Text from my dad at the end of Germany’s World Cup victory: “I am almost happy to be alive.”
Text from my dad’s girlfriend at the end of Germany’s World Cup victory:
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“Haunting Surreal Photographs From the ’60s Inspired By Children’s Nightmares” is exactly what it sounds like.
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The long shadow of Hillsborough:
I was still on the road when the match began, and after two minutes the radio commentator said that something was wrong. There was trouble on the terraces behind the Liverpool goal. There was a sad, not-this-again feeling in his voice, a quality of resignation, that the supporters, especially those from Liverpool, were sacrificing a game of football to pursue their own violent entertainment: again. The play continued, but you could that that the commentator was not watching it, that he was trying to figure out what was happening on the terraces. He couldn’t definitely say that it was crowd trouble, but it was something serious, and the police were gathering near the spot. And then, in an instant, that was it: the game was over. The referee had been told by the police to stop play. That was about the time I arrived home. The stadium was about to become the most famous in the world.
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Men have always been the worst. OH, and in case you didn’t know, they have MRAs in Canada now.
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In defense of crying in baseball/academia:
Or you stay in the field and you struggle to find a tenure-track position. You take teaching gigs you don’t want, you don’t have time for research or writing, you worry about your security and about your professional reputation. You end up in an administrative job and you don’t get to teach anymore. Or you leave the field and you don’t get to do the work you trained for, the work you love. You don’t even really get to talk about it anymore.
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Matthew Gallaway delves into what Karl Ove has to say about The Gays:
• “I could control myself. She had a nice body, but there was something boyish about her humor and manner that seemed to cancel out her breasts and hips.”
• “Nor could I ask [my friend] to open the bottle for me, that was too homo.”
• “I could open bottles with my teeth, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so homo.”
• “We never hugged. We weren’t the sort of guys who would hug.”
• “What was more important was that the embroidered blouse and the Sami shoes were not [my father]. And that he had slipped into this, entered this formless, uncertain, almost feminine world.”
• “He twisted his neck and patted some hair into place. He had always had that mannerism, but there was something about his shirt and those trousers, which were so profoundly alien to him, that suddenly made it seem effeminate.”
• “[Going to an adult video store] was incompatible with everything a normal life entailed, and most of those who went there were normal men…[but] I had no idea, this was foreign territory for me…”
•Even though the suitcase was heavy I carried it by the handle as I walked into the departure hall. I detested the tiny wheels, first of all because they were feminine, thus not worthy of a man, a man should carry, not roll. [Something I can’t find about the fear of sleeping in the same bed as your brother—as if you might wake up and find yourself fucking him—but at least having a separate duvet; this fear is similar to what we call “gay panic” in the United States, which still crops up now and again as a murder defense. “Your honor, that faggot winked at me and I had to kill him!”]
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I read this lovely piece by a dad about his mixed emotions around still getting his DEAD SON’S mail, and most of the comments were normal human comments by normal human beings, and then these two things happened:
(oh my god really why are you bothering to share this BUT THEN)
(YOU HAVE SOMETHING DEEPLY WRONG INSIDE YOU)
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Ladies’ menus are REAL:
We were led to our table, where someone pulled out my chair for me and placed my napkin in my lap, and we were handed menus. Curiously, I noticed my menu did not have prices listed. “Hey, do you have prices? Is this just how they do things?” I asked my date. Turns out, he did have the prices. Welcome to the concept of the Ladies Menu.
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Good job, @sassycrass. Solid citizen work.
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I think the sexiest male age is “283,” because then they’re probably vampires and giving into their desires will make me live forever.
— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) July 11, 2014
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
They have a name!???!
Here is a story: I was an unbearably precocious child and spent most of my 12-13 age bracket reading Lilian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who” mysteries, and in one, Qwilleran takes his lady friend Polly to a Fancy Restaurant inside an old horse barn. (This was pre-hipsters-making-it-cool, though.) And his menu had prices that were “$$$$” and hers had no prices, so she could feel free to order anything she liked without worrying. And even at age 12 or whatever I remember thinking “well, that’s stupid, if he’s that unconcerned with money why can’t they BOTH not have prices?” or whatever.
So to sum up, I had no idea that was a real thing, the “ladies’ menu,” and I hope it dies a swift death or at the very least gets changed to “guests’ menu” so that the host can have all the prices REGARDLESS OF THE STATE OF WHAT IS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR.
I like your solution oriented comment, instead of just being all BAN BAN BAN . “Guest Menu” yes.
Oh my gosh ‘The Cat Who’ mysteries! I also spent my 12-13 years reading them (on the suggestion of my 7th grade teacher who was also a nun…) and I reread a few every couple years for nostalgia’s sake and wow, as an adult I can see that Qwilleran is kind of the worst.
I’m really afraid to reread them as an adult because I’m pretty confident I’ll loathe him.
I too read them about that age! I remember nothing about them except that one character and her siblings were named after Shakespeare characters (was this Polly’s family?). No desire to read them again.
Yes! Polly was short for ‘Hippolyta’ and her sister Mona was ‘Desdemona.’ It was very twee.
So I have nothing to do at work and I’m idly googling, and in one of the books–WTF??? Polly randomly up and moves to Paris and abandons her cats? The fuck? And the circular octagonal whatever the fuck apple barn BURNS DOWN? I UNDERSTAND NOTHING.
Nooooo not the apple barn! It was exactly the kind of place that seemed SO COOL to live in when I was in middle school (and of course if I met Qwilleran in real adult life, I’d probably burn it down myself).
I know it’s to be expected for a mystery series, but so many people just . . . die. Like, LJB had no qualms about building up sympathy for a character for 5 books or so and then just knocking her off. And it wasn’t even always murder! So many car accidents! It would be like if Agatha Christie had had Hastings run over by a tractor trailer midway through the Hercule Poirot books.
Yes! I’ve never read the final book because ugh. Regular characters started dropping left and right and everyone basically shrugged and went, whatever. I’m pretty certain in one of the later books the mystery was never even actually solved…
I also read these when I was around the same age! SOLIDARITY.
Apparently LJB had an unseen fandom in the middle school set. WHO KNEW?
Yeahhhh I feel like having a no-prices menu is some elitist power play bullshit anyway, so that can just get cut out entirely.
My brain has chosen to start seeing “chivalry” as a thing that makes sense, because in my fantasy world chivalrous acts stem from the understanding that women are superior and deserve preferential treatment. (I know this is not reality, but it makes me laugh.) In this way, Ladies’ Menus are totally legit. Why should we waste our precious time thinking about prices if there is a dude around to tend to such petty matters? Bring me what I want, when I want it – I have better things to do!
Since Germany won, Argentina now has to hand over any surviving Nazis it hid after WW2, that’s how it works, right?
I am not a big sports person, but I’m glad Germany won because Husband’s boss, who is normally a micromanaging blowhard, is German. After their ridiculous victory over Brazil he was in such a good mood that he signed off on Husband’s Christmas vacation request, which is very out of character for him. Who knows what he’ll do now that they’ve won the whole thing? A bonus? A jetpack?? Watch this space for updates.
If jetpack, check inside for cash before firing it up. Important.
Speaking of Nazis, I was watching the game in a bar (I’m in Germany) and at one point when an Argentinian player tripped a German one, the kid next to me jumped up and screamed “You JEW!!!”
He could not have been older than 16-17. Guys, this is bad news. Very, very bad news.
YIIIIIIIIIIIKES.
NO GOOD
NOooooo
I’m just gonna tell myself this is part of the extended fallout of teenage bros taking Borat’s jew/gypsy jokes entirely at face value and deciding they’re really cool and good.
Yes I know Borat stopped being a thing like eight years ago.
Dany, you shouldn’t judge a country by one teenager. Not many countries have owned up to and worked on their past sins as they have.
No, you shouldn’t, but the rise of neo-fascist groups in Germany is an acknowledged issue and a troubling one.
My husband takes high school band and orchestra kids to Europe every other summer, and last year the tour company stopped including Dinkelsbuhl in all its itineraries because the kids were getting routinely harassed by young men in neo-Nazi t-shirts and other regalia.
I can agree on that. I’ve lived here several years, and I’ve seen the police protection outside the synagogues, and my Jewish students tell me they feel very safe here, especially compared to other European countries. However, I think regardless of a country’s history, any such a comment is just plain bad. I was surprised, because that was the first time in all these years that I heard such a thing.
thanks for your reply! I’m in Austria, and I too recently (for the first time ever!!) heard a teenager curse another as “jew”. I was as surprised as you, because I never heard something like that before.
I just wanted to point out – and I agree that that isn’t a good sign, and there IS a problem with extremism- that one teenager hopefully isn’t the vanguard of a whole movement in the general public.
Ok, sorry for my bad english – I hope my point gets across!
“Zat vas, uh, after zee var, vhich, uh, vee lost.”
What if it’s two women eating? Do you get to write in your own little doodle prices?
I shall pay one smiley face.
I shall pay three flowers and the paperclip (pink!) that has been floating around in the change pocket of my purse forever.
I am imagining this as a collective action now.
“There was a swarm of them. And they all left little drawings of octopi with the word ‘NOPE’ scrawled under them as payment.”
😀
I looked up “nopetopus doodle” and praises be, this popped up:
It appears to be from @stacksofcomics on tumblr, and it is perfect.
I will most likely pay an eye or a spiral. [ETA: I think this means that I’m a pawn of the Illuminati?]
That @sassycrass post. I had a woman intervene for me like that when I was fifteen or sixteen, and I am grateful to this day.
I want to high five @sassycrass, and the woman who helped you, and all such solid lady-humans.
Looking back, it’s amazing that no one intervened for me, because this shit really does start at like 12 or 13 for a lot of us. I just got good at staying in crowds and disappearing into stores and using the “my boyfriend” escape with no understanding of why it actually worked, when it did. But in retrospect? HOLY FUCKING SHIT I WAS A CHILD.
The obstacle course of sexual menace* really does start fucking early.
*thank you Jessica Williams and the Daily Show for this phrase
I for real just realized that as a middle class white girl I had a lot more avenues of escape than I would have had if I were a POC or didn’t have those class markers. And even then it was menacing. Goddammit.
Well, and there’s this vast cognitive dissonance between “don’t talk to strangers” and how girls & young women are socialised to be polite at all costs – nobody teaches you how to do both! Or even how to convey fuck-off body language, which is a useful goddamn life skill.
A friend and I were out with her toddler a while back and a dude sat down next to a monosyllabic teenage girl on a nearby bench – it wasn’t clear whether she was actually uncomfortable or whether she knew him and was just, you know, dirtbag teen, so we opted to loiter prominently while giving him disapproving side eye (toddlers make excellent cover for loitering) until he packed up and bailed. It is so hard at that age to make a stink!
Amen. Someone did that for me when I was in high school, also about 15 or 16 – some drunk fool was hitting on me on the metro platform, and I didn’t know how to deflect. I was inching closer to the woman standing a few feet away from me, and she eventually said, “Leave her alone, she doesn’t want to talk to you,” in the most perfectly bored, scornful voice. The guy left. (I did a much less graceful version of this once, when I yelled at some dudes on a bus for hitting on a girl who was practically passing out drunk… the bus driver pulled over before we got to a stop. Probably because I was getting belligerent on the bus but whatever works.)
My M.O. when commuting is ignore everything around me all the time because I am a curmudgeonly old misanthrope but lately I have been trying to stay aware on the train and keep an eye out for situations like this because GOD DAMN if I’m going to stand by and let some shitbag get away with this nonsense. Major snaps to @sassycrass!
Anyone else see this story about the Australian couple who bought an abandoned French château and are now in the process of restoring it? (I know it’s from March, but I saw it for the first time yesterday, so let’s pretend it’s recent.)
I am very jealous. I wish they had revealed how much it cost, because without a price tag to shock me back to my senses, I can’t help daydreaming that I might be able to afford my own château in the Pyrenees. And that way lies madness and discontent at living in a 1-bedroom apartment in Ottawa instead.
Goodness, that’s so cool! The detailing on the interior is amazing.
Restoration, though. That is a project that takes so much expense and knowledge. I think it is the coolest thing, but I would basically need to be retired and very very wealthy to ever attempt something like that. There were a number of beautiful old houses my boyfriend and I looked at before our current house – nothing like a French chateau, mind you, but lovely and big – and they were cheap, but paying for the restoration out of pocket would have canceled out the savings.
I wonder if they’re getting any grants from the French government since they’re restoring a historical monument of national significance?
This woman is basically living the dream, though. Thousands of miles away from her husband and kids, gets to live in a picturesque French village, watching the work progress on her château that she owns.
Oooooh, oooh, this makes me think of a proper gap in the market for US tv, or maybe not. See, in the UK/Mainland Europe, it is much more ‘doable’ to Actually Go And Live That Dream. Many people speak a vague smattering of German/French/Spanish, and they once cooked an omelet and changed a bed, so hey, why not start a B&B in and old chateau…And then the TV programmes started, following these people…And all of the land gathers on the couch every Sunday evening…for a round of unadulterated SCHADENFREUDE… Because oh boy…The chateau wasn’t abandoned for nothing, it was crumbling, the plumbing didn’t work, the cesspit overflows, it’s alwyas raining, the locals hate you or try to fleece you, there are no guests for your B&B, your marriage isn’t strong enough for the stress of living in a caravan next to a building-site for 3 years…etc.etc. It does work out sometimes, of course, but that’s not what we switched on the telly for 😉 Mostly it’s only the children who are really happy at their new French/German/Spanish school.
ahh!! every year when we watch the Tour my mom sees the beautiful chateus and whispers ‘that’s my house.’ I feel your dream!!
Oh man, restoration stories. I’m obsessed with restoration blogs of old houses. Some of them list prices, or at least do an estimate of prices too, if you hunt around.
My partner and I bought an 1870s wreck at the end of last year and have been working on restoring it and blogging about it along the way. It’s… a lot of work, but hopefully it’ll all be worth it in the end.
We’re actually a lot further along than the blog makes it look, but strangely all-encompassing DIY makes it hard to get excited about blogging 😛
/selfpimp
Oh, hello, I have found what I will be doing all morning! (Hint: reading every entry of this blog.)
Helene in Paris: serial killer, or sociopath?
To be fair to Helene, the average Parisians is capable of hosting upwards of eight dozen personality simulations in their brain. The urban population of ~10.5 million listed in the almanacs represents less than a million actual bodies.
I’m going with cannibal and/or taxidermist.
No, just a garden-variety asshole who thinks they have the right to tell someone they’re grieving incorrectly.
I have literally never been to a restaurant where my menu had no prices. Is this, perhaps, a sign that I have never been to a super-posh restaurant?
(I have never been to a super-posh restaurant).
I wonder. What do this restaurants do when a woman dines alone? Or dines with another woman, or a group of women? Or it it silly of me to assume that a woman would EVER go to a public place without a man.
Why am I so annoyed by this Ladies Menu concept? It’s not exactly the worst sexist bullshit ever and it’s unlikely to be one I ever face.
Oh it’s so frustrating. I assume if two women dine alone, they just give them both menus with prices, as it’s not “clear” which one is the host. (Cue my grumbling about the assumption that the man is always the host.)
If two women dine alone the server is obligated to propose to them. Simultaneously, if need be. There must be a man to pay.
Ahhhh, now I’m reminded of that oversharing waiter who wanted to marry my mother so he could adopt me (I was eight). Creeped. Me. Right. Out.
It’s annoying because of how grossly illogical it is for all the reasons you listed. IT’S 2014 and women are still needing to be “taken care of” by men, according to whatever infuriating restaurant this is.
(Also, while I’m at it, I’d like taxes included on menu prices, thanks)
This has also never happened to me in any nice restaurant in Chicago I’ve dined at- I think people here would be really, really pissed if something like this happened. Is this more common in Europe?
I think it’s only the really high-end, French-influenced restaurants that still do it, and it’s definitely dying out. The only time I’ve encountered it is that restaurant in Greece, though I know people who’ve seen it at fancy restaurants in New Orleans.
I was at the Parker House in Boston a few years ago and I ended up with a Ladies Menu. It was infuriating.
I can’t imagine any of the nice restaurants in the UK I know of doing it – but I’ve never eaten at them. The nicest restaurant I’ve eaten at is The Last, which is at the low end of ‘nice restaurant’. But most restaurants I know openly advertise their prices outside their establishment or on their website, so having separate menus doesn’t really make sense.
This is an article we link to in our piece, that lists a few places in London that do it! (Or at least did in 2010) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-…
Ah, well, LONDON. It may as well be a foreign country. They do things strange there, Jaya.
LONDON isn’t REALLY ‘The UK’. It is an outside place, with it’s own customs. Londoners do not willingly travel outside of the city limits except on holiday. They cannot be expected to understand logic and sense.
/Blatant anti-londoner prejudice
I wonder, should I go to these restaurants just so I can get very angry and then storm out, or would I end up having some sort of rage-stroke?
When I was in St. Petersburg (Russia not Florida), I treated a male friend of mine to dinner. I don’t recall if I received a ‘lady’s menu’ but I definitely had the same experience that Tracy MacLeod had in Jaya’s post. The waitress came over, handed my friend the bill, he handed me the bill in front of the waitress, I put my credit card in the bill in front of the waitress and handed it back to her, then the waitress returned and gave my friend my credit card and the receipt to sign. She also asked him what I was having when we ordered, to which he of course replied “Не имею ни малейшего представления.” (“I haven’t the slightest idea.”)
I’ve been to a few that had no prices at all (and if you had to ask… well you know), but yeah having a special redacted-information menu you hand out just to some customers is some whites-only water fountain shit.
I’ve been to a couple “posh” restaurants in London now, and none of them pulled this kind of bullshit. In fact, after I had made a booking for my husband’s birthday (and I had said so much in the reservation I made online), the staff addressed me as the host and when he went to the loo, told me they would comp a round of drinks for us since it was his bday. It was fucking rad and I felt power (I started this comment before reading the linked Independent piece, and it was, incidentally, the Covent Garden Hawksmoor, mentioned in the article, where they made sustained host eye contact with me.)
also can I get a wha-wha about what a grade-A ass that dude restaurant critic is in the article?? Ugh, someone needs a punch in the teeth.
Oh, that piece by the dad about his son.
I went to boarding school, then overseas, then lived away from home while at uni and changed address often, so much of my ‘official’ type mail would go to my parents’ address, where my mum would collect it (along with other interesting tidbits from the paper she thought I might like) and then give it to me in a big bundle when we saw each other.
I can just imagine that feeling of wanting to hold onto all those things of his son’s. I can so imagine it.
My US mailing address is still my parents’ house, so. Man.
There is a scene in Blue by Kieslowski, in which Juliette Binoche finds a blue lollipop of her (deceased) daughter’s in her purse, and frantically rips off the wrapper and chews it up, as if that will somehow bring her back.
Aaaaand now I’m tearing up just thinking about it and typing this.
But seriously, if you haven’t seen the Blue/White/Red trilogy, get on it because it is AMAZING.
I have indeed seen them! But it was like… 15 years ago. Obviously I need to rewatch them, because I do not remember that scene at all. Hmm.
(I’m still not used to the fact that I’m at the age where I can say ’15 years ago’ and it seems like no time at all.)
Every once in a while, we will receive a piece of mail addressed to my dad. He’s been dead 25 years.
I am in a somewhat transitory period of my life and don’t know where I am going to have permanent residence next, so all of my ‘official’ mail goes to my parents’ as well. They leave it in a pile on my place at the table, unless it’s a package, which will go into my old bedroom.
I can so understand that.
I may never sleep again after those nightmare-photos.
Yeah, purposely not clicking that link, even though I’m SO curious.
Don’t do it!
THEY ARE SO GOOD AND SO TERRIFYING
The Santa mask one on the stairs stopped me in my tracks.
Oh man, the menacing, gnomic ascent of the stairs…
That and the Chair Man made me go all wide-eyed. It’s like he just woke up to being a chair.
It was the chair one for me. Horribly (and wonderfully) visceral and haunting. What a fantastic (and terrifying!) series of photographs.
But the tuxedoed/wedding gowned individual looks baller.
Also, only tangentially unrelated to anything above (other than inspired by my seething hatred of Ladies’ Menus/growing misandry)… I was hanging out with two dude coworkers this weekend who kept using gay as a pejorative.
EVEN AFTER I called them out on it and asked them to stop. Even after I pointed out that we were going to a very LGBT-filled and friendly party where probably at least half the people are queer.
“Oh, of course we won’t say it then!”, they said. THEN WHY SAY IT EVER??
I went to an otherwise wonderful board game night on Friday where one of the attendees said, “I really raped you guys” re: his military strategy. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with him saying that and that it wasn’t okay, but I don’t think he got it. 🙁
I just got back from vacation, to visit my former roomie in Denver. She moved there with a coworker (we all used to work at the same place) and he’s this ex-frat-guy-hungering for his glory days and even on his best days he’s…kind of a trying personality.
ANYWAY, he used the word tr***** (slur for transgender, I don’t wanna type it out) and, because I’d just assumed he was ignorant, I very calmly just pointed out that it’s a slur, and it’s offensive, and don’t use it. And then, smug smarmy bastard that he is, he was all “Who is it offensive to?” And I was like “Uh, transgender people, obviously.” And he was like “No, it’s not! It’s just a abbreviation, like ‘homo’ for homosexual.” And I actually did the whole pinching-the-bridge-of-your-nose-with-frustration-and-barely-contained-rage and then just calmly and flatly explained, over and over, that it was offensive and that he should not say it unless he wants to be a dickhead of the highest order.
The room was silent and looking at me like I was the hated Fun Police after about five minutes, but in the end he finally muttered something like, “Fine, now I know better.”
I mean, it was probably just to get me to shut up about it but — HA. That’s right, Fratty McFraterson. Now you know better. Now if we could just get you to stop talking generally and forever.
Housework is the last frontier. My husband loved to say that he did 50%, but we all know better. Then after I became disabled and was no longer able to do most chores, he discovered that he had really only been doing 30%, maybe less, and there was a LOT more to running a house than met the “male” eye. Men haven’t been trained and guilted since childhood of how to manage weekly meals and laundry and cleaning and all of the thousand things that women do every day. So when they suddenly actually have to DO them, IT IS A CRISIS, we need to hire help. And that’s how we hired a cleaning service
I’ve even noticed these dynamics when living (platonically) with male roommates. I’ve had to educate them about what keeping a house clean means, and how to fairly distribute that labor. And like, it’s cool that they eventually took on some of the cleaning/housekeeping tasks, but I was still the one who had to sit everyone down for that conversation and then manage everything from then on.
YEAH, this “Captain” thing that’s mentioned in the piece, that you’re still the one holding the bag to disperse tasks, or the only one who is capable of looking after the kid while still accomplishing other things, like, say, closing cupboards or loading the dishwasher.
When I was living with a (platonic, but close) friend, I had to tell him that yes, one must clean one’s shower sometimes, even though they are what keep US clean.
I still cringe when I see him sometimes because of this.
Yep, totally. The Handsome Sidekick is lovely but his mother and grandmother did ALL the housework. Over 17 years of living together, we’ve worked out some kind of system but I still do more. Our sons, however? They are going to be able to cook, use a washing machine and clean the toilet AS A MINIMUM.
Step 1: Knowledge of how to cook, wash, and clean. Step 2: Implement cooking, washing, and cleaning regimen so they begin to do it of their own volition. Step 3: Bask in the glory of a house cleaned by male minions, as is your right.
My attitude is that since I’m the only one in the household with a paying job, and there are two guys at home doing I have no idea what, they can do the housework.
My mother white-gloves the undusted stereo and stares at me. I stare right back.
It’s gotten to the point in my house now that my teenage son fusses at me for leaving bits of trash (open tea packets or used napkins) next to the sink, instead of throwing them away. He gets snide about us not clearing our dishes out of the living room, and has this delightfully pissed-off huff that comes out whenever he sees the sofa cushions about to fall off the sofa.
It makes the basking phase a little more difficult, because I’m being nagged, but I do so love living in a house of male minions.
My parents have been retired for 15 years and still have a housekeeper. My mother informs me it’s so that she doesn’t slaughter my father for not doing shit.
I’m so thankful that that hasn’t been my experience. Right now I’m working and my husband’s just finished a graduate degree, so he’s still at home full-time–and he washes the dishes, dusts, vacuums, cleans his own bathroom (so I don’t have to do it, he says, and can I just say having separate bathrooms is the best) and generally keeps things nice and tidy. If I text him that I’m not feeling like cooking, he does it. I have no clue what alien planet he came from because his mother was one of those types who’d rather do it herself than have someone else screw it up (so was my mom). Apparently this annoyed him so much he made his room his own domain, and that’s extended to his apartments (always neat as a pin, as opposed to mine) and our home. IT’S AWESOME
My husband and I were both raised by stay-at-home dads who did the majority of the housework. And we still have domestic squabbles over chores.
I am able to accept that I will be the one who cleans the bathroom/kitchen the most, if he accepts that the brunt of grocery shopping/laundry will always fall on him.
That’s pretty much our split. He also does vacuuming and the dishwasher. I do planning (e.g. vacations!), he does execution (e.g. phone calls and appointments and dealing with the cable company).
I also cheated by being in grad school for the first three years we lived together, so he pretty much had to do the house husbanding if we were going to eat/ have clean clothes/ not live in filth. I don’t know how he turned into a competent adult human since every time we visit his parents they don’t let us lift a finger, but here we are.
Is…is My Struggle really that good? It seems so long. And it’s about a dude! Which is fine, but is it about anyone else?
In related news, I’m reading a book by a man about a man, and in 70 pages he’s had three conversations (it’s mostly just hanging out inside his head as he reacts to things so far) and there’s only one female character in the book. A very cool, interesting female character, but grrr. The book is a fun read but those facts leave me a little depressed.
I think the length of time between when My Struggle* became a A Thing everyone was talking about and this critique of its apparent old-fashioned misogyny-as-homophobia fuckery is a good indication of how many people actually finished it.
*HOW IS IT CALLED THIS. HOW
The title is so incomprehensible that when I first heard of the book I actually googled “Kampf” because I thought I must be somehow misremembering the translation, because surely…
Some poor assistant: “Wasn’t there another autobiography called Mein Kampf written in a repetitive, self-obsessed style that took Europe by…um, storm?”
Genius publisher: “we’ll get the cross-over audience. GO WITH IT.”
I do like to imagine there are a few disappointed Neo-Nazis with ill-chosen reading material, though.
I can’t imagine the torrent of negative reviews this book would receive if it was written by a woman. It would probably never get published in the first place.
“If you feel really hostile bring up the sex life of spiders.”
Sound advice.
And the rest!
“…all women have employed the same psychological mechanisms to survive’ admiring the oppressor, glorifying the oppressor, wanting to be like the oppressor, wanting the oppressor to like them, mostly because the oppressor held all the power.”
And giiiirl, it won’t make them like or respect you so forget that idea right now.
I had a new experience the other day – being street harassed by boys who were younger than I am. I say “boys” because they could not have been older than 16, and as a lady in her mid-20s I didn’t feel comfortable doing my usual spew-vulgarities-if-you-feel-safe-enough because, minors. It was so strange & distressing, because they were on a stoop next to my laundromat so I had to pass by them several times. I really didn’t know how to handle it!
I once got hit on by a 12-year-old in a nightclub on the Aegean coast. I could not do anything but gape at him because WHY WAS THERE A 12-YEAR-OLD IN THE CLUB
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
I have a brother around that age, so I’d probably give them a scolding. “Why are you speaking to me this way? It is very rude and makes me very uncomfortable. If you’re saying it to seem cool, it’s not working.”
16 year olds are little shits and I could imagine them doing the whole smug “you’re not the boss of me” routine and then I would want to punch them.
Having been in pushy and poking fights with my little brother when I was younger, this is usually how it goes.
If they’re old enough to catcall I think they’ve heard the word ‘fuck’ before.
“Mommy, what does ‘asshole’ mean? I was telling some lady to show us her tits and she started yelling it a lot and I’m confused.”
The younger ones are the worst. Women’s sports teams at my old high school couldn’t practice along one side of the building because of all the freshmen who would run to the windows and make the cunnilingus face.
I had a bunch of young boys (probably not older than 13) harassing me on the Metro a few months ago, making snide fat jokes and calling me a bitch. I ignored them entirely, partly because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of a reaction but mainly because I knew I was stuck on the train with them for a few more stops and I didn’t feel like dealing with the potential escalation of the situation.
I’m still really mad about it though because I kind of wish I had said something (though I still haven’t figured out what) and I still think about it/worry about encountering them again every day as I get on the train to go home from work (so far I haven’t seen them again).
When I was in college I got taken out for dinner by a family friend who was coming through town. She was old enough to be my mother and the server was so confused about who to give the bill to, haha.
I detested the tiny wheels, first of all because they were feminine, thus not worthy of a man, a man should carry, not roll.
You know, I travel a lot for work, and when I see I guy carrying a suitcase in the terminal, I don’t think, Oh, how manly, I think Oh, what a total doofus, he’s going to hurt his back.
It’s like dudes who wear shorts and t-shirts and sandals when it’s 50 degrees out (and are always in their teens/20s). I just want to shout at them, “No one thinks you’re a badass for dressing like that in this weather. NO ONE. Literally every single person who sees you thinks you’re a moron. Put on a fucking jacket.”
Do they even make non-wheeled suitcases any more? I work in retail and I’ve never seen any in our store.
I tried imagining what I would do if I was at a restaurant with Ladies’ Menus, and just thinking about it made me overwhelmed with rage. I would like to think that I would demand to see the manager, kick up a huge fuss and then storm out, but I suspect that if I were abroad I’d be too awkward to actually do anything.
(I loathe it when waiters automatically give the bill to my boyfriend, although this happens fairly infrequently. Or when they assume that the vegetarian meal must be for me and the meat one for him.)
Pretty much every restaurant I go to has their servers put the bill squarely in the center of the table. I think this means I make good choices about where to hang out.
Automatic female vegetarian assumption is still pervasive. Or assuming the beer is for him and the lemon drop is for me.
One time when I went for lunch with a male friend they simultaneously gave the bill to him and complimentary chocolates to me.
I just cannot stop thinking “You know who else wrote a book called ‘My Struggle’…”
I know! Why would you name your book that!
There is basically no possibility that’s a coincidence, though, is there.
They changed the title for the German translation, for Obvious Reasons.
THANK YOU! I stared at that title the entire time I was in line at the bookstore, trying to decide if I was translating wrong or if someone had really named their book Mein Kampf. (What happens to the German translation? They have to change it, right?)
Lol someone asked for it using Mein Kampf–like he said “Mein Kampf by Knausgaard”–and I just gave him the most blatant “what the fuck” face
I was sort of meh on that chateau story until I saw they found a SECRET TUNNEL.
I watched the game yesterday intersparsed with America’s Test Kitchen (visiting my parents over the weekend and father CANNOT MISS his PBS cooking shows) and I kept wanting to see the Toast version of Chris Kimball instead.
I don’t think I will ever eat somewhere that gives me a ladies’ menu, but by god if I do, I am setting it on fire in front of everyone.
THAT’S why there are candles at the tables! Everything makes sense now.
The fact that anyone pays the slightest attention to Karl Ove and that anyone not related to him has read his book makes me despair for humanity. The patriarchy will never die. N.B., I have not read his book (nor will I ever), but the concept of it, just the title of it, along with Ove’s whole image, should have been enough for it to be rejected out of hand. In a just world.
I just can’t get past the fact that a woman would never ever ever get away with this shit. Can you imagine the reaction if a WOMAN dared to publish a rambling multivolume work about the minutia of her life, “her struggle” to create art while having a family, etc.? People would call her a narcissistic self-involved bad mother and would wonder why she thought anyone would be interested in her banal existence. But Knausgaard is a hero and a literary sensation! UGH makes me so angry.
I am pissed at myself that I think his face is attractive, but that’s because I like men who look like Sirius Black
I was a waitress in a country club during college, and the rule was that only the “member” [almost always male] receive the menu with the prices; the spouse and any guests received unmarked menus. They were called “guest” menus though (not that changing the name makes the purpose any better).
Misandry victory update: Last night my boyfriend informed me that he was DVRing a Woody Allen movie. I silently glared at him until he came to the brilliant realization that he should cancel the recording.
I went to the movies yesterday and there was a preview for Woody’s latest. It didn’t say it was a Woody Allen film until the very end, and I thought the movie looked great, but then his name came on-screen and I groaned loudly and rolled my eyes. My husband giggled and we sat there in the shared knowledge that we would never see that movie.
I hope to have my man friend as well trained some day. I’ve broken him of his love for R Kelly, so there is hope.
Is the men’s equivalent to the ladies menu just called a ‘mens menu’ as that is so stupid.
(though not as stupid as a lady’s menu)
Its a mensu
A proper men’s menu, to be appropriately offensive, should just assume that all men are cave-dwelling neanderthals and only describe the dishes offered in the most oblique of terms:
STEAK MEAT ….$15
REALLY BIG STEAK …$27
STEAK, NOT SO BIG …$19
CHICKEN …$12
BUBBLY CHEESE THING …$10
GREEN…STUFF —$9
FISH, PROBABLY TUNA …$13
Actually, it probably shouldn’t have priced listed either. A real man eats what he wants, cost be damned.
Only tangentially related: sometimes people who are new to roller derby say “there’s no crying in roller derby” and I take great satisfaction in correcting them. There’s all kinds of crying in roller derby, and I feel really grateful to be involved in a sport where we can do things like brag about how strong we are and the hits we can give and take, but also where it’s okay to cry if things are sad or frustrating and no one makes a big deal out of it. You cry, you acknowledge that your feelings are valid but do not define you, and then you try again, or whatever it is, and it’s great.
Yeah, I really wish “there’s no crying in x” had never become A Thing.
Thanks for linking to the Hillsborough excerpt – I’m pretty sure I almost cried when I read Among the Thugs a few years ago and got to that part.
I’m torn between annoyance that that Babysitters Club Billfold piece doesn’t conform to this headcanon and sadness that there’s no article for Dawn.
I’m so tempted to copy out that Politics of Housework essay on the WALLS OF MY HOUSE so my bf can see it at all times when he’s ignoring the litter box or dishes or whatever else.
My husband and I were both raised by stay-at-home dads who did the majority of the housework. And we still have domestic squabbles over chores.
I am able to accept that I will be the one who cleans the bathroom/kitchen the most, if he accepts that the brunt of grocery shopping/laundry will always fall on him.
Oh hi! My deepest condolences.
That is amazing.
“1. Remember: He is feeling it more than you. He’s losing some leisure and you’re gaining it. The measure of your oppression is his resistance.”
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
the measure of your oppression is his resistance
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
This article is so fucking crucial, how can we make every man in the world read it. I think it might even help because it PARTIALLY resonated because I have managed, in my life, to be An Unclean Person. like a disgusting human being. I just totally avoided whatever guilt/training that is supposed to be imparted to all women, so I am, in a sense, A MAN that way.
I’ve definitely lived with a couple platonic male roommates and I like to think I taught them A THING OR TWO about the “don’t even care, if you want it done, you do it oftener and I’ll do it never” trick. My last roommate left me a note a few days before I told him I was moving out and it included a list of all the things I should clean. I’m even more glad now that I read that and went, “Hahahaha. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that.” Also now me and my female roommate are looking for a third roommate and I will say that maybe 50% of men find NOTHING WRONG with saying “I want to live with women because they are cleaner than guys, haha” (always the haha, or lol.) then my roommate asks, “Do you think he sounds like someone who wants it to be clean without having to do the cleaning himself” and I say “YES DUH OF COURSE ALWAYS MEN ARE SCUM” Also we occasionally get something like “I actually really like to clean, I’m just weird that way lol”. Guess what percentage of the time that person is male? #craigslistpatriarchyresearchpaper
ANYWAYS so my advice (as An Unclean Person) for that is: be a gross person (sorry, Jolie, someone has to do it) and never let A MAN get it into his head that you will be doing this work. It’s very, very helpful to be able to not be bothered by gross living quarters. I know you think you can’t stand it – he doesn’t like it either. Not unless he is a genuinely unhygienic person, in which case, ew, get rid of him. Honestly, if he makes Comments, it’s a good sign – he’s noticing it. Do not under any circumstances let his comments affect you or how often you clean – his words are nothing to you – but note them, be pleased – you can work with This Man. It’s important to start off on the right foot to avoid setting yourself up as the authority. Never criticize his folding or cleaning or cleaning products – You know nothing about cleaning; you’ve never done it. You are an alien to this world of cleaning. Ask questions, be genuinely curious – how do you think I should clean this thing? I HAVE NO IDEA I NEED YOU. Never, ever, ever spontaneously do this work. If you must do this work, do it in his presence so he is at the very least aware of your doing it, or, if you are in a relationship with this man, it is taking up your together time, time he’d like to be hanging out with you, optimally. If he is standing near you, hoping you pay attention to him, give him some task to do. If something must be done by you, alone, without him, mention it being on your to-do list for several days before you do it, and keep him up to date on all happenings. This way he shares the burden without it being his responsibility – you are just sharing with him. “UGH I have to laundry today” “UGH I didn’t get it done yesterday I have to do it tomorrow” “UGH SO BUSY maybe this weekend” “OH NO my laundry machine broke OH GOD WHY” “OKAY so now it is fixed but my pile of laundry is ONE MILE HIGH I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO IT ALL.”
I left London every week for piano lessons because my part of London was much closer to Kent. I was born and raised in the outer boroughs, and going "into Central", as my Croydonian friends said, or "into the city", as my parents put it (nai muang), was a very different experience to just cotching in our ends.
Later I'd learn about the City of London, the Square Mile, is the centre that radiates weirdness. The amount of people who actually live there is relatively small as it's only really where absurd businesspeople jostle about with their ambitions during the day, and you get streets named Pudding, Poultry, and Mincing.
Good on you!
Seriously, that 'IT'S JUST SHORT FOR _____' is rubbish. RUBBISH. Like that post making its rounds on the blogosphere about how "pussy" is short for "pusillanimous" so oversensitive feminists are just getting all offended over nothing. The dusty, forgotten origins of a word don't trump its current associations (in your example, the degradation of trans folk, especially trans women; in my example, vaginas/gendered organs and behaviour).
It's disingenuous. I mean, what do people REALLY understand when you use a word? Why did you choose that word over others? People who are like 'No you're not allowed to be the fun & language police, you should laugh at my words only,' should take a moment to stand quietly in the corner for a very long time.
I agree. My dude partner, while he is wonderful and fetches me tea in bed at the weekend, he… he doesn't "see" dirt, but enjoys having a clean place. At first he said I was "shaming" him for not doing housework.
It was hard going to establish a system which worked. Because I only work part time outside the home and then spend the rest of the time writing, I don't actually mind doing most. But even then, there's a limit, and my therapist was very firm in getting me to recognise that it's about respect.
Oh, god. Meet his thought-cousin, the dude who complainingly wondered why we have to wash towels.