Oh Jesus! Christmas Is Not Sexist

3:46 pm, December 20th | by Hillary Reinsberg

Earlier today, we saw a tweet that suggested “even Christmas is sexist.” Sorry, but no, holiday shopping and preparation is not sexist.

The tweet, from our friends at ForbesWoman read: “Who’s “in charge” of the holidays at your house? A new post has @Meg_Casserly thinking that even Christmas is sexist.” It then linked to Ms. Casserly’s article on The Huffington Post, entitled “Holiday Survival Guide For Women.” The idea behind it is that women take on much of the house work and shopping work during the holiday season. And there’s a suggestion that this is sexist.

It’s true — women do take on more of the cooking, preparing and bargain-hunting during the holidays. But that doesn’t make Christmas and Hanukkah sexist, or anti-women. (Side note: holidays advertisements, on the other hand, can be fairly sexist).

There’s a figure folks throw around a lot, arguing that women do twice as much, or even 80 percent of the housework across America. And apparently this figure gets extended (though I haven’t seen much hard data to support it) to shopping and holiday cooking.

I have a few things to say. First, if you don’t want to shop or cook, don’t. Make your husband/son/nephew/father do it. I don’t care. But let’s not get into personal home politics here — every family is different, yada yada yada.

My assumption is that a good deal of women enjoy cooking and shopping. Wow — women buying things. How very sexist! When I hear the figure that women make up three-quarters of consumers, it’s never construed as sexist. But somehow, it is sexist when those women take on the “duty” of shopping for the holidays. It’s a double standard.

There are many women who enjoy cooking and shopping, especially around this time of year — and those who don’t are fully capable of saying so. To imply that the holiday season as a whole is sexist — throwing the Baby Jesus out with the bathwater, if you will — is insulting. We don’t need to denounce the concept to be empowered.

If you insist that women baking and buying gifts is sexist, then perhaps a more useful guide would be “The Men’s Guide To Getting Through The Holidays.”

TAGS: christmas sexist | holiday shopping sexist