There are a lot of these in our neighborhood.
Snowmen is what most people call them, but I’m not so sure. What have any of these done to make you so confident about their gender? Does wearing a scarf make you a man? Does wearing a hat make you a man? Do only men smile?
I think the answer is that people just assume all beings are by default male. So I’d rather call them snowpeople. Or snow-something, I haven’t landed on the new word quite yet.
Maybe you’re thinking iT’s OnE sNoWmAn why does it matter - the assumed gender of one non-sentient snow creature isn’t worth losing sleep over. But we’re in lockdown and there’s tons of snow - 90% of the faces I’ve seen in the last week have been snowpeople. Basically if this doesn’t matter, nothing matters, and my Zoom therapist says “nothing matters” isn’t a good road to go down. “Find the why.” she says. My why is this snowcreature problem.
I understand why the word snowman is still around - it’s hard to remember to use a new word, even when you’re as obsessed with this as as I am.
The other day I asked my niece Miles what she’d done in the snow that morning. She calls a few times a day and honestly we cover a lot of the same subjects every time, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “Did you go sledding?” I asked her. “Did you make a snowangel? Did you make a snowm-AAHHH snowperson?” At this point she probably just thinks the word “snowman” causes me pain. But I’m practicing a lot, I’m getting better, and like I said there are a lot of snowcreatures and a lot of opportunities to practice.
Here are some other alternatives, if you’re looking for them:
Snowperson. This seems like the obvious choice to me.
Snowcreature, because really they don’t look human anyway. If anything, they look more like insects.
Snowfriend or snowpal: I don’t love these but I can imagine them catching on.
Snowbaby? I don’t know, just workshopping here.
Snowgolem. Again, workshopping.
I’m open to any suggestions.
The alternative is to track down the creator of each snow sculpture and ask them if what they’ve built has a gender and if so, what it is. But I didn’t see who made any of these.
All of this is to say, that something about the way people in Pittsburgh create snowbabies (whoa, surprise winner! Now I’m calling them snowbabies!) makes them look like fake snowbaby props for a movie. I don’t know what the issue is. Maybe they’re too tall, or too smooth, or it’s something about the faces? Is it the carrots? Do any of these snowbabies look real to you?
News (not much of it) for all people and creatures:
In July 2018, Boaz and I planned to have a surprise meet-and-greet at a bookstore in Minneapolis today and we planted an announcement on today’s page in the It’s Different Every Day Calendar. If you’re on your way there, it’s cancelled, sorry! We are not in Minneapolis. In 2018 it seemed like nothing could stop us from being there today, but there was a lot we didn’t know in 2018.
Thanks so much to everyone who listened to my audiobook after the other week, and sent such nice notes! I ran out of codes and it was hard to reply to every person with a photo of Kip, if I missed yours, Kip sends his most sincere apologies.
Our mail carrier Joe is one of the two human faces I see, here’s part of a card for him and part of Kip’s face.
The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum sent out art box care packages with my and the other artists-in-residence’s projects - all of them are fun if you’re looking for things to do over a long weekend.
I hope you’re safe and well, and I hope you’re finding the why, wherever it is.
I have a friend who uses the word snowfolk and I love it <3
I have thought about this “snowman”/“snowperson” thing a lot too. Once, when Charlie was 3, we made a snowperson, and I brought out some almonds to use as the mouth and buttons. Charlie helped me put on the buttons, and then put one down on the lower part. He said "This is his penis!" I couldn't help laughing. Then he put another one below it and said, "Now he has a china!" and laughed. Another time when putting the sticks on a snowman, he put one sticking straight out of the lowest ball, for the penis. Luckily these were made in the back yard! We made a snow woman next. I think she just had pretty hair made from leaves. Last year we made a tiny snowbaby, perched precariously at the top of his slide.