Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Hockey Moms & Joe Six-Packs: A Left I reader survey
We've all heard the terms "Hockey Moms and Joe Six-Packs" more in the last few weeks than probably in our entire lives (and way more than we wanted to hear them). I'm not actually familiar with the term "hockey mom," being from Northern California, but I'm certainly familiar with the analogous "soccer moms," and as far as I can tell, that's a positive phrase, just a way people (or just women I guess!) who spend a lot of time chauffeuring their kids to soccer practice and games (and hopefully being proud of their kids' performance) describe themselves.
But "Joe Six-Pack," to the extent I'm familiar with it, is a very different term - a pejorative phrase describing people (men in this case, although Sarah Palin seems to use it to describe herself) who sit around in the undershirts drinking beer, probably watching baseball or football on TV, and not actually doing anything remotely productive. As far as I know, most people who might fit the description would never actually describe themselves as "Joe Six-Pack," and describing someone else like that is an insult, not a compliment.
So here's my question for readers: what do you think? Am I wrong about this, and Sarah Palin right? Or is she as full of it on this subject as on everything else she has to say? And by "full of it," I'm not referring to beer.