I am working on the house today and so went to the hardware store to get the right bit that I didn't buy the other day. So, I am in the truck on the way home and flipping stations. On Christian radio is some guy talking about men and women. Please.
He said many times that God had uttered this message in an audible voice to him, and then went on to refer to the way God had "programmed" the differences between men and women. Here were the examples that assured me that he is a moron:
"If you forget a woman's birthday, she is offended. She is made that way. But men don't care about that stuff."
Really? Really? Just a blanket statement. Men don't give a shit about their own birthday or those around them. Don't care about anniversaries, either. Bullshit. I can tell you this, if Streak's other friend forgets my birthday, I am hurt. Maybe I am not masculine enough by this jackass's definition. But there was more.
"Men, and those listening to me know this, can crawl under their car and remember everything about that car. They are programmed by God to have that ability. Women can't do that.
Now he is just being an asshole. Whenever I talk about working on the car, Streak's other Friend looks anxious and reminds me that we can take it to a garage. Innate, my ass, I have single-handedly caused more problems on my vehicles than I have ever solved.
This isn't to say that I am a blundering nincompoop. I can be handy. I am building a fence today. It will stand up and look moderately good. But so can my wife.
I am just so tired of this tired bullshit about "God's programming" differences in men and women. You want to talk about differences? Fine. I am not saying that men and women are identical by any stretch. But can we at least leave the stupid stereotypes aside and at least question what is socially taught? Can we at least question the assumption that women like to buy shoes more than men? Because I enjoy shoe shopping a hell of a lot more than she does.
Just stop it. It is bad enough that "God spoke audibly to him" but this crap about me crawling under my car and forgetting my own birthday just pisses me off.
12 comments:
Streak,
You need to stop listening to Christian radio. You will pop a blood vessal in your neck.
I agree with CIL. In the immortal words of the Wu Tang Clan, "proteck ya neck!"
-- John Ford
It also reinforces gender stereo-types. In my house, my wife own the tools, fixes stuff, changes the oil, etc. I cook and do laundry. Rebekah and I agreeed that it is best if I stay away from any thing mechanical.
I guess I make a good wife.
kgp
Streak,
I thought I would share this excerpt with you:
The anthropologist Jaime de Angulo's accounts of fieldwork in northern California in the 1920s recall a seemingly aimless caravan of seven or eight Model Ts being driven by Pit River Achumawi people in circles through the brush. When, after days of wandering, one of the cars broke down, de Angulo - mechanically clueless himself, one should note - found himself confronting his expectations, which were both troubled and confirmed: "I was watching these Stone Age men unscrew and rescrew and take things apart or out of the engine and spread them out on a piece of canvas on the ground ... but the amazing thing to me was their argumentation. It was perfectly logical. '... can't be the ignition, look, I get a spark ... I tell you, it's in the transmission ... Now pull that lever.'" Even as de Angulo was surprised by the Pit River people's command of the rationality of the automobile, however, he also reported a simultaneous and alternative explanation: "Finally the engine, or whatever was wrong, was repaired. Then I overheard one young fellow say to another: 'You know why this happened? Because he was sleeping with his woman while she was menstruating! That against the rules.'" -- Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places, 155.
Brother Kevin!!!!
I'm not the only one!!!
My wife loves Home Depot. She worked with a mechanic for two years when she was a teen. I learned to cook from my Italian mother and grandmother. I love the kitchen, and if the hours and pay were better, I would be a chef and not a computer programmer. I get around tools and I hurt myself, unless I am doing gardening. She does the laundry, I fold. I vacuum. We both participate in household chores. Until our son is old enough to do them for us. :)
Guess I make a good wife too.
The scientific response to this, of course, is that gender and sex are verifiably distinct constructs. What this dude is trying to argue is that hundreds, if not thousands, of empirical studies are fundamentally (oh the irony of that word) flawed.
I have two words for that:
Fuckin' stupid.
CIL, and "John Ford" (if that is your real name?) I promise to proceed with care. I blame all of this on changing technology and the suckiness of radio. My 1990 pickup has a tape player (remember those?) and I don't even have any tapes anymore. Oh, and the tape player no longer works. So, I listen to radio when I am doing errands like buy macho stuff from the hardware store to build my fence (finished, btw, and not bad). I usually listen to NPR, but it was the Diane Rheme show and sometimes she bugs me and this time the topic was Alzheimers. So I switched around and found this guy.
I can quit anytime, I swear.
Streak's right. He has WAY more shoes in his closet than I in mine. I kid him about his shoe fettish. ;). Streak loves to shop a whole lot more than I do. The UPS guy knows us well.
Streak also does most the cooking (a hidden love neither of us knew about when we got married almost 17 years ago). He makes some killer enchiladas!! (I cook occasionally, usually breakfasts and bakin' pies....oh ymmmm). I do the books and taxes. He takes out the garbage and mows the lawn. I rake the leaves. He plants and tends the garden. We both do laundry.
It works for us and I'm glad. Too me it's all about negotiating and figuring out what works best for each family. Traditional roles work for some families and that's a good thing. It just didn't work for us.
Gotta go. Streaks making homemade pizza with homemade crust. Now that's GOOD EATS.
SOF
P.S. btw I got Steak a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas. He loves it!!! He's used it a ton of times, Me --- None. :)
Today, I'll raise a beer with my hot-chick wife after she fixes this girlie-man's bicycle, and toast all the male wives everywhere!
Good God, what a convention of girlie-boys! Jesus, people, we need to go to some machismo re-education camp and beat some drums and hunt some meat or something.
Good of you to join the conversation Mrs. Streak, or is that Streak's other friend?
Ok, I'll confess too...my wife also is the mechanic. She is a genius at fixing things. She drives. I have no patience or tolerance for LA traffic. Her major in college was Math while my major was English. But thank God she loves to cook. I'm just too damn lazy to feed myself.
Carlos
Well, I guess I'd better learn to cook and quit programming the VCR, since God told this Christian radio guy all about my true skillz. Lord, I am sorry for having offended Thee by humiliating the men in my life by programming their VCRs and TiVos. I will, as You command, get in the kitchen and make a pie. Amen.
When I was in graduate school, some of my single friends and I postulated the existence of the "jrk" gene. Upon pooling and analyzing our collective data, we felt that we had evidence to suggest that "jrk" was located on the Y chromosome and was characterized by a phenotype that included a fragile ego, an inability to commit for more than 24 hours, a tendency to drink too much and a propensity for bad pick up lines. We also hypothesized that "jrk-less" mutants did exist. But, since the expected "jrk-less" phenotype was only too rarely encountered in our investigations, we speculated that these individuals might be at a selective disadvantage and perhaps accounted for a related observation that "nice guys finish last". And, of course, we lamented that "jrk-less" mutants were not nearly common enough.
Those days are past, but I still meet people who fit the "jrk" phenotype. And I still enjoy finding the "jrk-less" mutants, though, thankfully, I have learned that there are more of these around than we had expected and that has been a pleasant suprise.
GirlGrace
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