Hey all you "progressive men": Be a real man this Thanksgiving-- help make dinner or do the damn dishes

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching my partner and I are headed home to Michigan. Inevitably this Thursday my mom will wake up at 6am and begin the long process of creating turkey dinner. Invariably my sister and I will assist her, along with other women in the family, in an attempt to make things easier. After dinner, my mom will predictably yet still sneakily (as always) try washing the dishes herself until another woman catches her doing it. Also inevitably, my sister and I will likely be doing a lot of knowingly agitated nods at one another. And why? Because at least 5 males, but probably more like 8-10 males, all will camp out in front of the television and transform into total jerks while the day goes on. And even the guys that don't enjoy football, for this one day, will pretend.

Yet as I learned in horror two years ago, it isn't just the Midwest, and it isn't just middle aged men perpetuating this tradition. You see two years ago, I was unable to go home for Thanksgiving. Instead I met up with a group of friends here in the pacific northwest and we all made dinner together. All the women that is. Now, these friends are what most people would consider extremely progressive individuals. We all were students at a very progressive college and all of us were young, involved with volunteer work in the activist community, and certainly aware of things like sexism and gender roles. Yet on Thanksgiving Day, none of that mattered. Each one of the men there would've claimed to either be a feminist or to be in solidarity with feminists and they each would've professed to be genuinely serious about equality and egalitarianism. And yet every single "progressive man" there camped out in front of the idiot box watching football while us "progressive women" slaved away in the kitchen. We women also did the dishes afterward. As one friend succinctly put it: "bullshit!". We attempted to get the men to help, and they would not. Sure every once in awhile one of them might come into the kitchen and stand around but none of them helped or asked if we needed help. Instead they would flatter us with compliments about how good everything smelled and then sheepishly flee.

So be a real man this Thanksgiving and help with dinner or at least do the dishes afterwards! And ladies, if you want to be equal, try actually letting the men help if they ask. If you enjoy doing all the work on Thanksgiving, that's great. But if you secretly want help, you cannot banish any well-meaning guys to the couch to watch the football game. This Thanksgiving I really really want to be thankful that our moms and aunts and sisters didn't have to do 2 hours worth of dishes! And many kudos to those of you out there who already have this issue under control. Happy Thanksgiving!