Quite a few years ago, I saw a Sally Jessy Raphael progam on controlling men. One of the men made a point of saying that men are naturally in charge of the world and women exist to serve men.
Sally asked the man who America’s Secretary of State was. The guest shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. What’s his name?â€Â
In sharply measured tones, Sally answered, “HIS name is Madeleine Albright.â€Â
One of her guests said his wife has to bathe him.
Maury Povich often does shows on men who control their wives or girlfriends. “It’s my way or the highway!†is their motto. They appear on the show advertising their belief that a man’s home is his castle and his woman is his servant. One such man announced that he has his wife wipe him after he uses the toilet. Others have more usual desires for clean homes and well-cooked meals served on time but tell the audience that they will beat, choke, or spit on a wife or girlfriend who comes up short in her domestic duties.
One man on Maury told the audience that if his live-in girlfriend disobeys him, “I’ll choke her, I’ll beat her, I’ll lock her in the shed!â€Â
A way in which these dominant men differ radically from each other is in their attitude toward their women’s sexuality. Some resemble the most stoutly traditionalist men of the most conservative Muslim cultures in their zeal to ensure their women have no opportunity to dally with other men. One man moved his family to a rural area to ensure that his wife would be around few other men. However, the mail carrier to their home was a man, a traditional “mailman.†This dominant husband called up the post office and persuaded them to replace the male mail carrier with a female mail carrier or mailwoman (would the forgoing make a fair tongue twister?). I couldn’t help but wonder what NOW would think of this man’s activism on behalf of female employment in a traditionally male field!
Other controlling men insist their women prostitute themselves and give the guy their earnings.
“Do you love this man?†Maury asks of the woman who is being harshly dominated.
“With all my heart,†is the standard answer, often accompanied by tears.
It seems to me that these programs tend to reinforce negative and destructive stereotypes about both sexes. There are few shows on controlling women and the men who love them although I did see a Jerry Springer episode featuring a man who had called the show because he said his live-in girlfriend was cruelly abusive. The Springer camera came into their kitchen and filmed the girlfriend putting dead cockroaches on the man’s cereal, ordering him to eat them, and his choking and gagging as a result.
However, dominant men and controlled women are a regular theme on television talk shows. The dominant men featured invariably lack the benevolent, supportive paternal charm of a fictional Ward Cleaver. Nor do they have much in common with a real-life Fred Schlafly, who was said by a biographer of his famous wife Phyllis Schlafly to have a sort of teacher-student relationship with her. The dominance of men who appear on these shows seems unleavened by humor, protectiveness, or even reasonableness.
While the shows seem to buttress the worst sort of “men are such beasts†stereotypes, they don’t do much to make women look good. Women appear absurd and psychologically weak as they “love with all of their hearts†such nasty and seemingly unlovable fellows. Indeed, they seem to shore up the idea that women gravitate toward the worst sort of brutality.
Of course, these are television programs and people could exaggerate the conditions of their relationships in order to appear on them. Indeed, one puzzle about these programs is that the submissive women who are being so brutally dominated nevertheless retain enough independence to seek help from a TV show although not enough gumption to just leave these creeps.
These are my thoughts about talk shows on controlling men and controlled women. Readers, what are yours?
