And we laugh and laugh and laugh…
Check out the email I got yesterday. (I was sure that it was a joke, but a little research proved otherwise…)
My name is (I’ll be nice and let her keep some anonymity).
I work as a casting director at "Trading Spouses" for Fox Television and Rocket science laboratories.
I'm contacting you for this because I'm hoping you might be interested or could help me. I am trying to find interesting families who are advocates for women's rights or women who are working in feminist organizations.
Trading Spouses is a family-themed reality show that airs on Fox, Monday nights at 8PM. The purpose of our show is to compare and contrast various families across the country while highlighting their unique interests and cultures!
...All families who want to be on our show must have at least one child between the ages of 5 & 18 and must be legally married. Please have a look on our website: www.fox.com for more details.
And it goes on with some more details…So if any legally married feminists with kids are interested in being "swapped," now you know where to go.
Priceless.
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I have no doubt that they'll find "someone" but I'd be willing to bet it'll be an actress acting as a bad caricature of what the world thinks a feminist is. It's unlikely that any real feminists would do it, but that wouldn't stop Fox.
I am a legally-married feminist with kids and I definitely do not want to be swapped!
Thank you for posting this. It is an excellent example of the right's effort to create a popular conception of feminism that has as much to do with reality as a reality show.
I got that email twice in a month. I was waiting for a blogger to run with it. It's just too funny.
BTW - A few weeks ago you bemoaned the fact that no bloggers were named to Women eNews 21 leaders list. You don't know that. There are a lot of great bloggers who don't let on in their 'real' lives that they blog. Here's to hoping!
Roni, that's true--some of the winners could be bloggers on the sly. But I do think that feminist bloggers should get some play FOR blogging, and be recognized for how it contributes to the women's movement in a larger sense...
I think rojopelo will probably end up being proved right.
I agree...I can see it now. They'll "trade" the feminist to the super-misogynist. Let the hijinks begin!
we got that at our offices as well-- TOO MUCH. i really wanted to write them back, but decided against wasting my time!
And we all know who will look like the winner when the editing is done. Of course, the cowed wife they are planning to move in with a feminist husband--that won't be as fun.
They've been trying to line up people for 6 or more weeks. Doesn't look like people are jumping at the opportunity. Only Germaine Greer, who was feminist when it was flavor-of-the-day, went for the reality show bit in the UK, and she dropped out after about 3 days.
Gosh, I should give her a call. It would be very boring for them, though.
"Here we see the feminist wife in her new home--"
"Sorry, gotta go to work. See you in twelve hours."
Oh my god. Talk about a no-win. The feminist will get blamed for not taking adequate care of the children if she says she has to go to work, and many hilarious shots of her will be taken being angry at her new hubby's piggy behavior, which will be skewed as humorous fun.
And the non-feminist wife over on the other side will be viewed with sympathy as she is shown trying to control the feminist's wild, clearly un-cared-for children, and her frustrations at trying to clean up the feminist's cold, messy, unloving house. Expect many comments about how wimpy the feminist husband is, and how a real woman needs a real man.
I can't wait!
I can't imagine myself being on a show like that. First, the producers wouldn't know what to do with me. I don't think or act like the negative stereotype of a feminist. I have a feeling the show plans to highlight the negative stereotype, and make the feminist men and women look ridiculous.
Trish, they'd edit you to fit their agenda. No matter how hard you tried to be "not THAT kind of feminist," they'd splice it until your comments and facial expressions suited their agenda. You'd be totally fucked, we all would.
They have to be out of their minds! I'm a married feminist -for real- and I can't imagine what intern cooked up such a stupid idea.
Now if it would be edited by a feminist it might be do-able but no, no way would this ever work.