We’ve Come So Far But There’s Still A Long Way To Go

I was watching Leave It To Beaver this morning and there was a scene where Ward was puttering outside with a grill and Wally was peppering him with questions. It went like this:

Wally: You know Dad, it’s funny.

Ward: What’s funny?

Wally: Well, whenever we cook inside mom always does the cookin’ but whenever we cook outside you always do it. How come?

Ward: Well, it’s sort of traditional, I guess. You know, they say a woman’s place is in the home and I suppose as long as she’s in the home she might as well be in the kitchen.

Wally: Oh, well that explains about mom, but how come you always do the outside cookin’?

Ward: Well, I’ll tell you, son, women do alright when they have all the modern conveniences but us men are better at this rugged type of outdoor cooking. Sort of a throwback to caveman days. Hand me those asbestos gloves, will you Wally?

Gawd, can you believe that was normal?  

I don’t know about you, but if my husband ever spoke that way about me and believed my place was in our modernly convenient kitchen where asbestos gloves were not needed because, you know, it’s so effortless to cook thousands of meals for him and our children without having to suffer through the rugged, caveman-ish and dangerous burger flipping a man must do outside, someone would be handing ME those stupid gloves so I could shove them AND my foot up his...well you know.  

It sounds like I’m ranting about a television character, but I’m not. Ward Cleaver represented the thought process and attitudes of that era.

But here we are in 2024. Look at the strides women have made since the 1950s! It’s exciting to see how far we’ve come. 

We got to keep that momentum going, you know?  

Our place is any place a man can be.

PS - Men didn’t “give” women voting rights. They withheld them.

We fixed that sh*t.

Let’s keep on fixing more sh*t.