You know an expression I strongly dislike?
"He may be the head of the family, but I'm the neck that turns it!"
Several things make me cringe when wives say this about their husbands.
1) This is usually a not-so-subtle way of putting down your husband in public. Nice. It's good to see you have no respect for the man you married and that you think he can't make decisions without you whispering his lines to him. Real classy.
2) What happened to husband and wife making decisions together? How about "we're each one eye in the head" (certainly not as catchy, but I'd hope more accurate) Personally, I'd like to think we work together and I'm not pulling strings to get him to do what I want.
3) You're also reinforcing the stereotype of women as manipulative, seductive temptresses, which brings me to fact that the expression sounds pretty
4) bratty! (One small step from pretending to cry in front of Daddy to withholding sex from your husband)
5) Way to assert your supposed superiority... while at the same time asserting that he's still the head. You're essentially upholding his power/authority/leadership that you're supposedly protesting because you're stating that you resort to a backstage role.
6) Besides, without a brain the neck ain't moving nothing. So the metaphor is incorrect in the first place.
i agree
ReplyDeleteaw i always liked that quote (it reminds me of Big Fat Greek Wedding) but i guess i thought of it differently. there are just a lot of men out there that (wrongly) feel they always get the last word because they are the head. but then again, i am a big fan of girl power. i can see how it is demeaning too
ReplyDeleteWhether spousal abuse used to be essentially a practice where women where the primary victims, modernity has made it so, just as for cigarette smoking, that women are now catching up with men in this practice. Wit a few exceptions, they cannot resort to physical means to do so, but they more than make up for it with their tongue, from bittersweet humor, to sarcasm, to plain insult. And of course, withholding sex from the husband remains the golden weapon to manipulate or punish, under the most creative excuses, even among those "saintly women," who would never miss a church meeting or a temple session...
ReplyDeleteWell I used to think it was cute too Jessica, but when you think about it it just seems petty. And girl power only exists because it's a struggle against "boy power"... expressions like this one reinforce male power more than anything. All this expression really does is prove that there still is a power struggle, which shouldn't be an issue in marriage (Ideally). I think it's sad that some spouses still have to fight to get what they want
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with you; there are men out there who are still on a power trip. What I'm saying is if we want to stop this idiotic "power struggle", expressions like this only prove to them that we're trying to manipulate them and therefore they are right to try and have dominion over women.
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