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If your husband is a knuckle-dragging oaf who can only please you with unsolicited vacuuming, what does that make you?
HANDCRAFTED FACSIMILE.
The male appendage is kind of goofy. Fair enough. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t call it a schlong. This one time, in the ski patrol hut, I saw one shaped into an interpretive sculpture of a squirrel riding a bicycle. But is appendage goofiness transferable? Is every dad and husband reduce-able to what we see on sitcoms? Does that not then reduce us to the shrill, lazy-thinking harpies we see on sitcoms?
Women who engage in such reduction make me want to trade in my vagina.
This isn’t meant to be some kind of denial. Some men leave the seat up. Some women get uppity about it. Others judge the goodness of their partners like you'd judge the goodness of a golden retriever. Doesn't piddle inappropriately -- check. Refrains from sniffing the crotches of houseguests -- check. Curls up in front of warm fire, snoring and farting adorably -- check. Stinks after it rains -- check. Trainable -- check. Does domestic tricks for "tummy" rubs -- check.
The men I know are just as complex and flawed and generous and maddening as I am.
The long-suffering martyr wife is a dressing adopted to make women who feel unpowerful feel powerful. It’s rampant on the Internet and on TV, and it reveals more about us than it does about them. It positions us as mothers of everyone: of our children as well as their fathers. Here I am again, we crow, teaching this oaf how to Do It My Way. Except that oaf isn't a kid. He's the guy you chose to marry despite his lack of an I Live To Do Things Your Way bumper sticker.
This isn't some kind of male defense. It's also not a scolding of women who'd rather not do all the vacuuming. It's a rejection of the sorority of Men And The Crap They Always Pull (Yuk Yuk Yuk).
When women proclaim Male Pattern Dumbness as if I'm supposed to snort and agree, I pause and think of my sons and the partners they'll encounter. I expect as much kindness for them as I do from them. They are as much kings as any girl would be queen, and what that means is all things sensible. If husbands are obligated to behave exactly as we want them to, then we're obligated to offer the same. What would your ideal behavior be, as defined by the man in your life?
We're grown-ups. We chose our partners -- every aspect of them -- just as they chose us. Everyone compromises. That's why they call it "love." Inept men are not foisted upon all of superior womanhood along with an avalanche of dirty socks.
I don’t seek or expect solidarity based on gender. Especially if you say BUT GIRLS NEED TO LOVE EACH OTHER AND BAND TOGETHER AGAINST ALL THOSE KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS BECAUSE OMG THE TOILET SEAT.
I’ll adore you if you crack up at the same things that crack me up.
Like burps-on-demand.
That’s all.
Writer and photographer Kate Inglis of sweet | salty lives along the far eastern coastline of Nova Scotia where she was born. She founded a collaborative blog for babylost parents called Glow in the Woods, and writes for Shutter Sisters as a founding contributor. In November 2009 her first novel was published —The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods, a book January Magazine calls “a spirited tale, gorgeously rendered.” The second edition landed in Canada and the U.S. in April 2010.
