Photo Courtesy of LifeTime
Here we go again:
“There’s never enough time,” the mother, Gloria Sheppard (Ally Walker), says. And increasingly on television, there’s never enough time because men are lazy. Also, they are not that bright. And that’s why women do almost all of the work at home, and the brunt of it at work, too. That is certainly the premise of “The Protector.”
Says reviewer ALESSANDRA STANLEY in “It’s a Crime That Men Are So Lazy.” I would like to think that Ms. Stanley is commenting on the troubling trend, not that it is really new, just “BTW,” to slam guys as something divorced from reality. But it’s hard to tell.
Maybe it’s the timing: All this workload resentment comes at a point when real-life husbands are at an all-time down-low, be it sex-tweeting (twexting?) congressmen or international bankers accused of preying on hotel maids. But for whatever reason, male inadequacy keeps popping up in many a new show.
Hmm, that analysis isn’t very promising. Real-life husbands are actually working their asses off to be good dads and good men, many staying at home with the kids. The list of men behaving badly in the news didn’t just start yesterday. Spitzer, Tiger, Edwards … need I go on? There is nothing new about the most recent scandals. Just a bit of technology thrown onto the fire.
As with the harried working mother Sarah Jessica Parker plays in a coming movie, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” we don’t know how Gloria does it. But she obviously feels that she can’t count on any co-worker to pull his own weight or rely on a husband to share the load at home.
In the end, this line of thinking, written by women, that men are lazy and can’t be relied on for anything is just a rehash of sexual stereotyping that locks us into a very unhealthy cultural gender war.
What would happen if I wrote that women these days are really not so bright, they really are inadequate as mothers given their obsession with work, and frankly aren’t as good looking as they once were? I would get my ass handed to me for being a sexist pig. And rightly so.
Ms. Stanley, wasn’t the feminist movement of the last 50 years intended to liberate us from such broad brushed negative statements about one gender or the other? If what you are saying is that these shows are dead wrong in portraying men that way I am 100% with you. But it sure sounds like you think there is a grain of truth in the portrayal and its connection to manhood in general. And if that is the case you are dead wrong.
Sara You like a lot of feminists seem to have a psychological need to be the victim. I think its because feminism conditions women to have a victim identity for political gain, and then any suggestions that women arent the victims becomes an affront to their personality and world view. Feminists were used to help usher in the dual income family economy, that means that feminist fought for the average couple, to put in double the amount of time in taxable work, for the same money as well as take care of the domestic work. Which admittedly is much easier… Read more »
Here is an interesting and alarming study. Men have more relaxed level of cortisol seeing their spouses work until the end of the day while they enjoy much more time doing leisure activities… and this pattern is found to occur among dual income earners, decreasing the woman’s cortisol levels and keeping her under stress until bedtime when the husband doesn’t help out with housework.
Increased stress cortisol can have severe effects on health. Women are definitely getting the short end of the stick here. Working themselves ragged while hubbies sit by on their duffs.
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/newsroom/news_release.php?id=2412
What use is an average in this situation? If we assume women do ten percent more work than men, how does that affect a family in which the work turns out to be divided evenly? Or if she does three-quarters of the work, or he two-thirds of it? This is an entirely wasted subject unless somewhere out there is a domestic division of labor law in prospect. Sort of a household version of VAWA, with reduced due process for men and insisting that shoveling snow at the age of sixty-five is no different than doing dishes at the age of… Read more »
I can’t believe we are still arguing about whether men or women do more domestic work. obviously it depends on the couple. Everyone is different. I have a lot of female friends who seem way too obsessed with making everything perfect — perfect kids, perfect home, perfect job, etc. — to the point that no one else in the family can keep up. They need to relax and let some things slide. Tell hubby that’s it’s his turn to make dinner and if feeds the kids hot dogs and cupcakes, let it go. Seriously. I also have friends whose husbands… Read more »
Sorry, typo in the above. I meant the March, 2011 (not 2001) report of the White House Counsil on Women and Girls.
So, Valerie Jarrett – approved data and report.
So if anybody is interested in some data on this, I’d suggest the March, 2001 report of the White House Council on Women and Girls. According to the data in that report, when you look at average total hours of effort by men and by women, both paid employment and unpaid work at home, AMERICAN MEN on average actually work more than American women, by about 40 minutes a week. So, in fact, MEN are now putting more total effort into support and raising families than women. I have asked the New York Times why they have not reported on… Read more »
Women do not do 70 or 80% of the worlds work.
Its another feminist lie, studies and time use surveys here – h tt p://feck-blog.blogspot.com/search/label/Working-gap
DOMESTIC work. Reading comprehension. Get some.
Sara there is no need to be rude.
Of course countries that aren’t advanced enough to provide female friendly jobs, birth control and the dual income family economy are going to have women doing most of the domestic work, because there is no other way. Feminists tend to lack the basic needed intelligence to figure things like that out a cry oppression.
And the lie that feminism circulated for years is that women do 80% of the worlds total work.
Not everybody cares this is not productive not useful/ What is a dishwasher? Every meal? please many see each other en passing as they go to the job. One work nights the other days. And in 25 to 30 years retirement. Wonderful life eh?
Did you forget the thousands of men that are cheap almost free labor the is the true face of human trafficking but it is not a pretty as a woman. Who cares about men anyway.
Sara, You overlooked a world-class earthquake and a following tsunami of unbelievable power. Had something to do with it. As to cancer. I recall the Three Mile Island issue. There were congressional hearings in which an expert testified that, in the next forty years there would have been forty thousand cancers in the downwind area where the escaped radiation landed. That was before the meltdown. With the radiation, there was a fifty percent possibility of one additional cancer. Since Teddy Kennedy was on the panel–presumably sober at the moment–and did not rail and rant about the innumerable victims, I figured… Read more »
“tell that to the thousands upon thousands of women and girls sold into the sex trades around the world, or the millions of women and girls denied an education simply because of their gender.” Ah, the race to victimhood. “Women as a group perform 70-80 percent of all household labor. Although women and men both leave the house to earn paid wages, women continue to perform more of the unpaid domestic work at home.” As for the nonsense about women doing more “domestic work” inside the house, the stats usually don’t take into account the work done on the house.… Read more »
Oil has to be changed, what? every 6 months? Dishes must be cleaned after EVERY MEAL. No comparison.
Mowing the lawn.. Once a week.
Cleaning gutters? Once a year.
You’re a moron if you think that even comes close to the *daily* work that women have to do.
True. And mowing the lawn is like once a “month” not weekly. Grass doesn’t grow that fast. lol. I agree with your statement. Most men really don’t do much housework which needs to change. Marriage is 50/50
And don’t call me ‘Cupcake.’ I’m not your pet.
Ah,nuts. “A husband WHO DROVE is likely to….”
Kristy To solve most of the women’s issues in other parts of the world would require invading them and colonizing them. Iraqi women–those not picked up for Saddaam’s pleasure and that of his cronies–actually were freer pre-invasion. The locals are now free to be their potty little selves. Water and hygiene and suchlike require money and that means we need to figure out how to keep it from going to the Big Man’s accounts in Zurich, which would be pretty much taking the place over. The women in Egypt who were subject to “virginity tests” aren’t going to be made… Read more »
35 people died of e-coli. 47 people died from nuclear reactor tragedy. 2 died immediately from the meltdown and 45 died at a nearby hospital of starvation/dehydration because there was no uncontaminated food or water.
Also, remains to be seen how many people will get cancer from the radioactivity of the nuclear disaster.
The idea that men are incompetent and/or lazy, especially when it comes to work inside the home, is a stereotype that hurts women as much as it hurts men, maybe even more than it hurts men. I would say a lot of men actually benefit from the stereotype by having to meet lower expectations than women do. If branding me as lazy is the price I have to pay for being comfortable, realistic, relaxed, not obsessive, not overworked, then I will gladly take it. If someone’s lack of respect for me means that person kills himself with unnecessary work, then…um…okay.… Read more »
*I’d suspect many of the apparently anti-male messages in our pop culture are actually antifeminist messages in disguise.*
Sing it. And vice-versa too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/opinion/12sibert.html?ref=opinion
NYT seems to be hitting both genders on the head recently.
Bobby That piece doesn’t seem to be hitting women on the head, its merely reporting that that they retire earlier than men. Which we know anyway, because of the disparity if the genders at the top of professions and wage gap. Also, the same problem has being reported the UK, they set the system up so that most of the people that became doctors were women and now because they don’t work the hours that men do and tend to retire earlier, problems are expected. Factual reporting is one thing, members of a political group that represent one group in… Read more »
Another feminist using her quota given position to tell lies about men and struggling with equal responsibility.
The time use surveys show that the work load is divided equally, and some European ones show that men do more, the trend is bucked in the third world, where men do slightly less but these disparities where men do more and women do less add up to mins a day.
Kirsty, stop telling lies and playing the victim, good women behave like adults.
It’s KRISTY, not Kirsty – if you’re going to attack me personally, at least have the decency to spell my name correctly. My comment is NOT full of lies – tell that to the thousands upon thousands of women and girls sold into the sex trades around the world, or the millions of women and girls denied an education simply because of their gender. I also fail to see how my comment creates a victim identity, seems you have a lot of misguided energy. Seriously, this is just another stupid TV show (of which America produces more than it’s share)… Read more »
Hi KIRSTY Unfortunately you are repeating lies and lies by omission, Ill show you. Im not saying that you are consciously lying, Im saying that you have been lied to and are repeating these lies. Lie by omission – “there are millions of women around the world who DO live with real and pervasive oppression every second of every day.” Truth – ” there are millions of PEOPLE, including but not limited to women and girls around the world who DO live with real and pervasive oppression every second of every day.” Lie by omission – “you really do see… Read more »
Edit
KRISTY.
KRISTY
as some one else pointed out, you are told these lies so you will support imperialism and invasions that are really about taking control of the countries and their resources.
Let’s also not be so ethnocentric – there are millions of women around the world who DO live with real and pervasive oppression every second of every day. When you step outside of our own over-blown and individualised Western cultures, you really do see that the rights of women and girls STILL need to be fought for on even the most basic of levels.
Good men are needed to help win those rights and freedoms for women & girls now more than ever.
You’re right, but I don’ think Matlack or others on this thread dispute that. Matlack’s point is that women ar all too quick to portray men as hapless and lazy and that we wouldn’t put up with women being portrayed this way even if it were true.
Not all women, I’m sure there were plenty of male executives who signed off on the pilot to run the TV show the writer commented on.
Both the show & the article are utter rubbish to me & just contribute to the endless noise of popular Western culture, which is hell bent on distracting us from just about everything of value in life.
Women are more neurologically detail oriented. And, though it’s debatable, they sometimes elevate the trivial over the essential (from a man’s point of view.) There’s plenty of overlap, of course. Some men are highly anal, too. Okay, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I probably do half the household chores here, and it’s been a good way to keep the peace. But my wife goes into detail on things I’d never think of, e.g. buying organic. I’m not sure “organic” really means anything.
It means it’s more expensive. Buying local is better for the environment.
Plus, better for your overall health. Organic doesn’t contain all those hormones found in foods you can buy at Wal-Mart.
Buying local may mean driving around to farms and dumping more carbon into the atmosphere than would happen by just having the stuff trucked in. The only people I hear talking about this are yuppies. Suspicious.
The reality is though, that men do not do the ‘second shift’ like women. Men go to work. Women go to work at work and work at home. Women still do the lion share of domestic work. Even liberal, equality professing men have been shown to do no more than their chest-thumping, misogyny loving brethren. Men tend to do work that can be characterized as sporadic, such as household repairs. Often this work is not urgent and can be put off until it is convenient to do. Generally, men also tend to specialize in household tasks that take place outside.… Read more »
That’s a gross generalization. Even when it’s true, you might be overlooking other issues. My girlfriend does a ‘second shift’ with cooking, but I do the dishes afterwards. I also do a second shift. I am a full time student in a master’s degree while working a full-time job. I do this so that at some point I’ll be able to have a 100% telecommute job so I can do the majority of the childcare work when we have kids. In a modern family where both people work, both of them really do need to do the second shift just… Read more »
Sara, is it really fair to quote stats from 1995? Times have changed – and while I don’t know the total % of household chores currently being done by men, I know from anecdotal experience that myself and other husbands/fathers of my generation do a lot more than our fathers did.
Sara
The second shift was shown to be another feminist lie.
You can find a collection of studies and time use surveys that destroy the second shift lie here.
h tt p://feck-blog.blogspot.com/search/label/Working-gap
Well, I guess the truth hurts. Hee, hee