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Nina In New York: Researchers At U of South Carolina Want A Sandwich; Find Modern Women Fat, Lazy

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

A new study conducted by lazy, misogynistic, good-for-nothing, backwoods, mamma's boy researchers at the University of South Carolina has come up with the stunning conclusion that women are gaining weight as they spend less time doing housework.

Apparently, back in the good old days of 1965, women were averaging around 26 hours a week on household chores, compared to approximately 13 (or fewer) today. Fascinatingly, the same relationship has been observed in the number of hours women spend:

  • On old-timey fat-jiggling machines
  • Catering to the menfolk
  • Minding the children while their husbands are out winning the bread
  • Not having careers
  • Drinking Metrical
  • Doing the Twist
  • Getting harassed and discriminated against in the workplace
  • Fixing sandwiches
  • Earning equal pay in the workplace (well, sorta)
  • Going to college
  • Making Baked Alaska
  • Being subservient
  • Experimenting with hair curlers
  • Being oppressed
  • Selling Tupperware

Corresponding to this finding is the conclusion that women also watch twice as much television now than they did in the '60s. So it seems pretty clear that the population weight gain is likely due to the fact that today's modern women have been unshackled from the drudgery of our forebears so that we might spend significantly more time sitting with our slippered feet up, watching Maury and eating bonbons while hired helpers cook and clean and do laundry and the men continue to earn the bread with which we so greedily stuff our fat, lazy faces. It is likely completely unrelated to a national trend in weight gain over the last half-century, which is largely attributed to (among many other reasons) low-quality ingredients, over-processed foods, a dependence on fast food chains, and a chronic lack of exercise and activity. Also irrelevant is that television has approximately 50 billion more channels and programs than it did 48 years ago, and everyone watches more of it because it plays something other than a test pattern past 10 PM.

Perhaps the University of South Carolina is actually a code name for Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce and this study was really a focus group designed around a new campaign for floor cleaner. Either way, I'm glad we have this vital information. Of course, I can't really understand it, what with being a woman and all, but I'll wait for my husband to get home to explain it all in terms that are familiar to me. Then, even though I'm liberated, I'll fix him some dinner and crack open a beer for him in my adoring way, because I could stand to lose a few pounds.

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