Damn skippy, Needs. I just pray other women don’t figure this one out.
Complete pop psychology bullshit follows (in my defense, this is often how I feel about it). Illness bothers menfolk more then physical pain, because there’s nothing we did that caused it, and very little we can do about it. I find the frustration miserable, and thus I whine. 'Course, I don’t inflict my whinyness on the woman in my life, as there ain’t no woman in my life. 
Sua
Poor Sua…I’d fix you up with a blankie, the remote, some chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches until you felt better. After all the car needs shocks, that downed limb in the back yard needs cutting up, and I want to rearrange the living room furniture this weekend. You can lift heavy things can’t you?
Needs2know
Sua said:
I know what you mean. I’m not a guy but I feel exactly the same. I’ll have my legs waxed, my tongue pierced, I’ll get tattoos, I’ll pluck my eyebrows, no problem. Sometimes, I’ll even (I am so wierd) enjoy the pain.
But if I get sick… I can’t do anything about it and I did nothing to deserve the pain, and I’m absolutely pathetic. I just don’t deserve it. Bring me tea! Fluff my pillow! I need a new book, this one sucks! Why don’t I have a laptop so I can stay in bed and still read SDMB? I am so miserable. Go to the pharmacy and bring me pills! More pills! I need pills!
Hmmm…I don’t follow the girly stereotype. Now for instance I have a cold/sniffles/sinus thing and a severe interal organ pain thing. I’m more upset about the sniffles. I want soup, I want steam, and I want my mommy. (She’ll call me a whiny brat and make me noodles.) Major pain? bah! I can handle that! Abdominal surgery or no, I’m fine. (I was too…except for the last two blocks of that walk when I started tearing stitches. Stupid doctors being right, wanting me in bed.Grumph.)
Anyway…time for me to go back to sleep.
I will act like a baby when I’m sick because it’s the only time I can get away with it, mostly because Wife is a whole lot WORSE. Jesus, she talks half the time about how she never gets sick, then is flat on her back the rest of the time. NOBODY is, or is allowed to be, as sick as she when she is sick—every cold is a near-death experience. I completely stopped taking her seriously years ago, just roll my eyes and plan my next cold.
Well,
If you look at television from the past you see shows like Father Know Best or Leave it to Beaver where you have a strong father figure who usually is in command of things. Not always but usually. Home Improvement had a dad that was almost totally worthless as he was incompetent at even fixing things. You also have shows like Little House on the Prarie and yes 7th Heaven where you have strong caring dads that can change a diaper and a flat tire (or broken wagon). The comedy shows have an incompetent boob as the main character so we can see how he will get out of this mess. (Spin City with MJF) So in comedy shows we get these inferior men. In family shows like 7th Heaven we get a good example of a dad.
There are many women I know that love to live the myth of the imcompetent man child. My sister-in-law and her husband have a 6 mo old and a 2 year old. She does not let him feed or change the children. (He can’t do it right) She dosen’t let him try. She dosen’t let him learn! She is convinced that he is incapable of doing these ‘woman’ tasks.
So if you treat someone like a baby and they act like a baby who is to blame?
FTR I don’t act like a baby when sick. Neither does Mrs. Zebra but she feels guilty for being sick which is crazy.
Well,
If you look at television from the past you see shows like Father Know Best or Leave it to Beaver where you have a strong father figure who usually is in command of things. Not always but usually. Home Improvement had a dad that was almost totally worthless as he was incompetent at even fixing things. You also have shows like Little House on the Prarie and yes 7th Heaven where you have strong caring dads that can change a diaper and a flat tire (or broken wagon). The comedy shows have an incompetent boob as the main character so we can see how he will get out of this mess. (Spin City with MJF) So in comedy shows we get these inferior men. In family shows like 7th Heaven we get a good example of a dad.
There are many women I know that love to live the myth of the imcompetent man child. My sister-in-law and her husband have a 6 mo old and a 2 year old. She does not let him feed or change the children. (He can’t do it right) She dosen’t let him try. She dosen’t let him learn! She is convinced that he is incapable of doing these ‘woman’ tasks.
So if you treat someone like a baby and they act like a baby who is to blame?
FTR I don’t act like a baby when sick. Neither does Mrs. Zebra but she feels guilty for being sick which is crazy.
Sometimes the male-bashiing (sorry, no other word for it) gets pretty blatant. I’ve noticed a few commercials where the guy hasn’t even done anything and the wife takes a cheap shot. The most outrageous is the Cheerios commercial with the little girl peppering Dad with questions while he’s getting ready for work. I mean, this guy’s a dream! Good provider, patient & loving father, nice sense of humor, then WHAM!! “Oh, Daddy used to eat not-such-good things before he met Mommy.” You stinking bitch, you don’t deserve a husband like this!
Fah, you guys will never be cooler than my mom – she spotted this ages ago. Remember “The Berenstein Bears?” I used to like the books (when I was very little, natch), but she would refuse to buy them for me because of the idiot man-child of a father who couldn’t do anything right. I don’t know that she was afraid it would damage my psyche; I think she just found it to be stupid and careless. She always hated simple, black-and-white morality tales to boot (especially when the moral seemed to be “always listen to your mother because your father is completely fucking useless”).
As for the whining, the only person I really know who turns into a little bitch when sick or hurt is my stepfather (and I mean that in the most loving way possible). Then he writes a script for some Vicodin and he stops whining, much to everyone’s relief.
trose: Actually, I always thought that line in the Cheerios commercial was a relatively subtle sexual innuendo. Perhaps Daddy used to have a predilection for oral sex with women of poor hygiene. I dunno.
Well, as for the whining when sick thing, I know exactly why it occurs in my house. When my husband gets sick, I bundle him all up in the best blankie in the house, get him medicine, make homemade chicken soup, and take care of him. Of course he’s going to whine! That’s just how we are together. I like to take care of him, he likes being taken care of.
GENERAL RANT- NOT AIMED AT A SPECIFIC PERSON AT ALL
I personally am embarassed for women who go around proclaiming that men could never withstand pregnancy or childbith, as though that suffering was a badge of courage. You know what? I’ll bet none of ya’ would like to have the near spinal fusion I had. Hurt like a motherfucker. Does that make me “stronger” or “more powerful”? I don’t think so. It’s like a guy saying “No woman could stand the pain of getting kicked in the balls like I can!”
I am also embarassed as a woman at the media portrayal of the “idiot man child”. What, men are so damned stupid that they can’t change diapers, fix things around the house, or figure out simple dilemmas? If they were making the same types of shows today about women being total incompetent idiots, there would be serious protests. Instead, a lot of women watch, laugh, and commiserate about it like “don’t we have it tough living with these idiots”. Well, I don’t think we do. I’m embarassed that for years women were treated like second class citizens in society and in the media, and now we exact revenge by enjoying watching men being treated the same way.
I personally have too much respect for my husband to talk him down to other people or stress his faults. I would hope he does the same for me.
Remember, stereotypes are bad. Women didn’t like it when it was done to us. (Too dumb to drive, work, become educated, join the military, etc) Don’t do it to others.
Zette
cripes, will I ever learn to preview??
near spinal fusion I had
should be
near total spinal fusion, as in nearly all of the spine fused.
Oh, thanks! At least now instead of pissing me off, that commercial will make me chuckle. And I’d hate to think eating Cheerios makes a guy give up eating, well …
::hurries to clear out cereal cupboard::
And your mom sounds really cool!
Zette? I think I love you
Now, then. I did respond in the Original Thread. Pisses me OFF. This isn’t really about portrayal in the media, it’s about societal perception, IMHO. I’m fucking 38 years old. I grew up to learn that men change diapers, AND catch their babies when they’re birthed, women become brain surgeons and race car drivers, and playing the gender card to the benefit OR detriment of a sex is a front-end loader full of shit.
And, I’ll re-assert my position from the Original Thread. I don’t GET Days Off With Pay. I work sick, and sometimes if mildly injured. I went to shoot a soap opera once a few years ago. I’d been up on and off all night with a nice flu. The high temp hit like 102.8. After a few hours bad sleep, I drove to the job, drank back some Theraflu and had myself a very mellow but productive day. Hardly fucked up at all The wife gets sick days, and is overall MUCH whinier about being sick. Everyone’s different, n’est pas?
Cartooniverse
someone sent me this URL today:
It combines every stupid stereotype about men into one handy guide. She sent it to all of her chick friends with the line “which idiot is your type?” or some such.
Teeming Millions, will you help me compose a fittingly nasty reply to her, her legion of bitter-yet-smug chick friends, and the person who created the site?
magdalene wrote:
The site itself is not so bad, though Matt Groenig could have done a lot more with the same material. I can easily see it being just a light-hearted bit of fun, and being read as such. The only problem I have with such things is that they tend to be popular with people who feel that they justify their own prejudices.
Does it bother anyone that in movies and TV, if a man says something a woman doesn’t like, she is correct to slap him hard across the face? Or, if she is annoyed at him, she can kick him in the groin? The woman is shown as responding to a statement she doesn’t like with physical violence, and is never reprimanded or criticized.
In life,if you get hit in the crotch, you don't just say 'Whoosh' and straighten up as though nothing happened.
I think women see this so much that they subconsciously think men don't feel pain and make good punching bags. If a Tv show aired where a woman smacked a man hard in the face for a comment,and he immediately slapped her back, there would be a thunderous barrage of phone calls and letters of protest.
Men have been taught for so long not to show pain or weakness, no matter what, that when they do admit to being sick, women are offended.This attitude that advertisers have taken towards men bugs me to no end.
Case in point; not to long ago on the airwaves there was this car ad, in which a guy and his girlfriend are walking down the street. they walk past this snazzy new car, and he cranes his neck to check it out, just as an attractive girl is walking past.
The girlfriend thinks (mistakenly) that the boyfriend is checking out the girl, and swats him one and starts to berrate him in the middle of the street.
This ad bugs me because so few people see what’s wrong with it. You switch the roles in this ad, and boy swats girl one for checking out another guy, then yells at her on sidewalk, this ad gets pulled from the air. But so long as the guy is taking the abuse, it’s * cute and funny and I should lighten up *
huh, huh, huh (catching breath after rant)
magda,
I would forward the e-mail to the offenders husband. See what kind of idiot he thinks he is 
But then, I’m evil.
Either that, or I would e-mail back to her that I didn’t marry an idiot, I married a wonderful man that loves and respects me and advise her to keep looking. (I would copy that mail to my husband)
One of the nicest things I hear all the time when I meet friends and business people that my husband deals with is “Oh! You’re Suzette! Allan talks about you all the time- he just adores you/respects you/loves you so much!”
I hear this frequently, and when it’s a woman saying it, it’s usually with a touch of scorn or envy. Maybe he talks that way because I do the same. ::shrug::
It works for us,
Zette