heterosexism

Men who care for children are afforded high status in pop culture if their role is part of some macho, justice-seeking mission (The Pacifier, Kindergarten Cop) or incidental to their real life, allowing them to maintain a cool image (About A Boy, Role Models). When he takes on a childcare role for no other reason than to get paid, however, a man should be prepared to sacrifice his self-respect.

In Melissa & Joey, Joey Lawrence plays an Ivy League-educated former commodities trader (yup) who went broke thanks to a Ponzi scheme. When local politician Mel takes in her sister’s kids, Joe becomes their housekeeper and nanny as a last resort, having previously been living in his car. In one episode, Mel finds out that Joe has donated to a sperm bank, and asks him what the most degrading thing he’s ever done for money is, hoping he'll admit to selling some of his swimmers. Instead, he gestures around the kitchen and replies, “By far, this.” He’s not entirely sincere, but the joke (such as it is) is predicated upon the audience acknowledging that this isn’t a suitable job for a man who values himself.

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

After she read my last post about sexist Christian music, my friend, Sarah Morice Brubaker of Religion Dispatches, told me I'd gotten a terrible Christian song called "How Beautiful" into her head. I'd heard it many years ago, but what I didn't realize was that it makes frequent appearances at evangelical Christian weddings. It's a truly horrific song, but it got me thinking: This business about "husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church" is more or less the foundation of Christian Right politics. Any guesses where we can learn all about it? That's right: Dippy Christian wedding songs!

Lots of songs are slow, but to recall the awkward, needlessly dramatic tradition of the junior or senior high school "slow dance," tunes need to have several additional qualities for me:

• They must speak of a love most intense and cinematic.
• They must have a late-'90s sensibility, regardless of when they were actually recorded.
• They must sound just... so pretty, despite my initial desire to dislike them out of cynicism.

Tracks and space for your own jams after the jump!

If you're straight, monogamous, and female, Carolyn Evans wants to SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE! Her new book, Forty Beads, has "simple, sexy" advice: overcome the "libido gap" between women and men by having sex whenever your husband tells you to.

Hopping angry? It only gets worse.

I'd be lying if I said that when I heard about a reality TV casting call asking "Do you bend gender roles? Do you go against the norm?" I truly believed a show was going to focus on folks who reject prescribed ideas of gender and sexuality. But just in case there was a show that wanted to feature, to make visible, people who go against the grain when it comes to gender and sexuality (dare I say...gender outlaws?), I investigated.

Here's the description for Straight as a Board:

Lost: not so fond of non-heterosexual people, as the finale on Sunday showed!

Spoilers ahoy!