Husbands Under Attack?

I saw this catchy headline for a bizarre story: Author: Train your husband: Get an obedient spouse by coaching him like an animal, a new book says. I just wonder what kind of reaction we'd see if the roles were reversed and the book in question was instructing men how to "Get an obedient spouse by coaching her like an animal." I can almost hear Hillary Clinton's shrill, cackling voice: "Sexism, alive and well in America!" Somehow, I think most ladies would be galled and understandably so...but if it's the guy we're talking about, well that's ok.

Now, I get that we're supposed to read these kinds of stories with a bit of mirth, but I think it's fair to suggest that male-baiting Fabian tactics like this one, instructing women on the fine art of training their Homer Simpson-like, red meat-eating, neanderthal of a husband like a canine, have done their fair share in eroding the unique role and image of the husband in the family.

Here are some of the more irreverent excerpts from the story.

Attention, frustrated wives: if you want your husband to start listening to you and stop leaving his socks on the floor, all you need is a little patience and a lot of mackerel. Such is the putative relationship advice of Amy Sutherland, a journalist who spent a year at an animal-trainer school and decided to apply the trainers' techniques to her husband's annoying habits. According to Sutherland, the key to marital bliss is to ignore negative habits and reward positive ones, the same approach animal trainers use to get killer whales to leap from their tanks and elephants to stand on their heads.

The idea of women training simple men is a well-worn trope of pop culture. In the 1963 film "If a Man Answers," Sandra Dee's mother hands her a canine-training manual with the advice "If you want a perfect marriage, treat your husband like a dog." More recently, the BBC reality show "Bring Your Husband to Heel" featured a professional dog trainer teaching wives how to get their husbands to sit and stay.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/109614?g=1