Wednesday, April 05, 2006

A Donkey!

I must confess that as all living, breathing individuals I love to read the strange and odd areas of the web. I came across this gem of a headline this morning and immediately realized that I had hit the mother load, “Textbook: Donkeys Better Than Housewives”.

I do not wish in any way to plagiarize the writer of this fine piece of Hemingway style verse, but here is a direct quote from the opening paragraph, “NEW DELHI - A textbook used in western India compares housewives to donkeys — and concludes that the pack animals make more loyal companions, a newspaper reported Tuesday.”

“"A donkey is like a housewife," declares the Hindi language primer approved by the state of Rajasthan, according to The Times of India newspaper. "It has to toil all day and, like her, may even have to give up food and water."”

This article provided my home with an entire morning of amusement and entertainment. The clincher to the article is the reference is supposedly taken directly from a book presently used in their school system.

The article attempted to circumvent the derogatory statements it had made to the woman of India in stating the text was  a comparison and was meant to be funny, nothing more. Right, as if that would satisfy the anger it had already wrought upon the male dominated society of that country.

I could not help but imagine the anger, hatred and angry mail a book of this nature would generate within our society. I can honestly assure anyone reading this that in my house I am quite aware of the fact that the male is the donkey of the species and I am quite content with that. Perhaps the true author of this was the husband sitting atop his roof with the “On Strike” sign.

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