"May I speak to the male head of the household?"

[Cleita]

I just got a strange tele-marketing call. The person said she was from (didn't catch the name) Data Research and asked to speak to the male head of the household. I replied she would have to speak in meow if she wante to speak to him. She thanked me and hung up.

I sat down and thought about this and started wondering about which sick segment of our population still thinks that there are male heads of a households? I spent a good part of my life fighting the concept of women as docile cows, and now there is a polling operation out there who doesn't want to speak to women about it?

[rockymountaindem]

1. It was probably a poll.

That's how they ensure an equal distribution between men and women in their sample. I wouldn't sweat it.

[skooooo]

2. might be interested in..

...researching buying patterns of adult males, maybe?

[Straight Shooter]

3. You should have responded, "I'm sorry, we live in Sleepy Hollow. ...

... The male in this household is headless." :P

[Cleita]

4. LOL

Good reply. I will have to remember that one if they call again.

[longship]

15. Or, this is Stepchevy where all the men are robot servants

to the women.

[jzodda]

5. I worked at a place called Diversified Research

back when I was a teen and they would say when you want to speak to the adult female say "can I speak to the female head of the household", and when its the male say "can I speak to the male head of the household"

Its for polling purposes when then want the adult male or female adult, parent types. It really is not against women or womens rights-at least from my own experience from about 15 years ago.

[all.of.me]

6. i would have said:

"excuse me while i go in the other room and attach my penis."

but your meow answer was great.

[karlrschneider]

7. I got a call a while back from some outfit (Police auxiliary maybe???)

wanting to sell me light bulbs. I said "Sorry I don't use them."

The guy said "Come on, don't be a wise guy, everyone uses light bulbs"


I replied "Well, I'm blind so they don't do much for me."


He hung up instantly.
:evilgrin:

[all.of.me]

9. good one

lol

[all.of.me]

8. and the other one that bugs me is when they ask,

"Mrs. Genevat?"

and i have to tell them that mrs. genevat is 92 years old and lives 2000 miles away. my name is MS genevat. i've even gone around and around with my kids' teachers about this! it's like they have NO clue what single parenting is. they certainly don't act it with the schedules they lay on the kids.

[jayctravis]

24. I work on the phone and I always use Ms.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

10. I have draft age children at home, & I get "telemarketers"

asking to speak to anyone in the household between the ages of 18 & 29. I think they are really recruiters, because they usually sound surprised when I say no one of that age lives here.

Soooo who knows who those "telemarketers" are that are asking for "male head of household" - might be creeps, or worse - recruiters.

[MazeRat7]

11. I got one of those a few months back...

I answered the phone, in my typical low Cash voice complete with Texas drawl, and the marketer ask if I was the "male head of the household".

I said, "well... I do own the house and I do pay all the bills.... but if you want to speak to the head of the household, hang on and I'll go get my fiancee'...."

I put down the phone and when she answered, there was nobody there... go figure. *grin.

MZr7

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. Sorry, but my woo-hoo does not speak.

[ultraist]

13. My son answered the phone earlier tonight...

and they said, "may I speak to the lady of the house?" He said, hold on, and they hung up!

[CHIMO]

14. People

That call and ask questions usually get short shrift on our phone.
The assumption taken by the caller is that there is a male to speak to. My response would be of the kind that the person might want to call back later.
Would be interesting to know if they said "may" or "can".

I am almost always amazed in the bank when the teller says "can I help you?". I have sort of given up on my reply of "I hope you can, you work here don't you?"

[Marie26]

16. Tell me about it.

I got a call from National Geographic wanting to speak to my "husband" or "father" who subscribes. Apparantly, there's some new map they want you to buy. It took some doing to convince him that yes, I am a girl, & yes, I subscribe to National Geographic. And my name's even on the address! I think people still make assumptions about what women are like - stereotypes are hard to beat down.

[MADem]

17. You should have had some fun with them

...and said "Speaking!!" If you have a distinctly female voice, it would put them off a bit!! And you might have found out what they were on about!

[buzzard]

18. It happens to me quite often and I always say the male of the household

defers to me when it comes to business decisions or financial matters but if you need to ask about housekeeping or child related issues then I will be happy to get him. He knows I do this and laughs every time.

[Cocoa]

19. other surveys will ask for the FHOH

for example, surveys about tampons, etc, where it wouldn't make sense to ask the MHOH.

[nashbridges]

20. Could have been a telemarketer

who was peddling goods for male orientend products. It happens to us all the time, the most recent being a push to subscribe to Martha Stewart's magazine. They didn't even bother with me.

And after spending a summer working for a telemarketer, the "head of household" qualification is actually written into the policies because if you include any other qualifier, i.e. husband, wife, mother, father - you won't get the person who can spend the money on the product. "Head of household" is stolen from the tax code to mean the person who makes decisions about where to spend money. If someone qualified it with "male" then they were probably selling something only men could use, like viagra (probably not - it could have been life insurance only for men, or the like).

I really wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Well to be honest I have been asked to answer marketing

questions as the female head of the household. I think they want to male and females who handle the finances.

Of course, I couldn't help the lady who called me a couple of weeks ago. She wanted to know my opinions of wall-to-wall carpeting. For the life of me I couldn't answer a single one of her questions. :blush:

[Cleita]

22. If what you say is true, then shouldn't they be asking for

the head of the household, or the person who handles the finances? What if the male isn't the head of the household?

[nashbridges]

28. That's why I said if they included the qualifier

then they either needed a male for a survery, or they were selling a product you couldn't use as a female. If, when I was calling people for a living, I sold a monthly supply of Tampax and a man answered the phone, I wouldn't waste my time trying to sell to him. Even if he was a loving husband who would make the call for his wife, it just makes more sense to find the person who can really use the product to do the sell.

The operative phrase is "head of household". If there is a qualifier before it, there is most likely a simple, yet stupid, reason.

[GreenPartyVoter]

35. Yes but sometimes they need both the gender demographic and the

financial person.

For example they might want to speak to the woman in the home most likely to spend money and who is in the demographic group for reading "Family Circle" to determine whether or not their product advertisements would sink or swim in that magazine. I would flip through that magazine but I don't think my hubby would. :shrug:

[Orangepeel]

23. silly way to put it, but it doesn't sound sexist to me

it sounds like they are assuming there could be more than one "head" of the household and that the head could be male or female.

[Seansky]

25. so

do you speak in meow with your male head of the household?

[Cleita]

31. Oh yes I do! And we have other kitty ways of communicating.

:-)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

26. Just say

you're Mrs. Mantis and you just did, well, what Mrs. Mantis' do.

[hlthe2b]

27. I've had that several times... and I give them holy hell each time...

I just can't help myself... how god damned sexist is that?

[fortyfeetunder]

29. I spared them his wrath

When I asked the talking head at the other end why only male heads of households, the answer was because the quota for female heads of households was full. I politely declined to forward the phone call

The MHOH would have chewed their @$$ out...

[BiggJawn]

30. Hey, Chum, why so Glum?

You probably spared yourself a 10-minute sales pitch for "Enzyte, the once-daily tablet for Natural Male Enhancement"...

Trust me, when they want to speak to the "Man of the House" it's not always to formulate the next step in the Mid-East roadmap...

Boner pills, tools, or Golf clubs...

[Cleita]

32. They didn't ask for the Man of the House.

They asked for the male head of the household, or as it would have been know in ancient Rome, Pater Familia. Even when my husband was alive he never made that claim. He knew better. :-)

[jzodda]

33. I think you are reading way way too much into it

The people making those calls are too young or too stupid to be as clever as you are making them out to be. When we wanted to do a poll about spending on golf equipment we would ask for the male head just because the % was higher that they would be playing golf.

When we wanted to ask about shopping for dresses we would ask for the female head of household because (hopefulluy :) ) they would be the ones wearing the dresses.

The numbers usually are picked at random and make assumptions that there are 2 married people at the other end of the phone. When they didnt fit the demo we were told to hang up.

[BiggJawn]

36. OK, so they were being PC. Pity....

They aroused the same anger over Patriarchy in you that they were probably trying to avoid, by asking for the MALE instead of the MAN.
:shrug:

[mondo joe]

41. And last week I got a phone call asking for the FEMALE head of the house-

hold.

[Behind the Aegis]

34. Or the woman of the household...

I used to get those calls before going on the "no call list." I always said you are talking to the woman of the house (I am a guy in a relationship with another man...and no, I am not saying I am the "wife," just the decision maker :evilgrin:). Most stutter and sputter, and few were actually really funny about it..."very cool, so you are a gay couple? Can I ask some questions?" If they said the latter, I chatted them up!

[bleedingheart]

37. NARAL called and asked to speak to my husband..

what was funny was that my husband turned the phone back to me after telling the guy...."my wife is the one who controls the checkbook"...hahahaha

[jmm]

38. I just say sorry you have the wrong number and hang up

If anybody calls asking for Mr, Mrs, my husband etc. I know they have the wrong number. I got rid of my land line phone so I won't have to deal with those calls anymore. The worst was when people would mispronounce my last name or come up with some "cute" nickname for me. Operators from outside of the country almost always got it right yet people from certain regions of the US would constantly massacre it. I've had a couple of telemarketers call back and get upset that I hung up on them but like I told them if you think I'm married or don't know my name then you don't know me well enough to call my home.

[momisold]

39. Don't take it personally.

For more than ten years I was in a survey system with Nielsen. There were times they wanted my opinion, times they wanted my hubby's depending on what they were asking questions about. I also used to be on call lists for research firms here in Houston and they would ask for specific things like what age my children were, if I smoked, if I made the majority of meals in my home, etc.

They are targeting a specific demographic when they are doing the research and absolutely has nothing to do with you personally or "politically incorrect" terms like male head of household.

[Bassic]

40. Actually, as the linguo goes households now have two heads,

One male and one female.

This was probably a poll designed for men or something.

Had it been designed ofr a woman, the lady would have asked for the female head of the household.