Sunday, March 11, 2012

You've come a long way, Baby. Or have you?





Carol had better get her coffee-making act together, or next time this cup of hot, undrinkable mud is going right in her face. Followed by a fist.

Ah, the good old days- when a man could berate his wife about the quality of her coffee (or anything else, for that matter,) sneering at her total lack of cooking skills while throwing said coffee into her flower garden or comparing it unfavorably to the stuff he can get at the mess hall Back at the Base. When a wife would stand slightly behind her husband, hands crossed behind her back, in hopeful expectation that THIS time, she managed to get it right, for ONCE. When a man felt perfectly comfortable inflicting a psychological death by a thousand cuts with constant little reminders that I Could Have Made Anyone Mrs. John Smith You Know, You'd Better Get Your Act Together If You Don't Want To Get Hurt, If It Weren't For Me You'd Be an Old Maid And Don't You Forget It.

When the Little Missus would respond to nasty "you can't do ANYTHING right, can you?" remarks by the Man of the House by rushing off to the grocery store to consult with another man for tips on how to save her rocky marriage, and track down one Wise in the Ways of Coffee conveniently unpacking the stuff (and even more conveniently being the possessor of a PhD in All Things Coffee- oh wait, I forgot- in the 1950s, men were experts in EVERYTHING that didn't involve cooking, cleaning or changing diapers.)

"No, Carol you silly dim bulb, this is NEW Folger's Crystals!" Not only is Carol incapable of making coffee superior to INSTANT, but she can't manage to process the "new" part of the label without extra prodding from Wise, Helpful Old Male. Later Carol will need to be taught the concept of a "mountain" through hand signals. Carol isn't the brightest bulb on the tree, a fact reinforced by her "look what I learned today, honey" repeat of the International Symbol for "mountain" when she gets home and finally makes Hubby a decent cup of coffee. Hubby thinks this is adorable, and who wouldn't?

Guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses, after all.

Thank goodness those days are over, don't you agree? We'd never see ads like this now. Women in commercials today are too busy serving up beer while wearing super-tight tank tops and cut-off jeans. They are strong, independent types who live to obsess over diapers, laundry soap, minivans, and their Relationship Status on Facebook. They don't live in anguish over hubby's reaction to their coffee- way too busy dishing up Hamburger Helper and reaching for the Bounty towels for that. They wouldn't be caught dead wringing their hands over their inability to add hot water to ground beans- not when there's weight to be lost through a diet of Progresso Soup and Multigrain Cheerios.

Sexist pig husbands? No woman would tolerate such a thing today- unless, of course, he went to Jared. Chocolate Diamonds are awfully pretty, after all.

8 comments:

  1. Ah, yes. The world of the commercial...the only place in America where Eisenhower is still president.

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    1. If the Right Wing has its way, we'll have that sort of world back again. *shuddertwitch*

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  2. We have have progress, but there's still a distance to go yet. Men who complain about being discriminated against in the States deserve a) a gag to the mouth and b) a Clue By Four upside the head.

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  3. White men who complain about discrimination are really bemoaning the fact that they feel they were born too late; why oh why did the Golden Age of total dominance have to crumble just as they were reaching adulthood and could start to really exercise it?

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    1. There's a secondary symptom of the syndrome: the nightmare fantasy that the formerly dominated group wants to exercise the same brutal control said idiots wish to wield. This is why there are idiots screaming that the freaking GIRL SCOUTS!!! are lesbian communist witch space monsters who want to overthrow God, destroy civilization and bruise fruit because, ta-da, they've moved with the times.

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    2. Oppressors live with the guilt of being oppressors, and the fear that some day, those that they have oppressed will rise up and give them the same treatment they once delighted in dishing out.

      What they don't get is that the world is not really made up of monsters. Gay people want to get married because they love each other, not so that they can "indoctrinate" everyone into hating heterosexual marriage. People who want to decriminalize marijuana use aren't interested in walking around in a stoned stupor all their lives, or teaching our children the joys of the Buzz. They just think the current drug laws make no sense. But bullies always assume that everyone else is a Bully in Waiting, and that the fall of one ruling class inevitably means the rise of another.

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    3. Some are upset they missed their chance, others just don't have a clue. It's the same thing going on with Christians in America. Being in the majority and not having to deal with discrimination or prejudice, the little things become Big and shadows become demons waiting to jump you en masse because there's nothing to put it into perspective. That's the case, I think, for the majority of Christians who imagine there's a Homosexual Agenda and that Liberals want to turn their children into nymphos hooked on hard drugs and booze.

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