Let the punishment fit the crime, right? Well, a gender bender push-up is an ultra-specialized punishment for one specific infraction during training. Let's say you're being grilled simultaneously by two officers, both of whom outrank you, one male and one female. In a training environment, this is made to test your brain's ability to multi-task. You are, at one point, asked two different questions, but the answer to each, as covered by the five basic responses, is "Yes, sir" or "Yes, ma'am". But you're flustered. You've probably run ten miles already, the food sucks, and you've been shaved bald like a good little space monkey. You reply, "YES, MA'AM!" to both questions because you happen to be facing the female officer.
The words "oh shit" pass through your mind, and not for the first, or last, time today.
A moment later, you're pushing Texas for addressing a male officer as "ma'am". Luckily, you've only been assigned 10 Gender Bender push-ups. Unluckily, they are counted as follows:
"(down) Sir, you're a (down) Sir, not a (down) Ma'am, Sir, (down) One, sir!"
This is a sir sandwich of a most egregious nature, but that's okay. If you're bad at math, let me spell it out: you're only counting off one push-up for every four full repetitions. 10 Gender Benders are 40 regular push-ups, plus shouting.
Alternate lyrics, for those so inclined:
"Ma'am, you're a Ma'am, not a Sir, Ma'am, One, Ma'am!"
And God help you if you accidentally transpose a "sir" or "ma'am" during Gender Benders in your anaerobic confusion, because (a) that repetition won't count, and (b) you probably just earned 5 more.
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