I’ll Take ‘What Is Always Unflattering’ For $500, Alex. Answer: What Is Women Without A Sense Of Humor
[guest post by Dana]
I don’t know about you, but I am spent. The news is so depressing that I thought along with my glass of wine and grilled skirt steak in a citrus marinade, some Friday amusement was in order.
Let’s go for the target rich: Some humorless women got their knickers in a twist this week because of an offensive Jeopardy! category: “What Women Want”. Female viewers pursed their lips in disbelief: Sexism!
• “Some help around the house; Would it kill you to get out the Bissell bagless canister one of these every once in a while?” (Answer: A vacuum cleaner.)
• “A few moments of quiet to do this, especially the one edited by Will Shortz in The New York Times.” (Answer: The crossword puzzle.)
• “Time to exercise; perhaps a class in this discipline named for founder Joseph, who initially called it Contrology.” (Answer: Pilates.)
• And: “A pair of jeans that fit well, like the 525s from this brand.” (Answer: Levi’s.)
An actress named Sophia Bush started the Twitter ball rolling:
.@Jeopardy? For a “smart” show, you just got srsly stupid RT @DJRumspringa: ARE YOU SERIOUS @Jeopardy?? pic.twitter.com/LEZcSw8K5A #SexismIsUgly
4:34 PM – 29 Sep 2014
This was followed by some pretty funny huffy tweets:
Hey @Jeopardy that “What Women Want” category was straight up sexist. A vacuum? Tea? Really? How about equal pay instead.
Seriously @Jeopardy?How about end to rape culture, equal lay, access to reproductive healthcare, not patronizing stereotypes #whatwomenwant
What women want is not to be married to a lazy immature dickhead that helps clean his own house and raise a family, not tea! #Whatwomenwant
And in case you don’t fully understand why this seemingly trivial issue matters in a BIG way:
But little shit matters, because stuff like this — how we reflexively think about gender when no one makes us think even a tiny bit harder — reveals our biases. It proves that many people don’t recognize that there ARE bigger issues for women than how they look, how tight their Pilates game is, or where the tea is, and that it even matters when you reduce them to such trivialities.
(Of course, no mention was made about the female obsession with looks, Pilates and well-fitting jeans. Not to mention the millions of dollars spent of securing the aforementioned.)
P.S. And for the record, I’ve never met any moderately-aged woman who is not on an ongoing quest to find that one perfect fitting pair of jeans. Myself included.
–Dana