Of dogs and men

:: Someone helpfully sent me this link, regarding my last post. The link proclaims that Uncle Cecil was dead wrong: hounds are uniformly regarded as dumb, listed among the dumbest breeds.

My first thought: there is even classism among ranking dogs! Breeds intended for low-class work like hunting are ranked lowest in intelligence. Guarding people, now that's important! Here we see a unique mix of both classism and speciesism at work.

Give me a good basset hound, bulldog (go black and red!), beagle or bloodhound any day of the week! Workers of the world unite! (Not into Afghan hounds, because the shedding is incredible. No offense to them, though, all the Afghan hounds I've met are very friendly and pleasant.)


:: Recommending Ethecofem, a feminist blog which is very fair to the guys. Probably too fair for my liking, but I enjoy the writers there, especially April.

I've been thinking lately, of how men are treated in sexist ways, and I came up with one: men are expected to be Mr Fixit. Whenever something goes wrong in a house or car (which is, sooner or later, bound to happen), men are expected to know how to Fix It, while us girls stand around with our thumbs up our asses, as we say here in the south. In fact, I think this phenomenon may be way WORSE in the south.

In the north, the question was, "Can your husband fix it?" while here in the south, it's more of a declaration: "Get your husband to fix it!"

He is no more of a Mr Fixit than I am a Ms Fixit, which is to say, not at all. He is considered more of a failure for this than I am, though, which goes without saying. Men are supposed to know how to fix cars, light fixtures, stuck windows and the like. They just learn by osmosis!

This is also deeply ableist, which also goes without saying. Whichever man doesn't learn to Fix Things, at least here among the working classes, is regarded as somewhat suspect.

A man who was close to me long ago, once told me he was embarrassed that he didn't particularly like sports, didn't keep up with the teams and scores and bowl games and World Serieses and such. He told me he thought this was a form of language among men that he never learned, that seems to transcend race, class, age and other differences.

Mr Daisy is very much into that language, so I have listened over the years, as he talks to strange men in strange places, How bout them dawgs? (see above reference to black and red) I've listened to delivery guys talk to white-collar supervisors, How bout them dawgs? I've heard doctors and patients, men of radically different classes, How bout them dawgs? Etc. It really is a language that men are expected to participate in, and a man is somewhat suspect (or regarded as standoffish, unfriendly and/or aloof) if he doesn't join in.

I am also reminded of that wonderful movie The Birdcage, wherein Robin Williams (Armand) tries to tutor Nathan Lane (Albert) in how to sound like a proper heterosexual man:

Armand: Al, you old son of a bitch! How ya doin? How do you feel about that call today? I mean the Dolphins! Fourth-and-three play on their 30 yard line with only 34 seconds to go!

Albert: How do you think I feel? Betrayed, bewildered...

Wrong response?