One of the worst ideas I have heard in some time: train your husband like you would your dog. Please allow me to enumerate:
- I resent the fact that we are being compared to animals. The implication is that husbands occupy the same place in the house as pets. I love pets, but this is not how I want to be treated.
- As a Swedish friend and I were discussing, a woman training the man to do stuff might actually be bad for the woman. If the woman's goal is to get some sort of a task done, then her "training" the man or ordering him to do it relieves the man of responsibility for the task in some ways.
- If you marry someone, it is naive to think that they are there to do what you want. You are really signing up to live in close proximity to another human being who has its own wants and needs. This husband is not a device to make your life easier - if you want a maid, then maybe you should get a...maid. (Note: I am not advocating that the woman does all of the housework; I am advocating treating husbands like human beings - why not engage them in discussion about division of labor?)
- Skinner may be a "towering figure in psychology," but only because he is historically important. His ideas of behaviorism have fallen away in favor of constructivism. If you write a book that claims to have a psychological basis, you should at least base it on psychology that has been en vogue within the past 50 years.
posted by Dirk Awesome @ 5:12 PM
2 Comments:
to see how condescending that article is, switch the genders: Train your woman as you would a female dog.
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I hadn't thought of it like that. That's impressive. If the article were "Use research on animals to train your *female dog* to fetch your beer, cook you dinner, and shut the hell up," it would be clear that the article was written by an awful person.
While the actions there are objectionable in their own right, let's not lose sight of the fact that the article is about trying to control other people.
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