Who cares about what's on the flip side?

"Reply All" varies between "Sex in the City" self-indulgence and sudden genuine insights, the saving grace for the former being that the vapidity is mocked, if not with self-loathing, at least with some pleasant sarcasm and a sense that shallowness is not a virtue.

As for the latter, Lizzie's conversations with her mother are an interesting bridge across generations. Sometimes it's as simple as trying to explain technology to someone impervious to technology, but that's insightful in itself, because it breaks from the "women don't get it" comic strip stereotype.

It's about generations, not X-chromosomes.

And today's conversation contains entire universes.

Starting with the whole issue of gender-turf issues. I know a lot of men who are at least equal cooks, if not the main cook, in their families, but there's no lack of condescending tut-tutting from old-style women on this one.

In fact, there are old-style women who have turf issues with the entire home-and-hearth and not only refer to "my kitchen" but "my house," at least in conversations that don't include "my husband." And, as Lizzie suggests, they find themselves conflicted in the modern world because they want help with household chores but are not willing to concede any territory in the process.

My own insights on this, by the way, come from spending several years in an office setting surrounded by women, which sounds nice but finally required me to threaten that, if they didn't stop cranking up the heat, I was going to start coming to work in a sleeveless T-shirt. Which provoked horrified giggles from the younger heat-crankers but made the point.

Meanwhile, the over-40 women seemed to spend most of the day complaining about their husbands, which baffled me. I understand, intellectually, that there is a venting-and-sharing factor, but, from a male viewpoint, it seemed both incredibly disloyal and pathetically desperate:  a man wouldn't complain about his wife like that until he was at the end of his rope, and then only to one friend in an isolated setting. He wouldn't go on and on about it to all listeners in an open room.

If you're that unhappy, pack your things and go. If you're not, then quit putting your man down in front of others. Geez-louise, show a little class.

But it seemed to be generational: The younger women who bitched about their significant others for more than a day or two at a time would shortly thereafter either tearfully or matter-of-factly announce the departure of the wretch.

They also did not seem to think that the male of the species was supposed to pitch in with "their" work. I think they assumed that it was everybody's house, everybody's kitchen, everybody's chores, and they could as likely be found on a stepladder cleaning out the gutters as standing below it ordering someone with a Y-chromosome to perform the task. Similarly, they would cede the washing of the dishes without delivering a lecture on exactly how it should be done.

But here's the second part of all this: Lizzie's mom is right. There's no particular connection between a sense of ownership and a compulsion for cleanliness and order.

I know men who can't function with anything out of order, and whose turf -- whether it is just a toolbench or a full share of the kitchen -- has to be just so, and who can either make it seem perfectly normal (which is fine) or be pretty damned annoying about it (which is not).

Neat freaks of either sex have a sometimes toxic tendency to mistake an obsession with order for a sign of character. Some express it in a passive-aggressive manner, some are more direct, but they can be awful bullies either way and who needs it?

 

Like Schrevie's wife, I don't give a shit. I just want to hear the music, that's all. 

For my part, I never see what my place looks like except at odd intervals when I will have a sudden moment of clarity, at which point I am horrified to realize that my apartment looks like some very angry people have been searching it in a hurry for an extremely valuable bit of microfilm that could have been hidden anywhere.

However, there is no woman here complaining to her friends that I just sit around waiting for her to straighten it all up, and that I expect her to be my maid.

And, no, I don't think it's just going to clean itself up. I doubt anything is going to clean it up.

If I cared, I guess I would. But I don't.

Jeez.

You shouldn't take it so personal.

I

 

Comments

[woodenmask]

Truth to power, Brother.

I wrote about this last year, in the context of my classroom:

http://teachertoys.weebly.com/1/post/2011/05/sponges.html

[Mike Peterson]

Oh, my, yes.

I knew her, and I knew that kid.

[phred]

"my apartment looks like some very angry people have been searching it in a hurry for an extremely valuable bit of microfilm that could have been hidden anywhere"

I don't know which hurts more: my muscles that ache from laughing to the point that I need my asthma inhaler, or the part of me that knows you've described my house exactly.

Even worse, my wife and I were married last month, and eventually we hope to live on the same side of the continent, ideally in the same house. She's probably going to move here, since we can live on my salary. How do I go about turning my house into our house? I'm going to have to do a lot of culling before she gets here. And rent a storage unit...

[Mike Peterson]

If she hasn't seen your place yet, you might find it easier to just set a few chairs in the storage unit ...

[Mark Jackson]

I feel I've benefited personally from women complaining about their husbands. Whenever Ellen comes home and mentions that so-and-so reports that her husband does something negative I encourage her to spend more time with so-and-so. My theory is that this makes me look better by comparison; it might not be correct but *something* has kept us together for 42 years.

[Sherwood Harrington]

There's a word in my vocabulary I'm going to change. Machiavellian henceforth will be Markiavellian.

[Mary in Ohio]

Uh - Phred, that was MY house he described. And I have a storage unit, too. Maybe we could all meet there for coffee?

Mike, I question your office experience with all women. I know the young ones cranked up the heat - some people have no insulating body fat! - but I can't imagine the women over 40+ weren't right behind them turning it down AND turning on the fans. And threatening to wear sleeveless blouses. All the young cashiers have on sweaters while I am standing at the counter with a tee shirt* on and a fan behind my desk.

*and appropriate other articles of clothing.

[Mike Peterson]

Oh, no. The older women had little heaters under their desks. I used to refer to one building -- news/production -- as the Mars building and the other -- advertising/circ -- as the Venus building.

[Dann]

Love it, Mike. The...whole...bleeding...thing.

I threatened to come in wearing a thong if they didn't stop screwing with the heat. I was carrying 40+ more pounds at the time.

Oddly, there were more sweaters in the office later in the week.