A Very Sexist Xmas

(originally posted 12/12/2016)

I was watching TV and I saw a commercial that irritated me no small amount. The old Ace Hardware commercials ended with the jingle “Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man.” Now it’s not a hardware man, its hardware “folks”. Non gender specific.

Bullshit. When I’m at a hardware store and I need advice I want to find a hardware man. Or a butch lesbian. I don’t want to listen to the waxing of folks on the topic of hardware. I realize that a jingle that ends with “Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man or butch lesbian” may not have the same ring but it certainly beats “folks”.

Fuck folks.

How long is it going to be until Santa is non-gender specific? Even young kids are smart enough to know that they don’t want their toys built by a woman. Half the shit rolling off the elf assembly line would end up on the Island of Misfit Toys. “Nobody wants a train where the wheels fall off and leave sharp pointy steel exposed that could take out an eye” (note the ” ” bracketing that on that last sentence. That means it is spoken in a child’s voice like in the Rudolph special. If you didn’t catch it go back and read it again in a child’s voice. Much funnier.). Even the Ace hardware butch lesbian couldn’t fix all the defects.

Keep your mittens off my Santa is all I’m saying. There are plenty of jobs that women do better than men and I’ve never asked anyone to change a jingle or spokeswoman over it. There are things men do better and things women do better and there are very few things I want “folks” associated with. Maybe a blue grass festival.

Maybe.

Women cook better than men. There’s a good thing to bring up. If I want to grab a bite then I want a woman making the sandwich. But wait, if I want an expensive meal, one that requires a chef, then I’d want a man. That puts a dent in my theory. Men make better chefs, there’s no question about it. Once the cooking involves more than bread and deli meat, the kind of cooking where big hats shaped like mushroom clouds are involved, I guess I’m more comfortable with a man behind the skillet.

Bad example.

Cleaning!

There we go. Women are better at cleaning. Domestically nobody cleans like a woman. Now commercially the same is true with dusting and cleaning toilets but I have to admit that I wouldn’t want a 98 lb Mexican woman wielding one of those turbo-charged floor waxers. I can just see her being dragged down some marble corridor of power somewhere yelling her Mexicany profanity until the cord runs out or she hits an elevator door at 30 mph.

But give her a feather duster and she’s a cleaning machine. And while you’re at it, throw her into a French maid’s outfit to boot. I’m not sure if that would make it a Mexican’s maid outfit or a Mexican maid’s outfit or if it’s easier to go back a paragraph and make her French and be done with it.

The point is that nobody cleans the top of a bookcase like a Mexican French maid.

No way am I letting a woman with a scalpel within a hundred yards of me, surgeons have to be male, but I feel just as strongly that the first face I see waking up from the operation should be a kindly female in a nurses outfit. Honestly, I’m always up for seeing a kindly female in a nurses outfit.

Do they make French nurses outfits?

Mechanic? Male. Perfume counter? Female. Policeman? Male. Victoria’s Secret model? Female. Construction worker, astronaut, Fortune 500 CEO? All male. Tennis player? Female. Those little skirts really show off their legs. And nobody wants to see a socially progressive man trying to squeeze himself into a Hooter’s t-shirt and shorts.

President of the United States of America? Any of the many folks that make up this great country. Just if it is going to be a woman, please no pant suits.