Pageant followup

First of all, when researching pageant culture, I happened upon this tidbit about a pageant for disabled girls, which takes place in Kewanee, IL, where my college roommate and friend across the hall hail from (shoutout to Karen Peart and Kay Blachinsky wherever you are! Couldn't find you on Facebook).

What led me there was this interesting take on the pageants we so love to hate. I'd also like to offer a theory about the advent of the pageant scene, and the demographic that seems to populate it. I'll start out with a little bio of my own mom, Zelda Luke Reiz. Mom grew up in a low-income family, so she was eligible for free dance lessons at Swope Settlement in Kansas City. She and her sister were nurtured there by the director, a wonderful woman named Esther Lane, who took them under her wing and became their patron, so to speak. The sister act ended up performing in nightclubs across the Midwest, which earned them their college tuition. But the road, which began at age five, was grueling. Daily rehearsals in addition to schoolwork; and their mother, an expert seamstress, sewed all their costumes. Fast forward to 2013, and let's compare to low-income families today who want to give their daughters a push, but lack the resources that wealthier families have:

1. Nowadays you don't need costly lessons and other extracurriculars that the pageant demographic often can't afford. Anyone can turn on YouTube, copy a bunch of (more-often-than-not sexy) moves and work up a routine, have a friend or relative make a glitzy costume, and as long as you have the wherewithal to get there, your kid can enter...
   
2. ...and possibly earn cash, which I theorize is this demographic's way of thumbing its nose at the resource-heavy folks who can ultimately launch their kids (ordinarily meaning send them to college, which is increasingly out of reach, even for the middle class). By entering their daughters in pageants, this demographic might be saying, "We'll just teach our daughters to get by on their smiles" (i.e., looks, ability to exude implied sexual availability), a shortcut, if you will, to launching them for those who don't have the resources to fund an "upper-class" track.

What do others think? I welcome your thoughts.

From infant hairband to stripper: Pimping our daughters

“…according to [Mary] Douglas, just as misplacement and inappropriateness is the essence of defilement, the sacred would be that which fully complies with the corresponding categories. That is to say, sanctity in itself is the ability to fit into categories. The purity / defilement dichotomy so fundamental to religion and culture is determined by an individual’s / object’s (in)ability to comply with or to fit into precise categories.

Therefore, elements that appear in the wrong category or that don’t fully apply to any existing category disturb the social order, even being viewed as threatening by entire societies or individuals. When encountered with such displacement or ambiguity, society will try to avoid it or eradicate it"

— Paula Kiel

The obvious example that the above brings to mind is of course homosexuality: Gays, and to an even greater extent transgenders, and intersexuals, do not fit into our binary categories, as explained by Kiel [“Binary oppositions such as good / evil, pure / profane, myself / others, raw / cooked and so forth, are fundamental to human thought and to formation processes of societies (Douglas, 1966; Hall, 1997; Lévi-Strauss, 2008; Turner, 1969).”]

Hence the felt need to label our infant children as girls or boys, leading to the associated practice of (girl) infant hairbands (Goddess save us). What makes my stomach reflexively seize up when I see these monstrosities is how uncomfortable it looks. Of course: As early as infancy, we’re already sending our girls the message that they’re expected to undergo discomfort in order to be accepted into society’s ideal of feminine beauty.

Disturbingly, notice that we don’t mark our infant boys correspondingly. This is because male = default, and female = Other, as well as imperfect, flawed. The hairband, therefore, is a signal to the world, telling it, “I’m a girl, so use your ‘girly voice’ when you talk to me and treat me as disabled — an invalid.” So parents who put hairbands on their girls are, from their first moments, grooming them to be weak, fragile, and dependent, the extreme of which is a prostitute or a stripper. The prostitute is subjugated by her pimp; while the stripper is not much better off: Accounts of women earning their way through grad school by stripping or posing for Playboy notwithstanding, what makes the stripper titillating is her very abjection, which endows those who paid to watch her (men and women alike) with instant power over her.

Which brings me to Little Miss Sunshine, which I happened just to have watched yesterday (I know; I’m seven years behind the times…at least). In it, atypical (bespectacled, slightly roundish) seven-year-old child beauty pageant contestant Olive “upsets the order” by performing a spoof striptease to explicitly sexual music for the talent competition, which lands her and her family in the police precinct after a complaint is filed.

Before Olive’s act, each of her fellow prepubescent contestants, slathered disturbingly with makeup and fake tanner, perform “acceptable” routines, i.e., hinting at (or even dripping with) sex, yet not explicitly sexual as Olive’s routine is. This prompts the question in my mind: Would Olive’s routine have been considered acceptable if she had been “pageant-typical” in appearance, like the other contestants? While we’ll never know since the story is fictional, there’s no shortage of real-world examples thereof.

The Little Miss Sunshine pageant opens with the nauseating emcee caressingly crooning “America” “to” the posed, lined-up contestants, a not-in-the-least-subtle message that the pageant contestants are the very embodiment of what America worships and aspires to as the feminine ideal: In addition to having been born whole and perfect (any disabled kids – or adults – entering beauty pageants?), they’ve just emerged from what is basically a Beauty Conveyer Belt that has ejected them straight onto the stage, sequined, made up, waxed, and sculpted within an inch of their little lives and radiating an unattainable female ideal…like strippers.

So followed to its logical conclusion, what begins as a seemingly innocuous and frivolous accessory is actually the first warped expectation she internalizes about being female. Instead of having to unwarp this garbage, wouldn’t it make more sense just not to engage in it in the first place? Parents, I implore: Let’s not pimp our daughters. They’re worth more to us than a tiara and a sash, are they not?

Free the Jewish Sabbath תשוחרר השבת

עברית לאחר האנגלית, למטה:  

I’ve had it up to here with balance. How balanced is it that Christians get public transportation on their day of rest, and Muslims get public transportation on their day of rest, but not me? What’s up with that? Don’t talk to me about balance, and please don’t talk to me about that vague concept that no one seems to be able to define, "character of the Jewish state" (of which there are no fewer than six instances in Procaccia’s piece). If I’m Jewish, and I spend my Saturdays riding the train to go shopping, then ergo, by virtue of my Jewishness, the surrounding state and day, are Jewish. It’s all Jewish, as long as Jews are doing it. We need to unclench our knuckles from the branch known as “preserving our Jewish character”; that branch is bowed so low by now, our feet are already touching the ground.

And if indeed I do ride and shop on Saturday, how, pray tell, does it affect those who choose not to? In case Procaccia hasn’t noticed, this isn’t 1948: We how have this thing called zoning: Retail establishments are for the most part no longer scattered amidst residences. And those located in the hearts of areas populated by Sabbath-observant Jews would not find it worth opening on Saturday in any case. Problem solved.

How is it affecting anyone, Orthodox or otherwise, if I’m at a mall or shopping center, which by definition are located so far from residences that no one in the latter could possibly be aware of it (as long as they turn off those blasted shopper announcement loops, a blessing for us all)?

Similarly, public transportation routes could easily be altered on Saturdays to bypass all residential districts. We’d have to walk further to reach main arteries, but it’s certainly better than being held prisoners to an absurd system that runs according to some so-called “consensus” or “status quo”. Who decided that a bus departing Eilat at 11 a.m. on Saturday is less disruptive to the Sabbath karma than one departing Jerusalem at the same time? I’m certain a route could be found for the latter that would disturb no one.

The present situation also favors car travel, which in turn favors those with money. Gas stations and battery changing stations are automated, so that no staff need be hired; whereas we who depend on public transportation still need train conductors and bus drivers. But if these personnel were offered time and a half, I’m betting there’d be no shortage of applicants, non-Jews and Jews alike, for those positions. And in the future, once these are phased out in favor of automation, then what will the excuse be? That trains, buses, and self-checkout lanes “offend Orthodox sensitivities”? Where do Orthodox sensitivities stop, and mine begin?

This country’s character doesn’t need preserving, it needs just the opposite: It needs opening up to the 21^st-century reality. Public transportation on Saturdays would “open up” this country more than any single amenity. It would grease the wheels of both tourism and immigration, not to mention the economy at large. And transactions carried out on Saturdays affect no one except those engaged therein. So don’t give me warmed-over platitudes about balance, compromise, and national character. Give me a way to get from my residence to those of my friends in other communities, seven days a week. I promise to conduct myself as befits a Jew and make no noise while doing so. Can the Orthodox promise the same?

הדיבורים על איזון [לא הצלחתי למצוא את המאמר בעברית] כבר עלו לי על העצבים. איזה מין איזון הוא זה שהנוצרים נהנים מתחבורה ציבורית ביום המנוחה שלהם, והמוסלמים נהנים מתחבורה ציבורית ביום המנוחה שלהם, אבל אני לא? מה הקטע פה? אל תדברו איתי על איזון, ואל תדברו איתי על אותו מונח מעורפל, שלא נראה כי יש בכלל מישהו המסוגל להגדירו, הקרוי "צביון המדינה היהודית" (והמוזכר לא פחות משש פעמים במאמר של פרוקצ'יה).

 אם אני יהודיה ואני מבלה את השבת שלי בנסיעה ברכבת כדי לערוך קניות, אזי מן הסתם מעצם יהדותי, כך גם האווירה והיום הסובבים אותי הם יהודים. כל דבר הוא יהודי כל זמן שיהודים עושים אותו. אנו צריכים לחלץ את פרקי אצבעותינו מהענף הידוע כ"שימור הצביון היהודי"; הענף הזה כבר כל כך כפוף עד שכפות רגלינו כבר נוגעות בקרקע.

ואם אמנם אני נוסעת ועורכת קניות בשבת, כיצד משפיע הדבר, מי זה יאמר לי ומי יספר, על אלו הבוחרים שלא לעשות זאת? לתשומת ליבה של פרוקצ'יה, השנה אינה 1948: יש לנו כיום מה שנקרא איזרור. מוסדות הסחר הקמעונאי ברובם אינם מפוזרים עוד בקרב איזורי המגורים. ואילו לאלו הממוקמים בלב האזורים המאוכלסים ביהודים שומרי שבת ממילא לא כדאי לפתוח בשבת, כך שהבעיה נפתרה.

כיצד יושפע מישהו, דתי או לא דתי, אם אני נמצאת בקניון או במרכז קניות, שמעצם הגדרתם מצויים הרחק מאיזורי המגורים, כך שאף אחד באותם איזורים לא יכול להיות אפילו מודע לכך (בתנאי שיכבו את אותן הודעות קוליות ארורות ובלתי-פוסקות לקונים, מה שכולנו נקדם בברכה)?

כמו כן ניתן בקלות לשנות את מסלולי התחבורה הציבורית בשבת כך שיעקפו את כל איזורי המגורים. ניאלץ ללכת יותר רחוק על מנת להגיע לכבישים הראשיים, אך זה בוודאי יותר טוב מלהיות שבויים במערכת אבסורדית המנוהלת על פי מה שקרוי "קונצנזוס" או "סטאטוס קוו". מי החליט שאוטובוס היוצא מאילת בשבת ב-11 לפנה"צ מפריע פחות לקארמה של השבת מעמיתו היוצא מירושליים באותו זמן? אני סמוכה ובטוחה כי ניתן למצוא מסלול לאוטובוס מירושליים שלא יפריע לאף אחד.

המצב הקיים גם מפלה לטובה את הנסיעה במכונית, מה שבעצם מפלה לטובה את אלו שיש להם כסף. תחנות דלק ותחנות להחלפת מצברים הן אוטומאטיות, כך שאין צורך להעסיק עובדים; ואילו אנו, התלויים בתחבורה הציורית, עדיין זקוקים לכרטיסנים ברכבת ולנהגי אוטובוס. אולם אם יציעו לעובדים אלו שכר של 150%בשבת, אני מוכנה להתערב שלא יהיה מחסור במבקשי עבודה למשרות אלו, יהודים ולא-יהודים. ובעתיד, כאשר גם המשרות הללו יעברו שלב לאוטומיזציה, מה יהיה התירוץ אז? הרכבות, האוטובוסים וקופות השירות העצמי בחנויות "פוגעות ברגישויות של הדתיים"? היכן מסתיימות הרגישויות של הדתיים ומתחילות אלו שלי?

צביונה של הארץ אינו זקוק לשימור, אלא להיפך: הוא זקוק להיפתח למציאות של המאה ה-21. תחבורה ציבורית בשבת "תפתח" את הארץ יותר מכל אמצעי-נוחות אחר. היא תשמן את גלגלי התיירות והעלייה, שלא לדבר על הקהילה בכללה. ופעילות המתרחשת בשבת אינה משפיעה על שום אדם למעט אלו העוסקים בה. אז אל תתנו לי אמירות נדושות ושחוקות על איזון, פשרה וצביון לאומי. תנו לי אפשרות להגיע ממקום מגורי למגוריהם של חברים ביישובים אחרים בכל שבעת ימי השבוע. אני מבטיחה להתנהג כראוי וכיאה ליהודיה ולא לעשות רעש תוך כדי כך. האם יכולים גם הדתיים להבטיח אותו דבר?

תורגם בנדיבות עמי ארגמן

Stereotype of the Sassy Sabra הסטראוטיפ של הצבר החצוף

Yesterday while lifeguarding, I went over to the baby pool to clean off the drain covers, and noticed a father whose kids were in the pool chewing what looked like gum. Since he’s not a regular at our pool, and since sooner or later parents of preschoolers ordinarily get into the water, I told him politely that gum-chewing in the water isn’t allowed.

Him: It’s not gum. It’s a cookie.

Me: Same applies. No food or gum in the water.

Him: How come?

Daughter (looked to be five or six) in sing-songy “you’re-not-the-boss-of-me” voice: I chewed gum in the pool!

Me [ignoring her and replying to dad’s “How come?”]: A few reasons: First, you could choke on it. Second, if it comes out of your mouth, it gets stuck in the filtration system.

With over 30 years’ experience at this job, I didn’t wait for their assent, but instead just glided off. But here’s the thing: Everyone knows the “charming” sterotype of the “sassy Sabra” and “Israeli chutzpa”. But really, it’s not cute, nor is it charming. Questioning authority? Sure, if it’s a question of unfairness. Speaking out against discrimination or injustice? Absolutely. But arguing with the traffic cop simply to prove you’re no sucker, or he’s not the boss of you? Not admirable in the least. And the example of that snotty kid in the pool, or rather, her snotty parent, is precisely where this attitude begins.

What (mature) adult, when told by a lifeguard, “X is prohibited here” asks “How come?” Isn’t “No food or gum in the pool” self-explanatory? Or if not completely understandable, isn’t setting an example for one’s children of being a good citizen more valuable than challenging the lifeguard over something that doesn’t prevent you from enjoying your swim? Wasn’t I at least owed the father interjecting, “Susie, listen to the lifeguard. She’s explaining the rules to you.” But instead, the dad was more preoccupied with proving to himself that “I’m not the boss of him”.

PS: Later I saw the son, who looked to be two or three, peeing on the pavement. I said to the dad, “Hey. That’s what the bathroom is for.”

Dad: He just did it.

Me: So say something to him.

            While I certainly wouldn’t berate a child of that age for not having full control over his bladder, would it hurt for the dad to say, “Hey, Buddy. Next time you have to go, tell me and we’ll try to make it to the bathroom”? Jeez. At least give your kid something to shoot for, other than producing the next trashy lowlife, or “Sassy Sabra”.

If you're slutty and ya know it raise your hands שרמוטולוגיה בגרוש

גרסה עברית למטה ↓

So this term "slut-shaming": Shoot me, but I'm having problems with it. If it's used to refer to how people react to women who have the audacity to use birth control, then shouldn't we call it "slut"-shaming? Why are we letting Conservatives define a woman who uses birth control as a slut? As eye-opening as the SlutWalks are, does anyone really aspire to sluthood? Raise hands. If your hand is up, I'd venture you're a third-wave feminist. Because I'll admit that while I support your right to have sex with as many partners as you wish, I don't believe that dressing revealingly, and organizing mass displays of revealing dress (or as you call them, SlutWalks) does anything to advance feminism, i.e., obliterate patriarchy.

In fact, if you believe that dressing revealingly makes you powerful, it seems to me that you've simply bought into the male co-opting of feminism ("Grrrl Power") that tells you to wear as little as possible and to hell with social constructs. Yes, it's men telling you that, and hoping you'll spend lotsa money for skimpy shreds of fabric and six-inch heels that are supposed to empower you.

Meanwhile, this second-wave feminist chooses to cover up my sexual parts (I'm talking tank top and jeans, not a burqa) and vote with my feet: When I need to use a public (women's) restroom and there's a line, I head straight to the (usually unoccupied) "men's" room. Why should I docilely, compliantly stand in a line to relieve myself when a few feet away is an unoccupied toilet? Because someone arbitrarily labeled the door with a stick figure wearing a dress? No way. Not doing docile. Am I violating a taboo? You bet I am…proudly. Does it advance parity? Not only does it, but it does it far more directly than walking around half naked does. Am I a prude? If you insist. I prefer proud, productive "feminist".

המונח הזה, "ביוש שרמוטות" – תהרגו אותי, אך יש לי בעיה איתו. אם הוא משמש כהתייחסות לתגובתם של אנשים לנשים המעיזות בחוצפתן להשתמש באמצעי מניעת הריון, אז לא מתאים יותר לקרוא לו ביוש "שרמוטות"? מדוע אנו מניחות לשמרנים להגדיר אשה שמשתמשת באמצעי מניעה כשרמוטה? גם אם "מצעדי השרמוטות" מסייעים לפקיחת הרבה עיניים, יש מישהי שבאמת ובתמים שואפת להיות שרמוטה? נא להצביע. אם ידך מורמת, את מן הסתם שייכת לגל השלישי של הפמיניזם. שהרי אני מודה כי למרות שאני תומכת בזכותך לשכב עם כמה שותפים-למיטה שמתחשק לך, אינני מאמינה שחשיפת הגוף ברבים וארגון מופעי ענק של לבוש חושפני (או "מצעדי שרמוטות", כפי שאתן קוראות להם) מועילים כהוא-זה לקידום הפמיניזם, כלומר לחיסול האדנות הגברית.

למעשה, אם את מאמינה שלבוש חושפני מעניק לך כח, נראה לי שאת פשוט קונה את הגרסה ה"פמיניסטית"-גברית המזלזלת שמצווה עלייך לעטות כמה שפחות לבוש על עורך ושיילכו המוסכמות החברתיות לעזאזל. כן, הגברים הם אלו האומרים לך לנהוג כך, בתקווה שתשפכי ימבה כסף על פיסות בד קלושות ועקבים בגובה 15 ס"מ האמורים לכאורה להעצים אותך.

בינתיים אני, השייכת לגל השני של הפמיניזם, מעדיפה לכסות את חלקי הגוף המיניים שלי (אני מדברת על גופיית-כתפיות ומכנסי ג'ינס, לא על איזו בורקה מוסלמית) ולהצביע ברגליים: כשאני צריכה להשתמש בשירותי ("נשים") ציבוריים ויש תור, אני צועדת ישר לשירותי ה"גברים" (הפנויים בד"כ). מדוע עלי לעמוד בצייתנות ובהשלמה בתור לריקון שלפוחיתי כאשר ממש ממול יש אסלה פנויה? רק בגלל שמישהו הדביק באופן שרירותי דמות לובשת שמלה על הדלת? אין מצב. צייתנות עיוורת ואני לא מסתדרות ביחד. האם אני מחללת איזה איסור חברתי? ועוד איך... ואני גאה בכך. האם זה מקדם שוויון? בוודאי שכן, ובאופן הרבה יותר ישיר מאשר להסתובב מעורטלת-למחצה ברחובות. תקראו לי מתחסדת אם אתן רוצות. אני מעדיפה לראות את עצמי כ"חסידת פמיניזם" גאה ומועילה.

Haredi draft: The truth is out גיוס החרדים: האמת יוצאת

Well, the truth will out, as they say, and yesterday, it did — again. How many times do we need to hear it, how many rabbis need to issue statements before we admit to ourselves that it’s not about the draft? Or as one of the test pilots in the film The Right Stuff said, “Guys, it’s not about pussy; it’s about monkey!” Only here, we, the non-Orthodox, are the monkeys. Just read Aharon-Leib Shteinman’s statement yesterday under the sub-headline: “Lithuanian Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman's stand will make it hard for the ultra-Orthodox parties to support any proposal to integrate Haredi men into the army”. I especially like that “make it hard”, prompting me to say, “Poor things. So hard for them, living off the rest of us.”

However, the fact is that there is truth to the following: “[Shteinman] hinted that the attempts to draft ultra-Orthodox men stem from a desire [on our parts] to change the Haredi lifestyle rather than from national necessity. ‘We ask the government to leave us alone and not try to change us, and allow us to continue living in our own way. There can be no compromise on this matter.’” Aha. Well, I give Shteinman credit for making no bones about it, and we, for our parts, should be listening: There can be no compromise. No ambiguity there: It’s not the actual serving in the IDF that the ultra-Orthodox oppose; it’s any attempt on the part of outsiders to tamper with, alter, or (what they see as) ultimately eradicate their lifestyle. They want their children to have NO contact with our world. Period.

This attitude shuts down any pictures that Yair Lapid painted during his campaign of 18-year-old ultra-Orthodox performing national service in auxiliary units to firefighters, police, ambulance teams, hospital staff, or home visits to Holocaust survivors. Lapid’s words still echo inside my head: [using the example of reading to, shopping for, or otherwise assisting Holocaust survivors] זה אינו ביטול תורה; זה קיום תורה! [“This isn’t denigrating Torah; it’s upholding Torah!”].

Exactly! I thought. I began fantasizing about komúnot, groups of 18-year-olds sharing apartments around the country, volunteering in the community. No reason 18-year-old ultra-Orthodox couldn’t share gender-separate housing and work for two years in the above-mentioned capacities. Thus the rabbis could still supervise and keep an eye on them, making sure they adhere to the rules and even give them Torah classes in their off hours; and they’d 1) get exposed to the world in a “managed way” and 2) learn skills (including Hebrew) that could lead them to paid work.

“Catching” them at age 18 is critical, as once they enter yeshiva, they’re immersed in that world and as far as we’re concerned, “disappear”: Only a fool could think that allowing them to defer ‘til age 23 will result in anything but the status quo. By that time they’ve been married off and have one or more kids, and anything except full-time Torah study would be bucking the entire community.

But alas, Shteinman’s statement should shut down any national service fantasies on our parts: Anything short of total non-regulation of the ultra-Orthodox is acceptable to them. This is the moment for us, then, to shout our truth: “Fine. Stay in your cocoons. We can’t realistically draft you anyway; to do so would be more trouble than it’s worth. But we’re giving you notice: Your free ride is over. The pipeline is closing: No more child stipends. All existing kids will be “grandfathered” in, so we’re not taking food from the mouths of babes; but any children born after [let’s say] two years from said date will not be receiving any support from the state.” Two years: sufficient time to refrain from expanding one’s family. This plan is a humane way of weaning the ultra-Orthodox off the state teat. Remove the draft from the equation, so we can’t be accused of tampering with or eradicating their lifestyle. Strip the argument down to its bare bones, to a finite resource: money. All else is commentary.

Postscript: Can't resist the urge: Can any readers explain why the above was rejected for publication by Haaretz, yet this daddy blog piece was considered op-ed-worthy? I get that someone's becoming a parent is a current event...for him. But more current than a proposal to increase sharing-the-burden parity [walks away shaking blogging head...]?

Giving kids Mom's surname endangers species הענקת שם משפחה של האם מסכנת את המין האנושי

A friend who took his wife’s surname (yay!) sent me this piece of drek parading as science. On the one hand, I hesitate to even dignify it with a response. On the other, just in case anyone out there is looking to validate their giving their kid hizzer father’s surname, I felt that Goddess has called me to disabuse any such individual of that notion.

So this piece comes from a site called BigThink, which seems to be a forum for science-based arguments for…well, lots of stuff. I admit to not being even a little bit tempted to extend my visit beyond printing the piece out and getting the heck out of there.

Its premise is that aside from a few species (the others being avian), humans are the only ones whose males invest in the upkeep of their young, so therefore they’re insecure about their paternity, not wanting to support some other guy’s young by mistake. So in order to convince human dads to invest in their young, we must give our young their dads' surnames, which will assuage their dads' (collective unconscious?) fears that the young they’re upkeeping aren’t actually theirs.

The piece concludes by claiming that 1) A system wherein children take their mothers’ surnames is doomed to extinction evolutionarily speaking, as in such a system, the males will not feel compelled to look after their young; and 2) Therefore, “most known human cultures practice patrilineal inheritance of surnames.”

While that last one may be numerically true (how does one count cultures?), I doubt it’s the case on a per capita basis. The members of the Chinese and Hispanic cultures alone probably exceed half the world’s population, not to mention other cultures with which I’m not familiar. As for the first claim above, here’s the conversation with my husband:

Me: Uh, I don’t even know where to start. How about now we have this thing called DNA testing?

Husband: How about now we have this thing called civilization?!

Hmm. Can’t argue with that.