Wife Swap

I often watch “Wife Swap” on Lifetime Television for entertainment. The producers of the show choose two women from different families to live in another household for two weeks. The first week is an observation week where the wives watch how the other family lives and the next week the wives are allowed to make their own rules for the family. The object of the show is to find two families that are run in very different manners so that they learn something about the other way of life. I saw an episode this past weekend that involved a very religious family compared with a family that was run by Atheist parents. There was one particular scene when the show was focused on the religious family, when the father made some very offending comments about women. He believes that men should not clean at all and when he saw the wife that had swapped with his making his son clean the bathroom he said, “I don’t want my son to be like a woman…I want him to grow up like a man…girls should clean the toilets not men.” He refers to his philosophy of thinking as “The Man Law.” Obviously, this is not a subtle statement about differences in gender, but I thought that it was too great of an example not to mention. This was such an extreme statement and offended every female that I was watching television with, but so many men actually do think this way. I know that men and women are very different, but no man should be able to sit back and watch a woman clean and cook at all the time.

cleaning commercials

When I was thinking what to do my blog on this week I decided to sit and watch TV and wait for some idea to come to me. I suddenly thought, I have been watching TV for about two hours and did not notice a huge gender undertone. Every commercial that I saw that involved cleaning a house or doing dishes had women as the main characters. For example, the laundry commercials with Katie Couric, Swiffer commercials, and commercials for new dishwashing soap- all had women trying out the products. In a way, this responds to social norms that the women cleans and then men provide money for the household, but many men clean and enjoy cleaning products as well. I think that the reason why I did not think that this was abnormal at first when I was watching is that in my family my mother cleans and cooks and my dad provides for the family most of the time. I just thought it was interesting… I think it would be a nice comical change if there was a guy testing out the new Swiffer in replace of his old mop.

The Bachelor

On the 5th of January a new season of the Bachelor started. My friends and I all got together to watch as girls from all over the country arrived at the mansion where the show is shot and began to throw themselves at Jason, the star of this season. It was pretty funny to watch the girls try to win Jason over by either dancing with him, reading him a love poem, or explaining the art of "vision boards." There was a part in the show where a girl named Jillian explains her theory about men and hot dogs that has become a jovial topic of conversation among many of my girl and guy friends. Jillian explains to the other girls that she has specific criteria that a man has to meet as far as his hot dog toppings, before she will considering dating him. She says that if a guy liked ketchup on his hot dog that he's a "mamma's boy," mustard and he is ready to commit and start a family, guys that like onions on their hot dogs are never going to marry, and if a guy likes sauerkraut that he is a jerk or "bad boy" and you should steer clear. So, as a result, my roommates and I have annoyed many guys by jokingly asking them what they like to put on their hot dogs (my boyfriend likes everything on his-not sure what that means). But it was interesting to me when I actually started to think of the idea of judging what kind of man someone is by something so trivial. There are so many "tests" like this for guys and girls and most of them are meant completely as a joke, but some people, like Jillian, follow them religiously. Also, can a guy not be a "mamma's boy" and want to settle down and get married? Is there something wrong with being a "mamma's boy? I just thought that this was funny and brought up some interesting questions about labels and masculinity.