A parody of dad Robert Kelly’s BBC interview being interrupted by his kids has been criticised for being “sexist”.
New Zealand satirical programme ‘Jono and Ben’ made a sketch in which comedian Kate Wordsworth reenacted the scenario to portray how a mother would deal with the situation.
The video shows Wordsworth lifting her daughter onto her lap when she walks in the room and feeding her a bottle, while carrying on with the interview.
The mum then multi-tasks, as she irons clothes, defuses a bomb, cooks a roast and finds a missing sock while chatting.
The video was shared on Facebook on Thursday 16 March, with the caption: “Shout out to all the working women out there defusing bombs on a regular basis.”
The clip instantly faced some criticism. Commenting on the video, one person wrote: “I know this video has been made in good spirits and I support this 100%, but I’m a woman and I find this unfair to the original interviewee and definitely sexist.
“Must women put down all men, all the time? Even for being human?”
Another person wrote: “Imagine if the original situation had been a woman and then you made this video with a man. You’d all be screaming sexism.
“Just a prime example of sexism being socially acceptable if it’s men shown in a bad light.”
However, some people saw the funny side of the sketch and some mums could relate to the video, with one writing: “As a politician with three young kids, this really is my life. Except I was breastfeeding my baby during meetings. And I never iron anything.”
Commenting on the parody, John Adams, a stay-at-home dad who runs Dadbloguk.com, told The Huffington Post UK: “It’s a comedy sketch and you can’t take these things too seriously. That said, the suggestion that a woman can multi-task and do the cooking, clean a lavatory and look for socks while doing a national media interview, simply isn’t funny.
“It reinforces the idea that women can’t be professional in their own right and that men are useless in all domestic affairs.
“As a stay-at-home dad who does run the household, I didn’t laugh at all.”
However, Simon Ragoonanan, stay-at-home dad and blogger at Man Vs Pink defended the clip.
“While I can see why it’s easy for dads to take offence to the spoof video, it’s as much a comment about the differing expectations on working mothers as anything,” he said.
“Working mums are still held to a much higher standard than working dads, with assumptions about how they need to juggle family and work that few dads have to face.”
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