Midterm Elections are here! And though we are sure rooting for our husbands’ party. We girls admire what women suffragists did for pushing for a woman’s right to vote. However we feel that we are mostly not smart enough to take the entire political picture into consideration. The world of men and the business of running a country is really too confusing for us.

Happily, for those of us who use the polling station as a way to socialize and say hi to the other girls, we have our husbands to tell us how and who to vote for. We listen to our men and trust they know the right candidate to pick. A very few of the more inquisitive wives sometimes ask their husbands how they come to their choices. Almost all the time, the more liberal and open-minded men would just chuckle and say “how cute it is you’re trying to appear smart! Just put your practice ballots over ours, and trace our picks.”

The rest of the husbands just tell us to stay at home. They say those flashing lights and buttons are too complicated for us to work.

And that’s fine by us!

With the most recent court ruling on Nadja Benaissa- a German Pop singer who found out she was HIV+ at 16, kept it to herself, and continued sleeping around for 12 more years – it makes me think about all the passes women get in Western society. Though the verdict is guilty, she only needs to do some community service and she’s scot free to go. Imagine had the perpetrator been a man, the sentence would most likely be harsher.

Most men are aware of this injustice meted out against their kind. Some are just more chivalrous than others: being a good sport, they let it go and give women a pass. That’s why the less chivalrous ones call it what it is: A p***** pass.

This asymmetry also makes me think the reason why so many women are against the notion of Stepford Wives is because they have been spoiled by the constant free passes to do and behave as they please, with zero accountability. I heard a story once, where two women in Colorado made up stories of assault on a man. After an entire summer of a community living in fear, and a life destroyed, they rescinded their accusations and said it was all made up. Again, no jail time, no fines, no consequences. So when we say, “we like giving our men extra special attention because they really deserve it for being so generous in giving us way!” women who have gotten their way all their lives feel it’s unnatural.

If anything, we feel that it’s because men keep giving us passes, that we should spoil them that much more. I still remember a car ride I took with some career ladies one evening. We were on our way to a charity dinner and I casually mentioned, “we tend to forget that men have their fragile areas, that they also need as much care, consideration, and attention as we do.”

I was met with a resounding “uh-uh! No way! What the $*%&$# is that all about?!!!”

We can’t change the fact that men continue to take on responsibility, relieving us to what we do best. But what we can change is our ability to make our marriages shine and work on making a good union a great one!

There’s breaking news featuring a recorded conversation between actor Mel Gibson and his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. The contents cannot be repeated in polite society, but if you have a strong stomach, you can listen to it here

I can’t say I am a follower of Mel Gibson’s movies. I tried watching Mad Max but that was a bit too violent for my tastes. So this post is not an unconditional support from a fan.

HOWEVER, most of us DO NOT know what led up to this conversation, things that were said when the recorder wasn’t turned on. I personally know many women who boast about their prowess to calmly and systematically provoke men into thunderous rages. Those women know EXACTLY what they are doing and consider it a necessary skill of the weaker sex in getting the upper hand: men rely on force, women use their wits. We have the capacity to plot, plan, and orchestrate the moment a man flies off the handle and present an air-tight vindication. I have even been told more than once, “if you stay calm to the end while he loses control, you have won on an emotional and psychological level.”

Not knowing the complete picture, I’m only going to comment about the recording itself. Being the person who initiates the recording, It is SO obvious that she knows this piece is going to go public and destroy Mel. She is calm, collected, without any fear…almost as if she had it planned all along. Her responses to Gibson’s diatribe is so rehearsed at times, it doesn’t even have any baring to what he just said. She presents herself as an innocent, angelic, ‘who? little helpless me?” mother, protector, victim and she knows it’s going to come off brilliantly against a loud, raging, violent voice. The public will unquestioningly and automatically side with a mother. That is the essence of manipulating public perception: what is stated gets continuously reinforced into fact, and that which is not heard (all the manipulation behind the scene, leading up to this explosion), disappears into nonentity. Justice, from this standpoint, will never balance out on the scale of the judiciary system. Every lawyer knows this. A jury may be barred from outside exposure during a trial, but any juror will have heard of Gibson’s recent bad press. She knows that anyone who listens to the recording will innately superimpose that previous negative press Gibson has gotten, his tendency to colorful slurs (which is toxic in Hollywood PR), and tease it out of him (and the patent response out of a listener) when he’s in the throes of anger management hell.

Having said that, let’s inspect the contents of the recording itself. Dispense the profanity and volume, and what you have is a brilliant, and unrehearsed (on Mel’s part) exposition on all that is deprived of the modern male:

“You should be a woman who supports me instead of a woman who sucks on me and just sucks me dry…get out of this relationship if you are a good woman and you love me…You treat me with no consideration, I love you because I treat you with every kindness and every consideration…but my daughter is important! You just expect s**t, you have no soul….you have no soul, you can’t give a ****…I left my wife because we have no spiritual common ground, you have none. You won’t even try. You don’t care. You need a soul. I need medication? I need someone who treats me like a man, like a human being, with kindness, who understands what gratitude is, because I bend over backwards with my ****s in the ****. You don’t have any friends except me, and you treat me like **** that’s why I’m so angry, because I don’t have any friends. You use me. My career is over, and boy when I set down you lit out of here faster than I ever seen you before. You just shown me what you are. Golddigger, that’s what you are.”

I’m not saying Mel is right in expressing himself this way, or that he doesn’t need help. But at least entertain some doubt in anything you hear or read, and don’t immediately take take sides with an incomplete picture.

Otherwise, you’ve fallen into the trap everyone else has.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “statesman” as a respected political figure. How does one get respect? In the traditional Protestant ethos, it would deem that respect is earned through hard work, experience and tolerance.

Stepford ladies rarely get involved in politics, much less the discussion of anything related to political matters. Sure, we encourage charity bakeoffs to support our local representatives on the campaign trail, but the business of running a country should belong within the oak walls of the men’s club.

Etiquette and gracious living is the touchstone of every Stepford wife. Not only does she exercise decorous behavior towards neighbors and strangers, she feels a special sense of community when she sees civility practiced by others. The male domain of etiquette is chivalry, which Oxford defines as “courteous behaviour, especially that of a man towards women.”

We at Stepford breathe a collective sigh whenever we think of the loss of social qualities and a higher standard of excellence in the halcyon days of the past: time was taken to prepare a delicious meal; setting a perfect table was art, and maintaining a neat sparkling home radiating of warmth and welcome was the reward of every wife. Machines were made better, books were written with care, and neighbors looked out for each other. We looked up to our leaders and trusted these statesmen to run the country.

So you can imagine how unsettled we were when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently took to ribbing Sarah Palin’s old-fashion scribbled reminders on her palm. To make jest of an opposing party on your own time is one thing, but to stand in the White House press room, a servant to the public, paid for by tax dollars, and to use that time to bully a non-office holding citizen when the country is in great economic trouble and at war, disappointed us. It just seems rather small-hearted. Behavior that didn’t belong to what we would consider a statesman.

Here is an interesting article we stumbled upon: Gerard Alexander: Why are liberals so condescending? (Washington Post)

Poor Guy: Conan O’Brien is Stepford Wives Organization’s Dad of the Month, looking out for his family and staff after NBC unfairly served him his walking papers

Recent events in the media had me thinking about financial security. Actually the past two years would have anyone thinking about it. Laura Doyle’s book The Surrendered Wife advises women to let their men take charge of the finances. While I think much of the advice in the book is sound (especially the part about never letting your hubby know you are making the conscious effort to become a surrendered wife), the surrendering of financial details to a man – any man -raised my eyebrows. I understand it’s a metaphorical surrender, a surrendering to your man, announcing that you have fate in him and your marriage. But let’s face it, I have known men who were not that good at managing money. What’s a woman to do? One can’t wish a collection agency away once things get run into the ground. An ugly situation, but sadly, often realistic.

In this modern day and age, financial security is the core survival item. You can still have your health, but we always hear of so many relationships failing on the point of money. Nobody ever breaks up because of poor health. They usually stick together. The truth is, when you put the finances in one person’s hands, you are putting your life and future there too. It’s fine if he’s an able number cruncher and a sensible spender. But that still doesn’t prevent unforeseen changes. Take the case of Terry Hekker, who wrote Ever Since Adam and Eve in the seventies. Married to her husband for over 30 years, her book regaled the joys of womanhood and homemaking. On their 40th together, he ran off with a younger girl and filed for divorce The result is a second book by the author, Disregard First Book. Deadpan and witty as the title may be, Hekker’s situation shows us that we always need, at the very least, to put ourselves in scenarios where we consider what safety nets we have available to us. Who or what do we look to in such times of emergency?

Feminists may clamor, “See, I told you so! You Stepford Wives put too much faith in your marriage! You should always pull your own weight.” The doubt I have about putting financial responsibility on any man’s hands aside, I say the present climate of employment in the business world hold no more security than a contract to enter into marriage. Just as a man can walk out on us, an employer can terminate a businesswoman’s position with short notice. Look at Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show? He’s getting a monetary settlement, but I imagine the psychic toll on failing a prestigious post must be heartbreaking. There’s probably a lot of turmoil we are not seeing, given Mr. O’Brien’s entire family, his staff and their entire families relocating across the country. 7 months, that’s all the poor fella had to prove himself. And this is after decades of loyal service to NBC (Conan used to be a writer for Saturday Night Live). There’s no guarantees these days, whether it be marital security or job security.

None of us like to think about things going wrong. The key is to be prepared and not take anything for granted. We can’t control infidelity, and we certainly can’t control the economy, but just as employees in these tough times are going the extra mile to impress their bosses and give them no reason to consider serving a pink slip, we may want to go the extra mile, and impress our bosses, and give them no reason to consider giving us the slip.