Repost: Tazi's Corner #76 - In Defense Of Fathers

Dear Readers,

You have all seen the viral picture of the Daddy combing his daughter's hair while holding his other baby, right? If you have not, here it is:

I love this picture. It is a sweet picture of a Daddy helping his daughter get ready for school because his wife - who usually combs their daughter's hair - was running late for work. Unfortunately, it was not the cute factor that made this picture go viral. It was the fact that a father was helping with the day-to-day domestic side of child-rearing  - and doing so successfully, with just a little innovation on his part - that made the world go gaga.

The story behind the photo is that this man's wife thought he would be unable to accomplish this feat - of holding the baby and brushing the elder daughter's hair. My immediate reaction to hearing this was upset. Apparently, his wife does not have much faith in her husband as a father! There has been a lot of praise from the blogosphere, saying it is about time father's pitched in; and a lot of criticism, saying that this man does not deserve a medal for helping to raise his child. Well, maybe he does. Because how often do we praise fathers for being capable?

If we look at any television sitcom, men are most likely being made to look like buffoons who would be unable to lace their own shoes if their wives didn't show them how to do it. They are good for a paycheck (which provides the large colonial houses in which these families always seem to live), humor filled discipline, laughs and not much more. Dating back to the very first episode of The Cosby Show, when Bill Cosby was sent upstairs with the wifely directive to "kill your son", modern fathers have been shown as removed from the real day to day activity of our lives. (Did we ever see Cliff Huxtable try to tame Rudy's nappy locks?). If we want to stretch back to the '50's through the '70's - a time when Father Knows Best and Mom waited for him to get home - we see even less of fathers outside of a disciplinary and instructive role.

Somebody had to! Her hair was always perfect!

At a time when everyone from Oprah to the NFL is pushing fathers to be more involved with their children the time has come for praise of fathers who already are involved! Mothers, you can expect more from your child's father! You can even demand more. Most importantly, though, you need to give him the opportunity to do more without criticizing him that he did it wrong and it will just be easier for you to do it yourself. You know how you feel when your mother criticizes you on your child-rearing skills? Don't pass that criticism on to your child's father!

A father is more than just a sperm-donor and a paycheck; he is a living, feeling person with emotions that society has told him he needs to squash deep down inside of him if he is to be perceived as a real man. We teach our sons that boys don't cry, that boys are tough, and then expect them to find their delicate side as soon as their children are born so they can be an equal partner in the day-to-day duties of parenting...when they will then be pushed to the sidelines if they do a task differently than their child's mother would do it, as if there is only one "right" way of doing something. In the quest for equality outside the home are women becoming the oppressors at home? (And I mean in an otherwise non-violent, non-abusive household).

Photo courtesy of comics.com © All rights reserved.

We cannot use the sexist and emasculating term "Mr. Mom" to describe a stay-at-home father and then complain that men (in general) do not do enough to help with the domestic chores. Why would they if they know they will only be made fun of for it? When a man wearing an apron and helping with dinner becomes a reason to drop everything to take a picture because it's "funny looking" what message are we sending to men?

Duh...what's a stove? Me use flaming stick!

The time has come to give men the opportunity to be fathers in the fullest sense of the word - and that means expressing confidence, not doubt, when they offer to help brush a child's hair; make dinner; or wash a load of laundry - and to stop complaining about how the oppressiveness of these tasks steals your time and energy

Snuggles,
Tazi

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with Bachelors degrees in Communications and in Gender and Women's Studies. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Repost: Tazi's Corner #60 - 4 Complaints (And 1 Compliment) About "300 Sandwiches"

Dear Readers:

I have been reading a lot lately about the blog 300 Sandwiches, and I have to say I am disappointed. For starters, with a title like “300 Sandwiches” I thought the blog would be about Spartan cooking; alas and alack, it was not. It is about a woman’s quest to earn an engagement ring from her boyfriend (who, incidentally is a professional chef), who has basically told her that if she learned to cook he would marry her; that she was “300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring”. The comment was an offhand one, so I can forgive the sexism that sometimes infiltrates long-term relationships, but the author – a writer for the most glorious newspaper feature ever, Page Six of the New York Post, took the guy seriously and started her campaign for marriage because her biological clock was (cue the Marisa Tomei visuals) TICKING, TICKING, TICKING!

Now I like me a good sandwich (even if I am not as ballsy as my big brother, Koko Kat, who has been known to jump up on the dining table and latch on to the tail end of a turkey sub), so I will admit to salivating over some of the photos I saw on the 300 Sandwiches Pinterest board…yet I was still left with a bad taste in my mouth over the whole concept of it, starting with the pressure Stephanie Smith, the author, feels to make these amazing works of art. She is not the chef, her boyfriend is; yet he wants her to prepare his meals when he is too tired to cook (in complete disregard that she may be equally tired). I can understand that after a full day of cooking the last thing he may want to do is come home and cook some more, but Smith has also put in a full day at work – and sometimes has to go out again at night, yet must pull off the construction of an artisan sandwich in heels and a party dress like she is some kind of modern-day June Cleaver.

You mean you don't wear heels and pearls to do the dusting?

My personal belief is that everyone – regardless of sex or gender – should know how to passably cook, even if they do not enjoy cooking. The fact of the matter is that there will come a time when you will be forced to prepare your own meals, be it because it is after midnight and the pizza delivery guy has gone home for the night or because you have been widowed after decades upon decades of marriage and will now follow your spouse in death if you do not learn how to prepare a ptomaine-free steak. Even I, with my lack of opposable thumbs, have learned that a meal can be secured if only I have the patience to chew through the bag of cat cereal! (Incidentally, I learned this shortly after learning that the humans do not think that 2 AM is the ideal time to fill my bowl). For this reason, I am happy that Ms. Smith is finally learning to cook, even if she never learns to love it. Her motivation is what concerns me, though.

Diet, schmiet!

Decades ago the late, great Ann Landers printed a list of rules for a happy marriage that a reader sent to her; she reprinted it in the 1980’s so a more enlightened America could have a good laugh over rules like “greet your husband with a drink and his newspaper when he gets home from work” and “stay a size 10 forever” (for the record, Ann’s 12 Rules were much more egalitarian).  While these “Reader’s Rules” may have flown when a woman’s only job was to be a homemaker and to look great while doing it, nowadays women work outside the home as well, and should not be expected to meet the antiquated standards of previous generations – yet this is the exact standard that the idea behind the 300 Sandwiches plan promotes. If this dynamic works for Smith and her boyfriend, than I believe that is their business, but her choice to publicize it makes it the public’s business, giving us the right to mind it. I argue that he made a sexist comment, she bought it, and now she must own the debate that surrounds it, criticisms and all.

In every relationship there are things one partner would love to change about the other. It has often been said that a man marries a woman hoping she will not change and that a woman marries a man and hopes that he will, thus explaining the high divorce rate in America because you cannot force someone to change without resentment building between the two of you; change needs to be something you strive for because you want it, with no outside strings attached. In the case of Smith and her 300 Sandwiches, an engagement ring is the carrot dangling from this particular string. This brings me to my final concern: the example this highly publicized plan sets.

All relationships demand compromise in order to run smoothly, but these compromises should be made from without, not from within. You should not have to change who you are in order to be pleasing to your mate; your mate should love you for who are, not in spite of who you are. While the point behind 300 Sandwiches is that cooking is a show of love, it should not be a forced show of love, an obligation to be met in return for the highest form of commitment one partner can make to the other. If Smith’s boyfriend wants to marry her, his proposal should not be because she has jumped through some kind of hoop to meet some kind of obligation he has set. What if, after the 300^th sandwich is presented to him, he is just not ready to follow through with his end of the deal and he leaves her over the pressure to fulfill a very public arrangement? What if he says yes to marriage but no to children, her ideal goal? Will she have to make another 300 sandwiches and hope he changes his mind? What about after the kids are born and she can’t lose the baby weight? Will the next sensational blog be about a woman who was too heavy for her partner, who in turn offered to marry her/agreed not to divorce her if she lost weight? Such conditional caveats are not the basis for a healthy marriage, yet popularize the idea that men can all be bought for the right price. Is the way to a man’s heart through his stomach? Do all men think with their genitals? Quite frankly, I think more men should be speaking up about how insulting this “300 Sandwiches” arrangement actually is!

Snuggles,

Tazi

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with Bachelors degrees in Communications and in Gender and Women's Studies. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Mom Is Tired Of Being Cinderella, Seeks Respect From Husband And Children

Dear Tazi:

My husband has the annoying habit of leaving dirty dishes all over the house. He also leaves his laundry on the floor (as opposed to throwing it in the laundry hamper three feet away), his shoes in the living room, and the toilet seat in the raised position. In short, he lives like a pig and expects me to clean up after him, like I have nothing else to do after I get home from work!

I would not mind this so much if our two sons were not starting to take after him, tripling the mess that I have to pick up and teaching the boys bad habits in the process. Whatever I say to them in reprimand is met with the response, "But Daddy does it!". I have asked my husband to try, and he says he will and things get better for a few days or even a few months...but then he will backslide and the mess returns.

I am worn out and I can't stand it! I never thought my life would amount to this! I never had to do housework growing up, and was always told that if I married well I would not have to start because I would be able to afford a maid. In college, I used to make fun of my feminist friends, calling them "shrews" but I look at them now and their husbands are equal partners in their marriages - something I wish I had. I swallowed my pride and asked one of my feminist friends for advice and she told me that it's not about feminism, it's about "respect" and that I need to demand some. I thought I was. How do I enforce the changes I want so see?

Signed,
Cinderella In Reverse

Dear Cinderella In Reverse:

Your feminist friends are kinda sorta right - their success at home is not about feminism, it's about respect, which is what feminism at its core is all about - respecting a woman as you would a man. It seems that you are upset not about the dirty laundry on the floor and the toilet seat being left up, but by the disrespect behind these actions. Your husband and your sons refuse to make even the smallest effort on their part which in turn results in a large effort being made on your part, and it is not fair.

I suggest that you stop making the effort to make their lives perfect because it is resulting in your life being miserable. The next time your husband leaves his laundry on the floor, remind him that if it is not in the laundry hamper it will not be washed. Then, follow through by not washing that which is on the floor. As soon as he runs out of clean shirts he will learn that his poor behavior has consequences. (Since this will not work with the children I suggest you train them to do their own laundry. It is not a difficult chore; I know seven year olds that do it! Old enough to give lip means old enough to do chores!).

At my house shoes left out in the middle of the living room are fair game for me to barf in, so this does not happen very often.

No; just the ones left laying out!

If you don't have a cat who barfs in shoes you could make errant shoes disappear to a place only you know, never to be seen again without the promise that they will be put away next time; a second offense could result in a treasure hunt for the shoes. For children, I recommend a docking of allowance to drive the point home quickly.

As for the dirty dishes...I am not cool with the idea of leaving them there for the offender to put them in the sink/dishwasher because this could lead to a bug problem. I suggest you reverse roles with your husband and tel him that from now on it will be his job to do the dishes - all of the dishes, which will include picking up those that have been left around the house. Explain to your husband that you do not want to make his life miserable; you only want him to offer you the kind of respect that he himself would like to receive. Remember that nobody can take advantage of you unless you let them.

Snuggles,
Tazi


Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with Bachelors degrees in Communications and in Gender and Women's Studies. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.

Tazi's Corner #30 - The Inherent Sexism of The "Blonde Joke"

Dear Readers:

Something happened a few weeks ago that has my Mommie seeing red! She needed to blog the anger out of her system, and since my blog gets tens of thousands of more hits than hers, I decided it was in my best interest to lend her this space (an angry Mommie means less kitty snax for me!). --T.K.

The Inherent Sexism Of the "Blonde Joke"

by Tazi's Mommie

I hold an Associates degree in General Science and a Bachelors degree in Communications. I am finishing the final requirements of two more Bachelors degrees, in Biology and in Gender and Women’s Studies at the prestigious University of Rhode Island. I am a member of four academic honor societies – Phi Theta Kappa; Phi Eta Sigma; the Golden Key Society and Omicron Delta Kappa, the last of which requires members to hold leadership positions in addition to having a ridiculously high grade point average. While on the subject, I’d like to mention that my cumulative GPA is a 3.72 (on 4.0 scale) and I will be graduating summa cum laude this spring. All of this means nothing, though, when people first meet me. It means nothing because I am blonde. I am natural blonde. I am also shapely, attractive, and have a bubbly personality which means when people first meet me they automatically want to deduct about 80 IQ points, deciding that because I fit the “blonde joke” stereotype I must have the intellectual capacity of Forrest Gump.

Blonde jokes are one of the last remaining vestiges of a time when it was socially acceptable to insult someone based upon an incorrect stereotype. We have all heard the jokes – the Truly Tasteless Jokes series of books has them cataloged by subject – and perhaps we even tell them, behind closed doors, among close friends and family who we believe will not judge us. How many of you who tell these jokes are willing to post a joke about the “cheap Jew” or the “ignorant Black man” to your Facebook page? Are the jokes you tell in private no longer funny when they result in the court of public opinion judging you unfavorably?

Blonde jokes have bothered me since I was a teenager. I considered fighting back by telling brunette jokes – they exist, and are very nasty – but, in the end, these jokes simply feed into the stereotypes that blonde jokes promote. “Who makes bras for brunettes?” (Answer: Fisher-Price) feeds the stereotype that only blondes have curves like Marilyn Monroe. Doesn't anyone remember her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes co-star Jane Russell? Yes, Marilyn Monroe played the role of the dumb blonde on several occasions, but that was sixty years ago! Haven’t we evolved as a society since that time? Girls, it is no longer cool to play dumb; it was never cool to be a slut.

Slut? Yes, slut. Another feature of the blonde joke is rampant sexual promiscuity. “How does a blonde turn on the lights after having sex?” (Answer: She opens the car door). This joke – and jokes like it – plays to the assumption that blondes are more likely than brunettes or redheads to have one-night stands in parking lots with men they have just met. I searched GoogleScholar.com, and found not one shred of evidence to support this idea – in fact, one study showed that participants judged brunettes with tattoos to be heavier drinkers and more sexually promiscuous than blondes without tattoos! Another study reveals that it is artificial blondes [i.e. brunettes and redheads posing as blondes] that men judge to be of looser moral character. Are those blonde jokes still amusing to you? Before you answer, let me take this argument one step further: Have you noticed that all blonde jokes are about women?

Think of a blonde joke – any one, it doesn't matter if the blonde portrayed is stupid, promiscuous, or acting like an entitled brat, so long as the subject of the joke is a blonde. Is the blonde in the joke a man or a woman? What did you picture in your head?  If the joke is written down, does it refer to the blonde with the pronoun “he” or “she”? Now, thinking of the same joke, I want you to change the hair color to your own (natural) color. Is the joke still funny? How about when you exchange the hair color for the generic term “woman” or “girl”? Are you still laughing? Or is the sexism now blatant enough for you to see?

Some would argue that former V.P. Dan Quayle is a male blonde joke
(he's more of a blonde, male joke)

 If you are still laughing at your own debasing humor, and you still have the urge to tell blonde jokes, please replace the woman’s description one of your mother, your sister, your wife or girlfriend or another woman you hold dear; maybe then this message will get through to you. Still laughing? Then make yourself the subject of the joke, and have a laugh at your own expense.

To those who want to stand up and make things right, I thank you, but please...don’t take a “Polish joke” and turn it into a “male blonde” joke. This misled attempt to even the playing field is like fighting fire with marshmallows. A marshmallow thrown into the fire does nothing to harm the fire; it only turns into something that brings smiles and laughter. So, too, does the person who attempts to fight sexism with a joke.

KJM
01.26.13

Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.