I was leafing through the February 18, 2008 Newsweek at the optometrist’s office and found this article: “How to Train a Husband.” Subtitle: “Want an obedient spouse? A new book says you should coach them like animals.”

Having not much else to do while I was waiting for my son, I decided to play with this a while, and switch around all the gender words as I read, starting with the title:

“How to Train a Wife: Want an obedient spouse? A new book says you should coach them like animals.” (Wow! Much more arresting.)

Paragraph one: “…Sutherland, a journalist who spent a year at an animal-trainer school and decided to apply the trainers’ techniques to [his wife’s] annoying habits.”

The article cites a current BBC reality show called “Bring Your Husband to Heel,” in which a dog trainer teaches women how to make their husbands sit and stay. I wonder how that would play if we snapped the leash (or “lead”) on the wife rather than the hubby.

I don’t know what goes on in the inner sanctum of publishing, but I’ll bet my revised version of this Newsweek article — even presented as tongue-in-cheek — would be dead in the water if I pitched it to an Editor. I know that partly from hanging around the greeting card section of CVS, where you will find “stupid husband” cards but no “stupid wife” cards. And I know it partly from just being alive in a century and a country where there are carefully enforced, unstated double-standard gender-bashing rules.

Who knew that women wait longer for their coffee than men do?  This article seems to know why, but I’m not convinced.  DISCLOSURE: I think any coffee order that’s longer than three (really two) words is a very, very bad thing.  Anyone who orders something with more than three or four words deserves to sit in a waiting room until they’ve paid penance for being out of control.

In “The Feminine Critique,” Lisa Belkin writes about the paradox of contemporary femininity:

Don’t get angry. But do take charge. Be nice. But not too nice. Speak up. But don’t seem like you talk too much. Never, ever dress sexy. Make sure to inspire your colleagues - unless you work in Norway, in which case, focus on delegating instead […] How are we supposed to be assertive, but not, at the same time?

The article asks the question, “[W]hy, 30 years after women entered the work force in large numbers, the default mental image of a leader is still male.”  Hmm. 

…is the title of an LA Times column about the new book, The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America by Susan Faludi, who seems to think the answer is yes.  The book argues that 9/11 led to a return to “traditional values and gender roles” (what the word traditional means, I’m not sure).

(more…)

“Men make decisions; women make dinner” — a reporter’s summary of the philosophy behind the homemaking program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dorothy Patterson, Professor of Theology in Women’s Studies, calls the summary “ludicrous” and gives another based on her own marriage: “I am his helper, and he is the leader in our home.”

Women pursuing a B.A. in humanities may choose a homemaking concentration, devoting 21 of 129 credit hours to homemaking courses. The concentration is one of four, and its eight students still have to take classes in Bible, theology, Greek or Latin, and history. The students will also use cooking and laundry labs to learn about nutrition, clothing design and clothing care. Patterson told WoW the classes affirm “the value of a homemaker,” but they also impart useful skills to missionaries or to women who never learned how to run a home.

Patterson said when God created Adam first, He decided “the man would be the leader in the home and the one who has that ultimate responsibility, and the woman would be the one who helps him in the task.” Patterson said this doesn’t imply inferiority: “It takes initiative to be a helper. It takes commitment to be a helper. I think it takes intelligence to be a helper.”

Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, author of Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality, told WoW that while both men and women should know how to manage a home, “homemaking is not an academic discipline.” Groothuis said she disagrees with the “ideology of gender inequality” behind the program: “Jesus commended Mary for her zeal to learn God’s Word and did not urge her to become more domestic. But Jesus did make sure that Martha understood theology.”

Patterson said the woman was “created in the image of God, like the man,” but she has “a function distinct from the man.” Groothuis said if women’s purpose is to serve men and men have decision-making authority over women, then it “logically entails that women are not equal but are necessarily and intrinsically inferior to men.”