The Rancher's Husband
Does that title sound odd to you? Hmmmm?! That's because you're a sexist pig.
PBS showed all of "Texas Ranch House" yesterday, and I am unfortunate enough to still be nursing which meant that I caught more of it than I really should have. It was a bad show. I've seen at least some of the other PBS historical "reality" shows, and this was, by far, the worst. Although I must admit my built-in bias against them. Before I had ever seen one, I heard a complaint from someone somewhere that they were pretty sexist. It seems the narrator repeatedly said things like "While the men worked, the women prepared dinner." Men work. Women prepare. There is something about statements like that that burn my ass.
Part of my frustration with these shows is seeing how unappreciated "women's work" was, and being reminded of how much it still is. That's been a gripe of mine for a long time. If men and women have always had to work together to survive, and if they "decided" that one sex should do some things and the other sex should do other things, why did one sex decide that everything the other sex does is bullshit that doesn't demand respect, or equal pay, and quickly forget that, if that bullshit didn't get done, that they wouldn't be able to do any of their exalted bullshit. Like digging postholes. It's interesting but not surprising that the women are usually so ready to leave the shackles of the past behind and all the men weepily glance at their majestic male-doins and reluctantly plod back to the future.
Biologically, I must admit that it makes sense for women to have fallen into the around-the-house-type stuff. Even in today's world, I didn't want to brave the errant grass on a 30-year old, gas-huffing mower when I was heavy with child (and Kevin didn't want me too, either). And, since Kevin's breasts are useless, it makes sense for me to feed child while he cut big rock. But not all women are pregnant or nursing. And don't pull the "women are weaker" crap because, well, because it's crap. If the strongest man and the strongest woman were standing side-by-side, he'd have bigger muscles. But physical strength is bigger than bicep size, and many subsistance tasks do not require pure brute strength. Mostly, I think, they require stamina. Endurance. Teamwork. Innovation. Mental toughness. And these are not the exclusive province of those with scrotums.
The "cowboys" on Texas Ranch House reminded me of the prison guards in that famous psych experiment. In the words of Maura, the mouthy broad who just couldn't wipe her mind clean of the advances that 21st-century bitches have made, it took the cowboys "all of 5 minutes" to forget that women had brains (did they ever know?) and retreat to the comfort of their "No Gurls Alowed" ("No Loud Girls"?) bunkhouse. Just like the co-eds who quickly forgot that they were in the basement of a campus building and that they had English 202 after they were done abusing their classmates. Just like the Germans who forgot that it was wrong to shove Jewish 8-year olds into chambers full of poison gas.
I went online to see what others had to say about this. After all, I have been known to make too much of things sometime. Mostly what I found was a lot of girl bashing, a distressing amount of it coming from other girls (but you know how girls are--insert cat noises here). Seems the women on the show, who wanted a little respect, an equal say into how the ranch was run, and the experience of being (gulp!) a cowgirl--note to your mutha, there WAS a historical precedent for all of these pushy desires--were getting slammed for bringing their 21st-century notions of equality to the 19th. Those twats! 'Let cowboys be cowboys!' they railed. 'Sexism in the 19th century--big surprise!' they wrote, smarmily.
Yet they didn't seem to mind that the cowboys said things like "Mr. Cooke (the ineffectual ranch owner) should grow a set of balls" and "you have to have balls (yes, actual testicles) to be a cowboy" and "we know who wears the pants in the Cooke house" and "she's (Maura--the cowgirl) just trying to prove herself and she's making it unsafe for everyone". That last one got me. Maura was as good a rider as any of those other computer jockeys, and the whole damn experience was unsafe for a bunch of greenhorns with all of a few weeks of "cowboy training" under their historically-accurate belts, and yet it's Maura that's putting them all in jeopardy. Do they realize how tired that "selfishly prove yourself" argument is? Didn't white GIs use the same language to keep black soldiers in the kitchen lest they blow up the battleship thinking that they could pull a trigger?
These armchair historians also overlooked the cowboy's contradictory use of their 21st-century values when dealing with a posse of black soldiers and an unfortunately-passive group of Comanche. Where was their 19th-century racism? Would the commentors have been so forgiving had the cowboys referred to the buffalo soldier leader as "boy" or the Comanche as the "redskins"? Hell, a REAL cowboy would have! My guess is no. But let a woman ride a horse? Are you fuckin' nuts?!
Oh, if only the modern-day Comanche had truly channeled their ancestors and actually slaughtered ALL of those idiots right in front of horrified, be-soul patched PBS camera guys. I'm assuming guys. Let a woman hold a camera? Are you fuckin' nuts!?
PBS showed all of "Texas Ranch House" yesterday, and I am unfortunate enough to still be nursing which meant that I caught more of it than I really should have. It was a bad show. I've seen at least some of the other PBS historical "reality" shows, and this was, by far, the worst. Although I must admit my built-in bias against them. Before I had ever seen one, I heard a complaint from someone somewhere that they were pretty sexist. It seems the narrator repeatedly said things like "While the men worked, the women prepared dinner." Men work. Women prepare. There is something about statements like that that burn my ass.
Part of my frustration with these shows is seeing how unappreciated "women's work" was, and being reminded of how much it still is. That's been a gripe of mine for a long time. If men and women have always had to work together to survive, and if they "decided" that one sex should do some things and the other sex should do other things, why did one sex decide that everything the other sex does is bullshit that doesn't demand respect, or equal pay, and quickly forget that, if that bullshit didn't get done, that they wouldn't be able to do any of their exalted bullshit. Like digging postholes. It's interesting but not surprising that the women are usually so ready to leave the shackles of the past behind and all the men weepily glance at their majestic male-doins and reluctantly plod back to the future.
Biologically, I must admit that it makes sense for women to have fallen into the around-the-house-type stuff. Even in today's world, I didn't want to brave the errant grass on a 30-year old, gas-huffing mower when I was heavy with child (and Kevin didn't want me too, either). And, since Kevin's breasts are useless, it makes sense for me to feed child while he cut big rock. But not all women are pregnant or nursing. And don't pull the "women are weaker" crap because, well, because it's crap. If the strongest man and the strongest woman were standing side-by-side, he'd have bigger muscles. But physical strength is bigger than bicep size, and many subsistance tasks do not require pure brute strength. Mostly, I think, they require stamina. Endurance. Teamwork. Innovation. Mental toughness. And these are not the exclusive province of those with scrotums.
The "cowboys" on Texas Ranch House reminded me of the prison guards in that famous psych experiment. In the words of Maura, the mouthy broad who just couldn't wipe her mind clean of the advances that 21st-century bitches have made, it took the cowboys "all of 5 minutes" to forget that women had brains (did they ever know?) and retreat to the comfort of their "No Gurls Alowed" ("No Loud Girls"?) bunkhouse. Just like the co-eds who quickly forgot that they were in the basement of a campus building and that they had English 202 after they were done abusing their classmates. Just like the Germans who forgot that it was wrong to shove Jewish 8-year olds into chambers full of poison gas.
I went online to see what others had to say about this. After all, I have been known to make too much of things sometime. Mostly what I found was a lot of girl bashing, a distressing amount of it coming from other girls (but you know how girls are--insert cat noises here). Seems the women on the show, who wanted a little respect, an equal say into how the ranch was run, and the experience of being (gulp!) a cowgirl--note to your mutha, there WAS a historical precedent for all of these pushy desires--were getting slammed for bringing their 21st-century notions of equality to the 19th. Those twats! 'Let cowboys be cowboys!' they railed. 'Sexism in the 19th century--big surprise!' they wrote, smarmily.
Yet they didn't seem to mind that the cowboys said things like "Mr. Cooke (the ineffectual ranch owner) should grow a set of balls" and "you have to have balls (yes, actual testicles) to be a cowboy" and "we know who wears the pants in the Cooke house" and "she's (Maura--the cowgirl) just trying to prove herself and she's making it unsafe for everyone". That last one got me. Maura was as good a rider as any of those other computer jockeys, and the whole damn experience was unsafe for a bunch of greenhorns with all of a few weeks of "cowboy training" under their historically-accurate belts, and yet it's Maura that's putting them all in jeopardy. Do they realize how tired that "selfishly prove yourself" argument is? Didn't white GIs use the same language to keep black soldiers in the kitchen lest they blow up the battleship thinking that they could pull a trigger?
These armchair historians also overlooked the cowboy's contradictory use of their 21st-century values when dealing with a posse of black soldiers and an unfortunately-passive group of Comanche. Where was their 19th-century racism? Would the commentors have been so forgiving had the cowboys referred to the buffalo soldier leader as "boy" or the Comanche as the "redskins"? Hell, a REAL cowboy would have! My guess is no. But let a woman ride a horse? Are you fuckin' nuts?!
Oh, if only the modern-day Comanche had truly channeled their ancestors and actually slaughtered ALL of those idiots right in front of horrified, be-soul patched PBS camera guys. I'm assuming guys. Let a woman hold a camera? Are you fuckin' nuts!?
posted by lulu | 7:21 AM
1 Comments:
Is this the product of the New PBS in the era of "fair and balanced" Republican control? I smell "traditional values" of our genocidal heritage.
Post a Comment
<< Home