"Wife Swap" features feminist, pageant mom
I generally can't take these shows. But I couldn't help but watch this episode of Wife Swap that reader Angela emailed us. First of all, one of the women featured was a bad ass doctor/roller derby player. Add in all of the mouth-dropping moments from the husband of a beauty-obsessed pageant mom - like when he says he hopes his daughter will be a man's "accessory" one day - and I was pretty much hooked.
Maybe this can be my unfeminist guilty pleasure...
Posted by Jessica - January 19, 2009, at 09:00AM
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Do couples like these pageant people really exist? Really? I think I have to go...throw up or put on mismatching clothes or something right now.
These shows choose the most extreme people. While I love to watch them for the shock value and hilarity of such dogmatic people, I also think its important to remember that they are chosen simply to be shocking.
That mom is living inadvertently through her daughter. Look at the way she's caring her around the pageant. The judges aren't evaluating the two–year–old, their evaluating her. It's disgusting.
That mom is living inadvertently through her daughter. Look at the way she's caring her around the pageant. The judges aren't evaluating the two–year–old, they're evaluating her. It's disgusting.
sorry double post
Oh dear.
Do people honestly put hair dye onto one-year olds?
And make up on their 6 year old in the next clip!
Particularly weird considering the father's emphasis on masculinity.
OH MY GOD... SWIMWEAR?!
Pageant Dad is a tremendous asshole in more ways than one. How did he get anyone to marry him? Pageant Mom seems pretty off her rocker (hair bleaching for a 1 year old? Really?), but I still have trouble believing even someone like her would put up with shit like that.
Not only is he a tremendous asshole, he's extremely unintelligent. Honestly, he had such a difficult time saying the word "accessory," that I doubt he even knows what it means.
Ok, I simply couldn't watch the entire clip (I rarely can watch this show to begin with), but I feel relatively comfortable in the fact that people like the Pageants (that is their name from now on) are a minority, which is why they're on this show in the first place.
That show is like a black hole I get sucked into everytime. They paired another feminist/pagent family together... maybe they do this for "laffs" every season.
I actually watched that whole episode on youtube (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYNymvtbWw4&eurl=http://www.citizengirl.org/2009/01/wifeswap-feminist-vs-fashionista.html&feature=player_embedded if you are a glutton for punishment).
That episode sort of had a happy ending, I mean, it seemed like both family gained a little something from the experience. Better then nothing I guess.
The concept of the show is more than a little questionable, but I think its interesting that they have paired "feminist families" with "pagent families" at least twice. I think it sort of smacks of the "bra-burning" stereotype.
Do they ever do a "feminist vs. Biblical Literalist" or some other 'conservative*' trope? I'd be interested in that one!
(maybe this one dose that... I havent watched the whole episode)
...& happy MLK day to all :)
I'll admit that catching the occasional episode of this show is one of my guilty pleasures, too. So to answer your question, yes, they often have progressive vs. religious (see: Christian) conservatives, and the progressive families almost always have values that are quite egalitarian, if not openly described as feminist.
That's one reason why I get such a kick out of the show, is that the religious conservatives are almost always off the wall and either falter or fume upon any questioning of their lifestyle. Granted, because of the nature of the show, many of the more progressive families may seem quite out there to some, but being the filthy liberal that I am, most seem quite reasonable to me.
Yeah, don't forget about Marguerite, who was a Christian (they obviously picked the craziest person they could find) who swapped with a sort-of pagan family (they worshipped a tree I think, so I don't really know what to call that) and she had this tremendous meltdown at the end and ripped up the check and kicked the cameramen out of the house in the name of Jesus. And then later she took the check back. Of course.
That was Trading Spouses, not Wife Swap. Same show, more or less! That was classic. And scary!
I tend to watch those things - not sure why. I tend to find the way they deal with class issues a little more interesting than the way that they deal with feminism (because mostly they don't, although one time they did have a pretty interesting swap between a conservative mother and a lesbian mother). Most of the programs deal with a swap between a materialistic family and a non-materialistic (relatively) family, and the storyline generally ends up being that the non-materialistic family may have a messy house but they really love each other and the materialistic people learn something about the value of family and spending time together.
My sympathies tend to be with the non-materialistic families, particularly when they're rural, but the class stuff tends to be so heavy-handed and so deeply rooted in American mythology that it's hard not to find it a little disturbing.
What's amazing to me is that this dad is going off about what "life" is like and what you must do to get ahead and how you will be a "loser" if you don't conform to every little anachronistic societal standard -- to a doctor. He is telling someone who has already seen success that her very existence doesn't compute for him, basically. Really weird.
This show is one of my guilty pleasures. I catch reruns every once in a while and I've seen this episode in it's entirety. And yes, the pagent people did make me sick. That dad saying he hoped his daughter would grow up to be some man's accessory? Gross. But in the end he did seem to learn something from the situation and though he didn't change a lot, he did seem to change a little. And that's really why I like the show, it shows everyone is capable of change if they just open their frickin eyes.
But on another note, the feminist family didn't make me all too happy either. I really value my education and there they were "unschooling" their children. I understand that they wanted the girls to learn naturely and whatnot and hated how regular schools focused so much on grades, but the pagent mom was at least right about the fact that they were not preparing the girls to live and learn in the real world. At that rate they would never be accepted into a good college and I just don't see how a successful doctor would be okay with her children getting a sub-par education.
There was another pagent family vs. feminist family episode that I liked much more. I forget there names, but the feminist kids were also home schooled but there were actually learning things. The pagent family was just as ridiculous. Their daughter got a present every day (had a Christmas tree up for her year round) and they did her homework for her. And god forbid during the swap the feminist made the pagent girl get a JOB!
"At that rate they would never be accepted into a good college and I just don't see how a successful doctor would be okay with her children getting a sub-par education."
The doc and her spouse probably weren't giving their kids a sub-par education. I was "unschooled" and succeeded in college and grad school. All the home schooled/unschooled kids I know turn out pretty OK and are on or above grade level.
I was pretty psyched to see feminist/liberal home schoolers. I think the other feminist/pageant family swap had liberal home schoolers as well.
I found the link:
http://www.feministing.com/archives/008319.html
The woman's screen name is angieboss and her first comment appears about halfway down the page.
Crap, I hit "Liked" instead of reply, anyway...
I'm glad you were still able to succeed while being unschooled. But that doesn't mean that the unschooling your parents gave you was the same as what these girls are receiving. From what they showed during the show these girls really did seem like they were getting a very sub-par education.
The mom from that family commented here on Feministing when the her episode originally aired! She was kick-ass. She was also a minister for the Society of Friends (I think I'm remembering that correctly). It was really interesting to see her perspective on what the producers showed and what was cut.
I agree. Both families came across as being kind of unbalanced in a way, and I thought the pageant mother had a point that the girls could at least be academically tested and that the stay at home dad should get out of the house at least long enough to do something each week for himself (Mom worked full-time and had an extracurricular activity, while he was pretty much confined to the house 24/7 and reluctant to interact with adults). I think that both of the mothers had some things that they handled well. I liked how the feminist Mom got the dad to listen to his son and not force him to play a sport he didn't like; and I liked how the pageant Mom learned that winning wasn't everything when she entered the other family's two daughters in a pageant and saw that the daughters could lose and still be happy. Also in the end, the pageant husband learned to help out around the house more.
I used to watch the British 'Wife Swap'. I think that was the original show from which the American mob got the idea. It was a lot less about pitting two opposite-minded but equally extreme families against each other, and more about just watching what happens when different values or lifestyles of seemingly 'ordinary' folk clash, like one family who scrimp and save, and another who spend money like water. I guess more about observing social differences than the Jerry Springer/stage wrestling that is the US version. It was very well done.
I just looked up more 'Wife Swap' on Youtube and got this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYNymvtbWw4 . "Angie home-schools her daughters so she can indoctrinate them with her feminist agenda..." You just have GOT to watch it and find out what comes after that. I think the writers were having a chortle when they wrote that.
By the way, that link is a clip of the families that Ilevinso mentioned.
Yes it is.
Ahhh, this may be embarrassing and self-incriminating, but I DVR all episodes of Wife Swap! Believe it or not, sometimes the couples leave the experiment with a new sense of themselves which is actually pretty positive. All in all, each episode generally depicts one "traditional" mother and one "progressive" mother. I say that in the most ridiculous tongue in cheek way possible. The whole working outside the home and working inside the home dynamic is often the difference between the two mothers, and I believe the statement at the end of the day is that mothering is damn hard and there is no RIGHT way to do it. It's pretty polarizing, but to reconcile MY love for Wife Swap, I tend to think it opens up a discussion for how there's no perfect way to be a mother and no mother can ever "do it all."
Seriously, I think wife swap and the other one (switching spouses?) are great, and if they're on I totally watch them. I think it reminds me that every single person thinks that they are completely normal, and that everyone else is batshit crazy. When they meet their polar opposite, sometimes the result is almost violent it's so confrontational. I always remember that there's somebody watching thinking that the pageant family is inspirational and the doctor is one of those off-putting "feminists" we hear about on the news sometimes.
I think it also shows how important mothers are to the family and how much work they do. I mean, I can't even imagine watching "Husband Swap" on a regular basis; unfortunately, for most families, I don't think it would make as much difference.
I'm soooo glad I'm not the only one. And I watch all the re-runs on Lifetime. Yikes. :)
I watched one episode where they exchanged a "hippy"/feminist mother with a masculinity obsessed mother. I really liked the ending, the mothers didn't change, but the hippy mother took the anti-feminine father to a men's chorus full of veterans, where he realized that art wasn't irredeemably girly.
I watch very little TV, so I've never seen this show before. But I am sooo hooked after only about ten minutes.
I realize that these shows play up the differences of these families, and the producers usually coach the participates to exaggerate, so I'm taking all of this with a grain of salt. But the pageant mom thing was creepy. And her husband -- total ick. Their focus on personal appearance and "winning" made my skin crawl.
I was also bothered by the physician mother who worked 100 hours a week and whose husband was responsible for the "unschooling" of their daughters. (Admittedly, not as bothered as the pageant family, but still.)
I can't wait to watch the rest of this episode!
Wow, I'm thrilled to find out that I'm not the only one who guiltily watches 'Wife Swap'! I've always thought that even though the families are probably exaggerating their identities, the show really does bring up some interesting ideas about parenting/family/work roles/gender. I know the show isn't the best medium for the exploration of those issues, but I can't help but watch. After all, these are real people! I really worry about the kids in the pageant family. So sad.
Does anyone know if the rest of the episode is on youtube or elsewhere? I couldn't find it.
When the first part of the episode ends, little boxes show up at the bottom of the screen. If you let the mouse hover over them, they will describe the episode that will lead you to. Just look for PART 2 and soon.
In the scene where pageant dad says he hopes his daughter ends up being an accessory you can see him hesitate and sort of wince. His conclusion is the logical one to his argument and way of life, but you can see it doesn't sit very well even with him. He doesn't strike me as the brightest crayon in the box though.
There's sort of a sub-discussion of unschooling brewing up, which I think would be interesting to address. I went to a "un-school" type high school where we could design our own independent learning experiences and we weren't issued grades. Granted we still had to fulfill some basics to graduate like math, foreign language, history, ect. and do the standardized tests that all public schools had to submit to.
It worked out great for me and I'm currently in at a good school (not Ivy league, but the most competitive in my state) doing medical research as an undergrad.
But on the flip side, there were some kids who couldn't handle the lack of structure who either had to take an extra year or two of high school to finish their requirements, transfer to a regular high school or just gave up and dropped out (this was a minority of the students).
Also, it doesn't totally compare because this was high school and for most, the basics were taught traditionally. Un-schooling with younger kids is definitely different.
I'm watching the rest of the clips, because I do like and regularly watch this show anyway, and the unschooling kind of worries me a little later in the show. The father, for example, doesn't want the children tested to see what grade level they would test into. Not wanting the girls to evaluate their performance based on grades is one thing, but refusing to see if your child is getting certain basic skills they will need if they do one day want to go to a regular high school or post college program seems like a setback.
bad ass doctor/roller derby player
Say she was a mud-wrestler instead. Would you still call her bad ass? I can't get behind roller-derby while it keeps the sex pot image.
Wow.
First thoughts: How unbelievable that people like Pageant Parents still exist.
Second thoughts: How lucky I am to find that unbelievable.
I couldn't bring myself to watch this whole clip, if only for the sake of my poor heart. I could feel my blood pressure spike with every word uttered by the pageant family.
I do find that the "Pageant" family doesn't really have the values that I do, and the dad seems to be an a**hole (hooker boots? Yeesh...glad we know what you really think about women). But really, don't they have the right to bring their children up however they want? Some people are perfectly happy to go through life that way. Likewise with the "Feminist" family; un-schooling kids is fine, I hope they can grow up and get jobs that allow them the same luxury (was mom "un-schooled" until med school?). The most entertaining (and guilty) part of this show is obviously the fighting. Instead of accepting other peoples' choices and lifestyles, the new moms bitch and moan about trying new things when doing those things is part of the reason they're on the show.
I dunno-I find that if you think too hard about reality TV, your head will just implode.
OMG the fighting in this show makes me so anxious! I can't watch people fight!
Then never watch any reality tv show-I think that's the whole point of reality tv.
The feminist/free thinking families in every video that was posted here look so much happier and closer than the pageant "perfect" families.
I've only seen this show a few times, but I had the pleasure of catching this particular episode a few weeks ago. The pageant family was seriously appalling, but the "feminist" family is not free from criticism just by virtue of being feminist. The father absolutely refused to comply with anything the pageant mom asked him to do (which, imo, defeats the purpose of the show). I did not agree with their method of "unschooling" as it's not giving their children a well-rounded education. He truly was not preparing his children to excel in whatever field they choose. There's a way to teach your children to be artistic and free-thinking while still enabling them to succeed in more structured environments in case that's what they choose.
What really got me was when both the mother and father in the "feminist" family criticized the pageant mom for leaving her 13 month old for 2 weeks. I'm admittedly speculating here, but something tells me this wouldn't be as much of an issue if it had been the dad leaving the baby in the mom's hands for 2 weeks instead.
I believe listening to pageant dad speak shocked me more than any modern day horror movie. Talk about your quintessential caveman. He gets props for donning the "hooker" boots and scrubbing the floor though. Is it likely that these families aren't actually this extreme, but rather are encouraged to embellish? I can't believe that any intelligent woman would actually ascribe to beliefs like the pageant dad's.
"There's a way to teach your children to be artistic and free-thinking while still enabling them to succeed in more structured environments in case that's what they choose."
I completely agree with you here. That's what shocked me as well. It seemed he was under the impression that if he wanted his kids to be free thinkers than he couldn't teach them anything academic. WHAT?!?!
However, when he "attacked" the pagent mom for leaving her 13 month old child I understood why he did it. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the pagent mom saying his wife was a bad mother for working all the time and never seeing her kids. So then he replied with "Well, you left your 13 month old for 2 weeks to do this show." It was wrong of him to say, but he felt he needed to say it to defend his wife in a way.
As usual with Wife Swap, you find out that neither family is perfect and both have problems and need to fix things.
Swimwear?!
Oh my, that Pageant Dad isn't terribly bright, is he?
Oh my, that Pageant Dad isn't terribly bright, is he?
I find these shows to be a fascinating social study. This isn't the first feminist they've featured either.
This particular episode fanned the flames of my hatred for child pageantry. Then I found out a friend of mine entered her 1 year old into a pageant? That girl hasn't heard the end of it.
The most stunning comment from the pageant dad was when he said he would be proud if his baby grew up to be an accessory for some man.
I was floored when the pageant mom said she wanted to put highlights in her baby's hair.
If you want watch something even more scarier than this episode of Wife Swap, check out the documentary "Jesus Camp". It is sometimes shown on A&E and also on YouTube, just try not to get nightmares when the evangelical church goers start worshipping and praying to a life sized cardboard cut-out of George W.
I'm really glad to see that I'm not the only person who enjoys watching Wife Swap on a consistent basis. My mom and I watch it just about every day together and it's become a huge guilty pleasure for me (I've even gotten my boyfriend and his sister to start watching it). It's so interesting to me to see how families (in this episode and others) react when matched up with their opposites. In some episodes it seems as if families don't know that people unlike themselves exist. I think one of my favorites was the one with the hippy/peace activist mom swapping with the military family. The son in the hippy family was trying to teach the mom in the military family why feminism is important and why men are just as responsible for their families as women. All in all a very interesting episode.
I actually kind of felt bad for pageant mom; she is so insecure that she sleeps in her makeup in front of her husband because she doesn't trust that he will love and accept her without being fully made-up. It is like she is stuck in the worst stage of adolescence. Of course it is their children that I feel the worst for and pageant Dad struck me as being really unintelligent. (His denial that his wife bleaches her hair was particularly funny) I did have some issues with the other father saying he doesn't care what reading level his kids are at and having to go everywhere with them but I thought the roller derby mom was really well spoken and conducted herself well.
Well, her insecurity about her husband is kind of warranted. Because he won't accept her without make-up and tanning...
Oh the depressingness.
I felt so sorry for little Kyle. When he painted that he felt sad when he wrestles, that struck a chord with me. I'm so happy the pageant parents learned they have to let their son have fun while he is a kid. So much wrong with this family, I'm glad they learned as much as they did.
On the other side, they probably should try to make sure their children are up to standards academically. I also wonder if feminist mom's kids want to see her more. She has the right to a full time career, but kids should be able to see both parents. I wonder how much time she really spends with her kids, and how much they miss her.
"I also wonder if feminist mom's kids want to see her more. She has the right to a full time career, but kids should be able to see both parents. I wonder how much time she really spends with her kids, and how much they miss her."
My thought on this is that they have a stay-at-home parent. If it was the dad who was the doctor and away from the kids 10 hours a day while the mom stayed home, society wouldn't have nearly the same reaction of 'don't the kids miss their dad?' Most children where I grew up have two full-time working parents who are away from home at least 10-12 hours a day. I don't see this mother as doing anything different than any other single-wage-earner in a household. I am sure she sees her children in the evenings and on the weekends just the same.
Society may view it differently, I don't however. I watch a lot of these shows and there have been ones where they address that the dad works too much and never gets to spend time with the kids. Family togetherness is one of the common themes of this show.
As Lilith said, the children deserve to spend time with both parents. And the thing about the feminist mom was that she worked 100 hours a week then she did roller derby as a hobby which took up a lot of her extra time. She really did not see her kids much and she realized this during the swap. It's fine for her to have a job and a hobby (we all need our "me" time) but you also need some time with your kids. Her kids needed it and at the end of the swap she realized she needed it too.
This is so awful, the feminist mother is making a good point about the blond wife being just another trophey. that guy is saying the worst things, men being masculine and women feminine...hilarious..
on the other hand, it seems to me like the un-schooled girls should get out more.
i don't necessarily agree with those who are saying that the children should get out more, or go to a "real" school. too much emphasis is put on children to go to normal schools, to exceed acedemically and socially, so on and so forth. constant exams are not always good indicators of someone's intelligence, and school settings can make some people feel inferior. it is difficult to be proud of a mark, when peers next to you are complaining about their makr, which is higher than yours. from what i saw, the girls seemed to be confident and happy. a former co-worker and woman i babysit for used to homeschool her kids, and because of that started activities at the public library for home schooled children where they'd read, do arts and crafts, and the like. i currently attend a school that is a mix of correspondance and classroom leanring, i have teachers, weekly due dates, and write my exams at school, but i work on modules and don't need to work at school. it works perfectly for me, i have excelled in my grades, and as opposed to sitting in class bored, wondering why i'm wasting my time, i am able to enjoy learning, know that everything i do has a purpose and will be reflected in my marks, and have more time to do what i enjoy. if i was attending i normal high school, i would be failing. i'm sure if the two girls wanted to attended a regular elementray school their parents would comply, but being homeschooled does not equal not graudating high school or being able to attend a post-secondary school.
(i hope any spelling errors dont validify the need for normal classroom leanring, as it's 3 am and i have been working on schoolwork for the past 5 hours)
I'm just amused by pageant dad's terms of "masculent" and "feminent". Whoever suspected he isn't very smart is probably right.
this show just makes me laugh. IT is just entertainment for 30 minutes. CD Label Software