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For most of my life, I have been content to simply ignore the professional advice of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Ye Olde Enforcer Of Gender Roles. But now that Schlessinger has been hailed as a new feminist figure, perhaps she can teach me a thing or two!
Schlessinger’s official feminist profile reads: “She encourages women to return to the home, raise their children, and tend to their husband’s needs as a way to reignite and save their marriages. Quite a departure from the feminism of old.” Huh! I certainly have a lot to learn about feminism.
This week: How to make others happy by mentally and physically exhausting yourself.
Last week, Schlessinger submitted a blog entry to DrLauraBlog.com entitled “Making It Personal For the Holidays.” In it, Schlessinger explains how to find a holiday-appropriate gift for any occasion. Here’s how to do it.
Situation: Another family invites Schlessinger and her husband to eat Thanksgiving dinner at their home.
Inappropriate Gift: Impersonal, store-bought gifts like “bottles of wine and chocolate-filled baskets,” which can be easily conjured on the way home from work.
Appropriate Gift: Anything that is extraordinarily elaborate and time-consuming. “I wanted to do something nice for them to really show them thanks for such a lovely gesture, so I knitted a seven-foot runner for their table,” Schlessinger writes. “When it was finished, it seemed so ‘plain,’ that I spent four hours crocheting around the entire runner twice and added a fringe to the ends.” Meanwhile, Schlessinger’s husband brought . . . Schlessinger, I’m assuming.
Feminist Lesson: Even women who have built extremely successful media empires should make sure nobody knows that they actually fucking work for a living, come Christmas time. “I’ve been working around the clock for weeks either knitting, weaving, or sewing Christmas presents,” Schlessinger writes. “While it was exhausting and sometimes frustrating when equipment has a mind of its own, I feel giddy about giving gifts that are so much of myself. Clearly, it means more to the receiver AND the giver.”