Modern Man?

I have just stolen this picture from my husband's friend's Facebook, I couldn't stop myself (sorry K!). This is their pre-game snacks - fruit and rosé wine. Maybe they bring out the beer and the crisps when the football starts?!

Mathematics

Some stereotypical humour one day after Women's Day and a little joke at the end.

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

OFFICE ARITHMETIC
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs.
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn't need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

LONGEVITY
Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED
Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, 'You're next.' They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

Source: e-mail from a friend

Birgitta Continues

Just had to write again about our new EU Minister and all the talk about her pregnancy and how it will or won't affect her carrying out her duties and how it has (or should) lead to a wider discussion about women's role in working life.

Terri Eriksson writes in Aftonbladet "the Middle Ages called and they want their view of women back". Great line!

A translation of her article:

"When Dominika Psczynski had a baby in the beginning of the 2000s she went back to work after two weeks and hired a nanny to take the night shift.

The critics did not waste time. She was called "cheating mum" (who did not suffer through night watch, to be a mother = to suffer) and was interviewed under headings such as "How could you, Dominika?". Then it was Perrellis's turn, when she was back on the stage four days after the delivery. And when she soon thereafter crashed her car after a Christmas show, there were even some wacko debaters who were given screen time to point out that this was Charlotte's fault - she should not have worked but have stayed home like other sound mothers.

Then it wouldn't have happened!

This week the [differing] opinions come thick and fast about our new pregnant EU Minister Birgitta Ohlsson. People have spent time on discussing everything except EU policy: What will she do with the baby? Will she breast-feed? How will the association between mother and child go? How modern or unmodern is her husband? Does she have a heart of stone? Aren't mothers still most important in the end?

She shouldn't have taken the job, some say. Some wacko debater has again been allowed space to condemn a mother who starts working a few weeks after giving birth (can you remember if a "leadership consultant and linguist" has been allowed to make a statement about a political posting before?).

Well, what can one say? I saw that a person on the Internet wrote just apropos of the Ohlsson debate that women's greatest enemies are not male chauvinist pigs, it is women who think that chauvinism is correct. I wish I had thought of that first.

When we sit there and are retired and look back on this period of time when we thought we were so modern, we will be astonished that a pregnant minister could be subject to that much crap.

At the same time both Research Minister Tobias Krantz and Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors will become fathers - and participate in the election campaign - without anyone having any kind of moral aspects on that. Does Tolgfors have a heart of stone?

Because you cannot surely mean that we still, actually, really, live in a time where it doesn't matter at all what new fathers do, while the mothers' every departure from sitting at home and breast-feeding becomes a public concern?

Besides I wonder how it is that female politicians always, always are judged harder than men. In addition to Birgitta Ohlsson's pregnancy the national has recently been shaken by a debate about Mona Sahlin's bloody handbag. No one, which former Gender Equality Ombudsman Claes Borgström pointed out, has cared about analysing Fredrik Reinfeldt's extremely expensive suit, luxury watch or expensive car. I promise they are more expensive. The difference is that he got away with it.

Just like the government's not especially present dads with young children Krantz, Tolgfors and Billström."

Gudrun Schyman, Leader of Feminist Initiative, says (you can always count on Gudrun) that it is of course possible to give birth while holding a ministerial post. "There are so many antiquated conceptions about parenthood and about how women should behave. They are two in this, right? And she's not married to an old patriarch! All of it is a logistical question." She added that she never had so much inspiration in politics and in life in general when her children were young.

So what do I, Anna, think? I probably wouldn't go back to work four days after delivery or hire a night nanny unless there was a very special reason. BUT this is not about the details, this is about something bigger; the roles of women and men, not just as parents, but in society in general, and how the "rules" are not the same for women and men.

I Knew That!

Swedish men are apparently the world's most beautiful men! But I knew that already of course! ;) And it's not just my claim - a dating site especially for beautiful people* says so, or more exactly, the users of the site say so.

Swedish guys are followed by their Brazilian and Danish counterparts, in that order, whilst British men are at the bottom of the list, the poor sods!

As far as the other sex is concerned, Swedish women came in second after their Norwegian sisters.

An Oxford study has also concluded that Swedish men make the best husbands so it's looking good for Swedish women! Or women of other nationalities who have caught a Swede in her net! :)


* Questionable on moral and principal grounds in my opinion but...

Show & Tell: If I Were a Man for One Day, I Would...

As it's my turn to decide the Friday themes this month I should probably live up to it myself and post on a Friday and not on Saturday or Sunday as per my usual habit.

These are just things that came into my head when I thought about the topic, in the order of their appearance.  If I were a man for one day, I would...

• go out on the town and see how (because I'm sure there is no "if" there) people treated me differently
• not bother to shave since I was only a man for one day anyway and how much could it grow in one day?
• go to the guys' locker room to see a bunch of guys naked at the same time (this would appeal to me since I would still be a woman inside)
• have sex so I could feel how it is on the other side so-to-speak *hihi*
• not have to queue very long for the bathroom
• attend a job interview or a negotiate a pay rise to see how employers treat men and women differently and hopefully learn something from the experience
• not be able to say "no, I'm not very strong" if a friend asked me to help him/her with moving heavy furniture or other heavy lifting
• eat whatever I wanted and not worry about gaining weight (well, that doesn't apply to all men but to more men than women at least)
• fall asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow (at least the man in my life can do that but it may just be a personal trait and not a man-woman thing)
• enjoy thinking like a man for a day and hopefully learn something from it for the future
• sport a short, easy haircut that didn't need much tending to
• get paid much more for that day's work (well, perhaps not at my current job, but for many woman around the world that is the case)
• walk around bare-chested without doing anything illegal
• propose to my girlfriend
• take an intelligence test and see if I scored any differently (probably worse of course) 
• hang out with the guys and see what they talk about
• not having to worry about putting on makeup

When I googled "if I were a man/woman for one day" I found some great quotes:

"I don't know, if I didn't have the 'male perspective' it would probably just be another ordinary day."

"Well, I'd get out and have a little fun with my new 'disguise' (at least for the time being)."

"If I were a man for a day I would wear a really expensive suit and just enjoy the different power dynamics of interacting with people."

"I would get rich and famous being the '1st man to actually change to a woman - supernaturally'."

"Knowing my luck it would be that time of the month."

"I would do the hip-circle-dance and swing it all around like all men do after their showers."