The “F” Word

Candidate BarbieIt is ironic that feminism has become the “F” word at the same time a woman is finally the frontrunner to become president.

Maybe there’s something in the air, some kind of 2007-meets-1955 pheromones being emitted from our plastic water bottles. I felt like I entered a retro time warp zone the other day.

I was addressing envelopes, which felt a bit retro to begin with, but apparently hand written envelopes get opened 67% more frequently than others do. One of the nonprofits I’m involved with sent out an appeal to all of the neighbors in specific zip codes. We got the addresses based on a title search, and lo and behold, about 93% of the homes have a man’s name listed as the sole owner.

Now I know that the majority of these million dollar plus homeowners are not single men; in fact, I know a lot of their wives. And I know that we have community property laws in California, which means that the wives actually do own half their homes, regardless of whether their name is on the deed. But still, why on earth wouldn’t you put the house in both partners’ names? Surely not all women have credit like mine.

I’m seeing some other disturbingly retro trends in the air.

According to the Boston Globe, “asking dad for her hand in marriage” is a hot trend among bridegrooms to be. Call me old-fashioned, but doesn’t this set the stage for the old “I’ll give you five goats, three porcupines and half an acre of rutabagas for your daughter” negotiation? What if the daughter doesn’t want to marry the guy? And if dad gets a vote in the son-in-law race, doesn’t mom have anything to say about it?

Maybe mom’s not there to negotiate her daughter’s chattel merger because she’s too busy redecorating. That seems to be the not-so-subtle-message with new toys like Hasbro’s Rose Petal Cottage, a pretend house where little girls can make their housewife fantasies come true.

I checked, and the cottage does not come with any bon-bons, red wine, or a masseuse named Sven. Where’s the housewife fantasy part?

The Rose Petal Cottage tag line is: “Where dreams have room to grow.” One of the commercials croons: “I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!”

More like a nightmare, nightmare, nightmare!

I don’t know what the elves at Hasbro were smoking when they came up with this idea, but maybe they were reading the Los Angeles Times, which recently did a story about the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s new program in holy homemaking. The “academic” homemaker major enrolls only women, and includes coursework on baking cookies, laundering and child rearing. I tease, but it turns out that the kind of women who enroll actually need the instruction–many had been rearing their laundry and baking children.

This is the kind of stuff that makes Brain Surgeon Barbie look like a feminist icon. Though I guess there’s some hope in the news that the “Barbie I Can Be” career series is being updated. Barbie’s new job opportunities include becoming a pet sitter, art teacher, ballet teacher, baby doctor, ocean trainer and a cake baker. Maybe she can bake us up a yummy smelling chocolate layer cake to counteract the scent of all this retro stuff in the air.

While she’d rather be eating bon bons and watching Grey’s Anatomy, than cleaning her house and baking cookies, Leslie’s computer is almost always on, and you can email her at email. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.
Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on October 19, 2007.

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