It's the Christmas season, which means we'll be hearing those eight names that only come around this time of year — Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. Yep, these are Santa's reindeer. But there's a new revelation surrounding them: Contrary to popular (patriarchal) belief, they're actually all female reindeer.
In a recent tweet that's gone viral, Twitter user Cat Reynolds shared how male reindeer lose their antlers in the winter, but the females don't, making Santa's reindeer squad "a team of powerful, underrated women."
For those raising their eyebrows right now, she's actually right. Dude reindeer use their antlers to fight each other during mating season, which is in the fall, and then get rid of them once it ends, as professors from Edinburgh University told the Telegraph. Mating season ends way before Christmas, and closer to early December, according to Live Science. The female reindeer, though, just don thinner antlers through winter.
But for some reason -- like, say, I don't know, the fragile male ego -- some dudes were just not having it.
Reynolds's thread went off with people literally arguing about the gender of Santa's reindeer.
Some people wasted no time in making sexist jokes and comments.
One person had the best response to that guy: "Wait, isn't the old joke always that men don't actually know where they're going but refuse to stop to ask for directions though?"
And some guys got their undies in a bunch, and just had to go the extra mile to defend the "male reindeer" case.
"Yes, Dancer and Prancer are traditionally names given to men," someone responded to him.
"So tell me, how is Dasher, Comet, Blitzen, Vixen, and Donner female names?" he replied back.
"Vixen is literally what you call a female fox … " another person chimed in. Case closed, if you ask me.
And one person made a great overall point about Santa's crew.
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In fact, some guys wanted the reindeer to stay male so badly that they argued how they could just be castrated.
When you're so desperate for something to belong to men that you resort to castration …
Apparently, castrated males don't lose their antlers. But let's all just take a moment and think about Santa castrating his reindeer as being part of the Christmas legend.
Then there's the story loophole of Rudolph literally being called the "son" of Donner, so that's one piece of evidence for the male reindeer case, right?
But someone quickly closed that loophole.
*Grabs popcorn*
Despite all of the sexism, and amongst the sound of shattering male egos, there were some pretty hilarious responses to Reynolds's revelation.
This makes so much sense.
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And some very real tweets as well.
But not all is lost. There was at least one dude with a positive reaction to the idea that Santa's reindeers could be female.
I think this Twitter thread proves that we could all use a little female reindeer power in our lives.
