Ah! No I wasn't trying to sneakily call you a dick, but on re-reading it, I can see how you might have interpreted it that way. I wish I'd been so clever as to have done it on purpose! I was just making a little joke about words, because really the other day a friend and I decided to search the thesaurus for penis and vagina, just for kicks, (we are 37 and 54 years old, we were bored and tipsy) and I was terribly disappointed that there was absolutely no entry for either of them, as if the words didn't even exist. Disappointed that my fun had been ruined, and then I got disappointed with the whole situation, - that penis and vagina are probably the two words that have the MOST synonyms ever, and yet they weren't listed, I assume for the sake of societies precious children, I mean all a kid's gotta do is type the words into google instead of thesaurus to find all sorts of stuff... I'm a moderate protect the children type of person, but I just got really pissed at thesaurus.com for assuming the role of the dirty word police....
And I understand your point about the word misandry... the word misogynist gets tossed around like it's slang for penis, there aren't nearly as many instances where you hear the word misandry. Personally, I think people use those words too often, if a man says something that is even borderline sexist the accusations of misogyny come flying from every direction. I know plenty of men that are kinda sexist, but certainly not evil sexist, and they are certainly nowhere near misogynists. Most average folks are sexist in some way.... My current fella doesn't own any tools, and I tease him about his lack of manly tools every now and then, and he said to me yesterday that he recognized the annoyed look on my face because it was the same look of every woman he's ever known when she's getting her period. We are both guilty of sexist things, but we surely don't hate the other's gender. When I think of a misogynist or misandrist I think of someone who is truly extreme in their hate, not someone who just happens to say something bad about the other sex.... And I notice people do call Prudie a misandrist now and then, but honestly I don't think she is, she says lots of things that are kinda sexist against women too - like that quote I posted before where she seemed to be of the opinion that "good girls" don't go out drinking....
As for the current letter writers, the first one, sure the headline was worded that way to try to get our attention, but I thought that the guy came off as a decent fellow in the general sense, any guy that is willing to risk throwing his family into a bit of turmoil so that he can let his other child feel loved is ok in my book. The option being that he coulda been a total dick and shut the kid out of his life and never told his other kids that they have another sibling... and Prudies first line of the response, "I hope your husband appreciates this Father's Day how extraordinary you are in opening your heart and home so that he can be a father to all his children." irritated me because I wondered why Prudie considered it so "extraordinary" that a woman would be forgiving and would "open her heart" to a new family member. As if Prudie expects ordinary women would be hardhearted and cruel and would somehow try to forbid the husband from being a father to his other child. I didn't think it was extraordinary for the LW to be kind, I thought it was just what decent people would do in that situation. Compared to the following quote from Prudies response to the last letter, "understand that while painful things happen in life, it's best not to spit on family members who don't live up to their perfect ideals." but wait, hadn't she just implied that it takes an "extraordinary" person to forgive their loved ones for hurting them?
I also noticed the comments that were about the 4th letter writer were pretty vicious, well more than pretty vicious, cruelly vicious, I'm surprised that in this day and age people would judge a person so harshly. I mean really, she's just an average gal, isn't it 50% of couples are divorced or something, people cheat, people seperate, and often people don't handle it well. Commenters basically told her she was a homewrecking whore who deserved to be hated and to rot in hell for stealing another woman's husband. In comparison I only read a few judgemental comments about LW1's husband - but he was also an adulterer, and also a liar just as LW4 was. Is that good or bad I wonder? Is it because people expect men to cheat, and that people expect women to NOT cheat, so they feel justified in calling her a whore for failing to live up to expectations... was it because LW1's hubby had stayed with his family, so he redeemed himself somehow, while LW4's situation ended in families splitting up, which condemned her?... But then I think well that's a copout, because even though LW1s hubby stayed with his family, he did father a child with the other woman... where was the anger at him for "abandoning" that second family unit....
Are you still reading this? It's awfully long, sorry bout that.... (I'm not really sorry, I've had way too much caffiene be sorry)
As for our individual perceptions of which gender gets the raw deal when it comes to media representations, well basically, I guess I percieve it differently than you, not better or worse just different... women will be more likely to notice crap messages about the female gender, and men will be more likely to notice crap messages about the male gender... Just an example here's a thing about a bad advertising campaign that is frustratingly insulting/sexist to both men and women at the same time, maybe you'll get a kick out of it...
So sure, TV and whatnot does seem to like to send a message about moms and how they can be perfect... and often that's exactly what gets us chicks pissed off... Because 90% of us will never be able to achieve the level of perfection that the media tells us we should be able to achieve by simply getting out of bed in the morning. A perfect example of this is the friggin Electrolux commercials with Kelly Ripa... She flits around her kitchen and her house happy as a clam because using all the electrolux appliances helps her to be the mostest perfectest sweetest mommiest mommy ever! But it's so totally unacheivable... nowhere in these ads do we see the dishes that she actually cooked the perfectly presented food in, Nothing piled up in the sink, no stray utensils on the countertop, we see her spooning pudding or some such nonsense, but the entire counter is spotless. not a single paper towel, or pudding box, or anything... I guess they just forgot to film the parts where a crew of 10 prep people actually prepared the food and then cleaned the surfaces. If I had a crew of 10 helping me out I could be the bestest mommiest mommy ever too, and I don't even have kids. here's the youtube clip <link> I get especially pissed at the slogan "You Can Be Even More Amazing!" Great, like I need that kind of pressure.
The media likes to give women crazy high expectations to live up to, and men are given insultingly low expectations to live down to. Women = be like Kelly Ripa. Men = be one of those guys who just turns his dirty Tshirt inside out when his woman asks him to put on a clean shirt, cuz of course men are lazy and sloppy? (I don't remember what product this particular sloppy man commercial is for... I think some sort of girly soap, "Men have their version of clean, and we women have ours" I think that was the tagline.)
Blah blah blah...will I ever shut up?
I for one think dads are very important, my dad was the best, and my brother is a wonderful father.. (his wife left him for another man, and gave my brother primary custody of the 2 kids, ages 5 and 6 at the time, and he is so involved with those kids... craft projects, sports in the yard, watching tv, cooking homemade pizza's with them, taking them to school and picking them up after work ... laughing and playing and a bit of scolding now and then when needed... I think that's a big part of why she gave him custody, because he was always that way, he was always the more involved parent, and she knew the kids would miss living with him more than they would miss living with her... I don't know how he does that whole good parent thing, I can barely manage to keep my cat from dying of boredom because I'd rather type stuff like this than give him attention. poor kitty.leave me alone kitty I has vry, vry importent internet postings to do)
And you have my apologies for beating you to the punch on your mea culpa, I hate when that happens, especially on these boards where there is no "edit" option.
And whether you guys are the majority, it depends on what we're counting I guess, I was thinking more along the lines of men having the majority of the supposed "power" (political, in business, etc.) and not so much thinking of it in terms of the actual percentages of the genders, either way, I was just excited to finally have a semi-legitimate chance to use the phrase "oppressed majority"...
In conclusion!! I think the powers that be should save up the worst of the worst letters about/from dads and moms for the whole year and then on FathersDay/MothersDay holidays publish the letters from/about the really really horrible moms and dads... that way we could all feel warm-fuzzy gratefulness that our parents were pretty good compared to the horror-story letters we'd be reading...
