I was taking one of my students to an appointment the other day and we were listening to the Raleigh (pop) hip-hop station, 97.5. I put "pop" in parenthesis because I think that most to all of the mainstream hip-hop is a bunch of shit. Luckily, the NC State independently run station (88.1) plays "underground" hip-hop every weekday from midnight on. I readily admit to being a novice in the area of hip-hop but am quite willing to learn.

At any rate, this song by Destiny's Child came on the radio--the one where they say, "I need a soldier . . ." referring to needing a man or boyfriend or what not. So my student says, "I have a soldier."

"Oh yeah?" I respond.

"Yeah, a soldier can be a boyfriend or a girlfriend."

My first response was to talk about how traditionally a "soldier" had referred to a male of the species, but instead I didn't. I let it rest. I said, "Well that's pretty cool."

I was suprised and impressed that, at least in this immediate teen culture, "soldier" was readily used to refer to both males and females, effectively stripping the common military term of any gender stereotypes. I thought that was pretty damn cool.