{"id":11059,"date":"2025-03-31T14:47:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/?p=11059"},"modified":"2025-09-20T20:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T17:38:09","slug":"but-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/im-not-a-feminist\/but-6\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI&#8217;m just kidding!\u201d Jokes that went too far"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"podcastplayer\"><figure class=\"wp-block-audio podcastplayer\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/s\/1000c70c8\/podcast\/play\/100621212\/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-2-31%2F397544589-44100-2-f82480547c83d.m4a\" preload=\"none\"><\/audio><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"mks_dropcap_letter\" style=\"font-size: 72px; color: #dd3c7a; \">I<\/span>n the sixth episode of the podcast, I talk about misogyny, the normalization of biased attitudes toward women through jokes, and respond to a comment about the fair distribution of household responsibilities.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Misogyny \u2014 from the Greek, literally means \u201chatred of women\u201d. Taken at face value, most people would say, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not a misogynist \u2014 I don\u2019t hate women, that\u2019s too extreme\u201d. But I suggest we don\u2019t focus on the literal translation, because misogyny isn\u2019t just about hatred. It includes dislike, prejudice, mockery, dismissal, and condescension toward women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1782, Judge Francis Buller ruled that a husband had the right \u2014 supposedly for \u201ceducational purposes\u201d \u2014 to beat his wife with a stick, as long as the stick was no thicker than his finger. Under English common law, this established a precedent, meaning that from then on, any husband who beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his own finger could be acquitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In Belarusian tradition, there was also a \u201cwife-beating stick\u201d used for preventive purposes \u2014 but with a different rule: women could be beaten preventively once a week, on Thursdays, rather than any day. However, the stick itself was much more substantial.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me give you an example of how misogyny is so normalized and deeply embedded in our daily lives that some women don\u2019t even notice it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once, during a training session, a young woman said she had a great career and had never encountered discrimination along the way. I asked her, \u201cHas anyone ever told you that, for a woman, you have a good salary?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Of course, she said \u201cyes\u201d \u2014 but she had never considered that a misogynistic remark. Because people say things like that all the time, everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/im-not-a-feminist\/but-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2nd<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/im-not-a-feminist\/but-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">3rd<\/a> episodes of the podcast, I talked a lot about this topic and urged you never to use the word \u201chelp\u201d when referring to household responsibilities. Let me respond to a comment that came in after the 3rd episode. The main idea of the comment was that evaluating labor solely by the amount of time spent is unfair, because there&#8217;s also the concept of qualification \u2014 and work requiring different levels of qualification is valued differently. According to the commenter\u2019s logic, if he worked 8 hours at a rate of \u20ac35\/hour, while at the same time his wife was cleaning the house, sweeping the floors, and doing other \u201cunskilled\u201d labor valued at \u20ac7\/hour, then \u2014 taking the difference in labor value into account \u2014 the wife worked 5 times less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>My response: I believe that household labor should be assessed solely and exclusively by the amount of time spent \u2014 and that this is the fair approach. Most domestic work doesn\u2019t require high qualifications (with the exception of management), and it doesn\u2019t matter who is sweeping \u2014 a stay-at-home wife without a degree or a \u201cwhite-collar\u201d husband \u2014 sweeping is still sweeping. And frankly, the wife might do it better simply because of years of practice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at an office where people with different qualifications and salaries work. Our husband from the comment earns \u20ac35\/hour, while his secretary, let\u2019s say, earns \u20ac15\/hour. But both have an 8-hour workday and both feel tired by the end of it. There\u2019s no such thing as the one who earns \u20ac35\/hour working only 5 hours, while the secretary works 11.5 hours to equal the salary \u2014 and then we say they\u2019re equally tired because the pay is the same? Of course not. Regardless of the hourly rate, labor laws across countries set standard work and rest hours. For example, in Belarus it\u2019s illegal to work more than 12 hours a day \u2014 which is the equivalent of one and a half full-time jobs. Because a person physically can\u2019t work more than that effectively without harming their health. And it doesn\u2019t matter how much their labor is worth per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Mocking women is considered a matter of good manners in a patriarchal society \u2014 this is the behavior the system teaches us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The more jokes there are about women, the more deeply rooted and normalized the stereotypes become \u2014 and the worse the position of women. For example, you can reference traffic accident statistics as much as you like \u2014 which show that men are responsible for the majority of accidents due to risky driving, playing road \u201cinstructor\u201d, or driving under the influence. Reckless driving? That\u2019s mostly about men. The most careful drivers? Women. You can bring up those statistics endlessly, but still, everyone knows the joke: \u201cA woman behind the wheel is like a monkey with a grenade\u201d, or \u201cYou park like a woman\u201d, or \u201cYou drive like a woman\u201d. No one is surprised by these remarks \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As your awareness grows, you\u2019ll start to notice expressions that previously flew under the radar \u2014 maybe even ones you\u2019ve said yourself: \u201cI\u2019m like every girl, I love shopping\u201d, \u201cOh, that\u2019s so feminine\u201d, \u201cWomen just understand emotions better than men\u201d, \u201cThese are our girly things\u201d, \u201cWe\u2019ve got our little female secrets\u201d. All of these phrases might seem to describe harmless, minor quirks. But in reality, they reinforce the idea that women are inherently limited to trivial female interests. And if that\u2019s all they care about \u2014 clothes and makeup \u2014 how could they possibly understand important, serious matters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to contact us but are afraid to use comments, you can send us an e-mail. After that it will be enough to delete your letter from the \u201cSent\u201d folder.<br>Our e-mail address is: <a href=\"mailto:help@belarus.fm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">help@belarus.fm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Misogyny \u2014 from the Greek, literally means \u201chatred of women\u201d. Taken at face value, most people would say, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not a misogynist \u2014 I don\u2019t hate women, that\u2019s too extreme\u201d. But I suggest we don\u2019t focus on the literal translation, because misogyny isn\u2019t just about hatred. It includes dislike, prejudice, mockery, dismissal, and condescension [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[352],"class_list":["post-11059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-im-not-a-feminist","tag-audio-in-russian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belarus.fm\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}