Feminism and Its Changing Role in Society

I just wanted to respond to some of the class discussion today. Some members of the class expressed thoughts of trying to be more masculine as teachers in order to gain respect and control of the classroom. I wonder from whence this idea of power=masculine. Why did you identify female conductors as appearing masculine when they conduct. Can they not maintain power and yet retain their sense of femininity? I had a beard all year and wore a tie everyday but it was not that I was trying to appear more masculine- I was simply trying to appear older. I would be interested to hear the other side of this from a female perspective. Also, as a man I do see some type of paradigmatic shift in how we see men in society and I am seeing this shift through how men are portrayed in television shows. Consider for a moment "Family Guy" "King of Queens" "Everybody Loves Raymond" "The Simpsons" "Married with Children" "King of the Hill." What do these shows have in common. They all portray the husbands and fathers as inept, rude, unintelligent, insensitive, ignorant and portray the husband/father as another child in the house. I find this to be problematic. Even on commercials- I am thinking of the Coors Light commercial where the woman is taking a pregnancy test and shouts that it is blue and the man (of course oblivious and concerned only with beer) responds that he is happy as well because his beer bottle has turned blue which means it is cold enough to drink. This is not ok! I am not suggesting that we go back to television shows where "father knows best" but why does the father now know nothing. I do not plan on being a husband or father the way it is portrayed in these commercials and television shows and I do NOT feel comfortable with society presenting men in this light and no one saying anything about it!