Verity Johnson: Pork ads get wrong end of salami about modern Kiwi dads

Opinion

So NZ Pork, you think giving a woman a "night of pleasure" is cooking her dinner? You've clearly never dated one of us Shore girls.

Seriously, I could get very angry at the NZ Pork adverts. The underlying assumption about female responsibility is one thing. The number of arses they jam into 90 seconds is another.

And the whole defence that "duh, it's ironic sexism!" is just a lazy defence. (If you're making fun of it, you have to actually be critical of it ...)

What really annoys me, though, is what they imply about men. They seem to think they're speaking to two islands of bawdy, blokey dudes so stuck in 1940 that they use lard as hair gel. Apparently, Kiwi men are shaved apes, chronically dependent on their exhausted mates for nourishment, and in desperate need of coaxing into the 21st century.

Oh, the advert says this with its tongue in cheek, but it does say it.

Normally I don't pay too much attention to damaging male stereotypes in society. But unfortunately, damaging male stereotypes interact and often reinforce damaging female stereotypes. So you can't really care about one without caring about the other.

And anyway, I also care about this because it's wrong. When the advert came on TV, my girlfriends and I looked at each other and said, "uh, my dad actually does most of the cooking at home. This is ... weird."

Because these days there are a lot of dads out there who aren't mortally terrified of housework.

My dad does most of the cooking at home. He also cleans the house obsessively. Dad's kitchen is so sterile you could conduct open-heart surgery on the counter after the post- dinner, pre-bedtime wipe down. He also buys and arranges flowers on Sunday.

He's not a lone domestic warrior. In 2009, New Zealand Attitude and Values Study found Kiwi men do on average 8 hours a week of housework. Yes, women do more at 13 hours, but 8 hours is still a significant chunk. And what's more important than hours is the attitude they do housework with.

They might not do as much, but if dads do housework like it's a normal, regular thing for them to do, then that's what's really important.

Dads who don't make a fuss but just get on with it make chores seem like a normal thing for men to do. That means that kids grow up and see chores as neutral tasks. It's not something women do; it's something people do. Like shouting at supermarket self checkouts.

And there are lots of dads who just get on and clean stuff. They don't rage that this is someone else's job. Or worse, assume a patronisingly angelic air that they're doing a great favour for the missus. They just load that washing machine.

Normal guys, doing normal things, and just accepting it as normal. And you know what? These normal guys are awesome - very, very awesome.

In 2014, the scientific journal Psychological Science found that dads who do the housework raise more ambitious daughters. It showed that having a dad who does dishes is in fact the strongest predictor of a daughter's own professional ambitions and gender attitudes.

Their daughters grow up with a less gender restrictive attitude to the work force, and are encouraged into potentially higher earning and less traditional careers.

Even anecdotally, one of the casual social observations I've collected from girls I've met is that those who get on with their dad are more ambitious.

So are dads really important feminist role models? Hell yeah. And there are swathes of dudes out there who are doing great things for their girls. So thank you. You're awesome. You need celebrating.

You're also like parking spots at the park and ride - we need more of you!