Comments on: Reversing Gender Roles = Courting Family Disaster

By: Like Goldfish: The Sexual and Cultural Revolution in Ôoku, Vols. 3 & 4, Part 3 « The Lobster Dance

Wed, 18 May 2011 04:28:35 +0000

[...] Edo period, women are liberated, but many of the men become chattel. Before anyone assumes that the liberation of women leads to the repression of men, I would like to note the current dialogues about masculinity in [...]

By: Like Goldfish: The Sexual and Cultural Revolution in Ôoku, Vols. 3 & 4, Part 3 « The Lobster Dance

Sun, 15 May 2011 13:42:11 +0000

[...] Edo period, women are liberated, but many of the men become chattel. Before anyone assumes that the liberation of women leads to the repression of men, I would like to point to the current dialogues about masculinity in [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:22:19 +0000

wonder world isnt it . a womans’ place should and must be in the KITCHEN AND BABY SITTING besides others.

By: jenny

jenny — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:50:38 +0000

I am reading through the archives, and am SO GLAD that someone commented on the snorkel. You never see women wearing snorkels to change diapers, and I don’t think it’d be that different for a man.

By: BANTICHA

BANTICHA — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:28:55 +0000

this photo shoot is obviously true to what is hapening in some families, it is however unnatural for such complete change of roles. A man cannot give all the nuturing and other services children need in a home. Its purely a woman’s role.Occassional assistants with house hold chores is OK BUT NOT BABY SEATING.

By: Meg

Meg — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:02:28 +0000

Kate, comparing parents’ hair to kids’ hair doesn’t work like that. In my family, almost everybody has light blond hair when they’re young, and it changes to dark brown hair as they grow up. If you look at the kids in the photo, the oldest-looking child (the daughter) has the darkest hair of the three. I don’t pay much attention to glamor mags, and if they’re sending the message that *every* white family has this hair-color quirk, that’s obviously crap. But it’s hardly uncommon, either. It really sucked when people would imply that I was adopted or not my dad’s kid, just because my hair was the “wrong” color. That is not something little kids should have to hear.

By: Arroz Con Beans | Frivolous Bitch Mothers

Arroz Con Beans | Frivolous Bitch Mothers — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:41:52 +0000

[...] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/page/2/ and this http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/06/14/reversing-gender-roles-courting-family-disaster/ [...]

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:32:28 +0000

Why are the kids all blond? This has been getting to me the last few weeks – every catalouge I open has blond kids, whether or not the parents are. Because that’s what Good Kids look like, apparently.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:48:37 +0000

I wonder what the hell Bazaar was thinking.

Buy these products so you can be a bad mother too?

By: Umlud

Umlud — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:43:52 +0000

… or it could mean that a former actor on Law and Order doesn’t make a good stay-at-home father…

By: pffft

pffft — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:07:37 +0000

The criticism of Amber’s point–asking why, then, the gender roles are switched doesn’t really compute to me. Vogue photo spreads are about making the products look good, sexy, and appealing. It’s sort of a continuation of the ads.

And which is more glamorous… your model being an overworked, flustered Mom, or your model being a fantastically powerful businesswoman who has Mr. Big wrapped around her little finger?

By: Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:47:03 +0000

Two things I noticed and wondered about in the Park picture:

- there are ads circled in red on the front of his newspaper
- one kid is tethered to dad via a leash

As for the last, I think it’s just another “I can’t handle this crap!” scene setting like the other, frazzled pictures (but not ALL the kids are on leashes!).

The ads though, bug me. Combined with the frustrated look in every picture and her alleged disinterest, it seems like dad is job hunting in order to get out of this arrangement – whether it’s to cause mom to take more notice of the family and share the burden, or to be allowed to hire a nanny… I can’t decide.

Also, the snorkel idea is really stupid.

By: Marian

Marian — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:27:40 +0000

Eh, not sure how I feel about this. Honestly, part of me thinks it’s kind of stupid. I mean, how else is this supposed to look? A woman has a career and therefore is distant, aloof and a bad mother. A man stays at home and he is frazzled, incompetent and bad at the whole fatherhood thing. This can be interpreted in so many ways, most of which are mentioned here. People’s comments have been really smart and brought up some good points. That being said, was Bazaar really that smart? I kind of think not.
I’m pretty much just sick of the whole idea that career women make bad mothers. It’s not an old enough idea that it’s become funny. It’s a really difficult situation – a woman who has children but also wants her own career. And all Bazaar is doing, satire or not, is making a career look unappealing.
The BBC just did a documentary a few weeks ago called “The Trouble with Working Women”, not sure how I feel about that one either. The Glass Hammer wrote about it here:
http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2009/05/27/the-trouble-with-working-women/
Why can’t people just get over it?

By: littleblue

littleblue — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:39:45 +0000

The photo of the family at the park with the dad in some interaction with the two (not mothers) women is really interesting. Back when my daughter was very young, I loosely belonged to a mother’s group that was struggling what to do with a stay-at-home-father who wanted to join the group. I am 100% positive this gentleman was like every other woman in that group – isolated, bored to tears, and looking for a way to find playgroups, activities, and an outlet for his kid. But the women in the group were terrified he was pulling something. The group organized an anonymous vote to allow him in. The primary concern seemed to be that he would hit on them and try to start an affair.

In this particular photo, the father seems informally engaged with the other women. He could just be having a conversation, or maybe one of the perks of stay-at-home fathering is being (pleasantly?) outnumbered by women. The women themselves don’t seem to have children nearby. I guess the ultimate message is you – the male protaganist – will have multiple women falling all over you as an engaged father. Funny how that message is not the same if it’s an engaged mother with a disengaged, work-oriented spouse.

By: karak

karak — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:24:27 +0000

I see it as a sort of comeuppance. “Hey, honey? Remember all those years I, the mother of children, did all the housework while you got to play with technology and look awesome and be gently disengaged? Now, it’s YOUR turn.”