CNN.com decided to post a fluff piece in light of the coming Hallmark holiday this Sunday, and managed to choose an author that could not have been more sexist and heavy-handed.
The father in this piece states that his “worst nightmare” is his wife being laid up after surgery and (gasp!) he must take care of his two young daughters for a few days: basically, being a “mom”, and taking a traditionally female role. He pats himself on the back for doing the bare minimum to rise just above what would be considered neglect and even states that he calls in reinforcements because of the difficulty involved. (He never, however, seems to come to the conclusion that his wife could use more of his help once in a while.) For me, the best part is that the reinforcements he calls are other women, specifically other mothers, to come in and do the work of a parent when his wife is unable, as if women are naturally mothers and therefore interchangeable and merely having a vagina can make one more nurturing than a father.
His argument runs thus: because he is male, and men don’t take care of kids, by virtue of the fact that he didn’t light the house on fire or poison the children (he even admits the bar is so low that a chipmunk could do better) he deserves a plasma-screen TV with surround sound. His attitude seems to state that men are “above” women’s work and therefore must be given a reward as both an incentive and self-serving recognition for doing the “lower” work of raising children. He manages to acknowledge and give credit to the hard parenting work that falls disproportionally on mothers and in the same 500 words complain that he only gets a tie for doing far less: “Yeah, Mom deserves the weeping cherry tree for Mother’s Day, but for doing a quarter of the work I want a plasma TV.” This level of cognitive dissonance is astounding, and sexism at its most basic. He seems to believe that there are things only women should do and only men should do, and one of those categories is classified as “higher” or “better” than the other, as shown by his statement that being “mom” was his worst nightmare. Nobody views being in a position higher than their own a bad thing.
I frequent a number of feminist blogs, which is where I first heard about this piece, and to paraphrase the best response: “It’s like watching Scrooge say, ‘Man, that was an emotionally exhausting night. Let me call Cratchett in on Christmas so I can take a mental health day.’”
