And Of Course She Made Him Sammiches

Forty years ago when I was in university, I lived in a furnished suite on the second floor of a house. The landlord and his family lived downstairs. They were good people, immigrants from Europe who had been DPs after the war (remember that term?), and had worked hard in Canada to build a decent and secure life for themselves. However, patriarchy reigned supreme and unchallenged in that household. Every night after dinner, the father would sit in his big recliner to watch TV. If he wanted to watch a different station, he wouldn't get up and switch it himself, oh no. He would simply yell at the top of his lungs, "Mama! Come and change the channel!" and his wife would obediently drop everything, run in from wherever she was in the house, switch the station and then return to whatever she had been doing.