Author of Grease Bats, coming out Fall 2019 with Boom! Studios! If I'm not working I'm socializing. If I'm not out with friends I'm drawing. If I'm not doing any of those things I'm probably depressed. Support me using Patreon.

Archie has written 117 articles for us.

28 Comments

  1. Oh my heart just fills right up when it’s your week here! My wife and I constantly have these convos and too wish to ‘deconstruct, decolonize and DESTROY gender’! I find rum and perfectly timed side-eye quite effective this March.

  2. My roomate is a beautiful elf prince with long shiny shampoo commercial hair. I am me. We are often group gendered, even odds on which one. (Also I see you there, YES TODAY SATAN tshirt, you babely textile)

  3. I very much can relate to this, except I hear sir more than ma’am(at least in person). I kind of prefer ma’am a bit cause I rarely hear it(partially cause I am not on E yet).

  4. Somehow gendering in restaurants is SUCH A THING!!!!! There is a chinese place near me and the main waitress knows me pretty well at this point, but she always says girls if I’m with friends or even just girl if I’m alone. Its weird! But like at this point I’m always gendered as male, which most of the time is what fits me, so the occasional misgendering isn’t that bad as long as its not my family doing it. Cause I do like living in between any sort of gender things. I use he/him/his now but I want to start using they more often.

    • From my experience working in food service, I’m pretty sure this is done to create the illusion of a personal connection. The more specific they can get, the more likely the customer is to feel “at home” in the restaurant (resulting in repeat business) and friendly with the server (resulting in a possibly larger tip). At my old job, I was expected to learn and use our regulars’ names, like, “Hello, Mr. Smith! How are you today?”

  5. Whee! I love your comics so much! I can relate to this one in particular so hard.

    I’m non-binary AFAB and I always get a little excited when I get “sir-ed” and a little disappointed when I get “ma’am-ed”. For me, I think it has to do with the fact that when I’m being “sir-ed” I don’t feel like I’m being recognized as my collection of body parts, which are rather…er…prominently sized and make it difficult to be read as anything other than female. So, when I do get pegged as something other than a woman, even if it’s still incorrect, I feel like I’m at least moving in the right direction towards eventually being read as non-binary.

    But Ari’s point is also something I’ve struggled with over the years. Sometimes I do wonder if my desire to be read as “not-female” is rooted in internalized misogyny and a patriarchal society which rewards masculinity. Heck, I’ve wondered at times if my whole gender identity and body dysphoria are a result of living in a patriarchal system which has indoctrinated me to feel disdain for my sex, and are not actually a part of ME at all.

    And then I pull an Andy, decide it is too early to deal with such an existential crisis, and go take a nap.

  6. I had that same reaction when I was “young man”d with my hair loose and flowing in front.
    It may have helped that I was wearing a prog rock band tee and that said hair was maybe hiding the contours of my booblets, but mwaha ha ha destroying gender one person at a time.
    And with help of my trusty hairs too.
    Extra mwha ha’s.

  7. OOOH do i feel this as another human who mostly prefers gender-neutral language, but LOVES getting sir’d and HATES getting ma’am’d. “ladies” is also definitely less than ideal, but lately i’ve been able to mostly kinda laugh at it as opposed to cringing.

  8. This gave me something to think about. I get “sir’d” a lot, which both amuses and surprises me. I don’t understand it, or what it means, or why I feel the way I do. Should I wish to feel differently?
    Did they think they were being respectful and referring to me with the gendered greeting that they believe I’m presenting?
    Or did they really think I’m a man?
    Am I amused because they’re wrong on both fronts?

    Help?

  9. SAME. <3 <3 Just spent all morning with my partner reading through the archives and I just love this one and this comic so much.

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