Post-Feminist, My Ass
by Cari Crosby

Another feminist rant.  Yeah, yeah, roll your eyes if you must, but there are a lot of stupid little things about society that bug me.  Things that most people don’t seem to notice, and if you mention them, it’s usually brushed aside as ‘no big deal’ along with the ever-present eye-roll.  What does it matter if ad campaigns only show women cleaning?  Who cares if fathers are seen as incompetent on television?  Well, I care.  These things bug me.  And I whine enough to the people around me about them that I may as well whine to you about it too.

Now, I’m well aware that Inside Edition is certainly far from “real” news, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I have actually bothered to stop long enough to have something to complain about from it.  But who hasn’t stopped briefly when flipping channels on something out of total disgust?  It’s like that ready example of the car crash that you can’t help but stare at.  I recently happened to catch a preview for the U.S. Presidential debates that had nothing to do with what Kerry and Bush would be debating.  It didn’t even have anything to do with John Kerry or George W. Bush at all – it had to do with their wives and their fashion sense. “Does Teresa have the look to be first lady?”  WHAT?  It then proceeded to show snippets of former first ladies in some of their most fashionable clothing with perfect hair, perfect makeup, and, of course, perfect smiles. Clearly the most important thing a first lady can do for her president hubby is look good. Clearly the most important thing any woman can do is look good. What a great message to send.

Ok – even I can shrug that one off – it was on Inside Edition.  Just a week after I noticed that story, my local TV news did a story on education levels and speediness with housework.  It claimed to have found that the higher educated a woman was, the slower she was at doing housework.  Apparently “the more educated a women is, the less challenging she finds mundane tasks like housework.”  Okay, perhaps it is a valid finding that someone with a doctorate might not be able to handle simple, repetitive, and mundane work in the same way that someone who didn’t make it through high school would.  Perhaps.  But why did this so-called study focus only on women and only on housework?  Oh, right.  Sexism doesn’t exist anymore.  Nevermind.

Advertising: another "post-feminist" realization.  All advertisements seem to show that women are the only people able to cook, clean, or parent rationally.  Not only are men rarely seen cooking, but when they are they need those easy ‘one-step’ meals because clearly they cannot follow a real recipe!  It’s really sad how little the advertising world has changed, even since the 1950s.  If you look at ads from the 50s, they might be blatantly more sexist, but the messages are essentially still the same.  Now it’s not the brand new invent of the washing machine that makes all women’s lives easier – it’s the Swiffer Duster!  Why do these sorts of things only affect women? Why are there no men dancing like idiots in their friends houses (because you don’t only clean at home, you love it so much that you have to do it at your best buddy’s home too!) while they dust along to a very bizarre remake of the Devo classic, “Whip It”?  And then, there’s Jif.  “Choosy Mom’s choose Jif” – except for that one time when a father appeared in the commercial and they had to change their soundbite to include fathers.  What?  Fathers are choosy about what brand of peanut butter their children eat too??  Who knew!

Away from the advertising and on to the television shows themselves.  How many times do we need to recreate shows like The Honeymooners in which poor dad can’t do anything right, but thank goodness that mom is there to make everything better again?  Doofus Dad certainly can’t be expected to cook or clean, and when he does the laundry all the whites turns pink!  Oh no!  One of the most overplayed sitcoms on today, Everybody Loves Raymond, uses this formula to a T.   Not only can Ray not do any household chores, but his interpersonal skills rate with that of a fifteen-year-old boy.  Yet his wife, the typical sitcom supermom, not only keeps the kids happy, the house spotless, and the meals well-balanced, she can also keep her dense husband in line enough that he fits in with society.

And even “real world” stuff still perpetuates this sort of thinking.  For instance – while it’s politically incorrect to believe that women do the cooking and cleaning – how many dinner parties have you been to in which when dinner is done, all of the women at the table get up to clear the dishes while the men continue to stay seated.  Why is that?  Why is it that even younger generations of women have this idea ingrained in them that they must help with things like dishes, and yet, men don’t?  It’s not that I think women shouldn’t help with dishes, it’s that I don’t understand why men don’t.

We seem to have reached a plateau. So many strides have been made to make the balance between the sexes more equal, that many seem to think we’re done and that there is no more progress to be made. Well, there is still progress to be made.  So stop your eye rolling, and realize that until we start noticing these sorts of problems, they’ll never change. We're only in the so-called post-feminist era if there are no more feminists, right? Well...we ain't there yet.

Comments? Click here to let us know what you think.

Or, click below:

Visitors from the US:

Visitors from Canada: