Satire in Syfers

            Satire in Syfers, "Why I Want a Wife".
             June Cleaver is hardly someone I can identify with. She's reserved and nurturing, bakes cookies and to top it off, she's blond - or so those grayish hues lead us to believe. Yet when I think of the ideal wife and mother it's June's cheery face (accompanied of course by a place full of chocolate chip cookies) that springs into my head. However, it's Judy Syfers-Brady that takes the role of the traditional wife and mother, my June Cleaver, and pokes fun at tradition and pokes even further still at female marital roles in her witty satire called, "Why I Want a Wife.".
             "I belong to that classification of people know as wives. I am a Wife.".
             Syfers" opening immediately gains her reader's attention. Here, in her beginning statements she is verbally separating wives from the rest of the population by using sterile terminology such as "classification." It is slightly dehumanizing but not far from Syfers" feminist thoughts on woman in their marital roles - slightly dehumanizing. There is significance in the short, simple sentence that follows. "I am a Wife." Less than two inches of type space yet those words are strong and Syfers" boldly capitalizes "wife" where traditionally it would not be appropriate.
             Using the written word as her tool for activism, Syfers, who had established herself as a strong proponent of women's rights, used sarcasm and wit as a way to connect with a large population. Knowing full well that women and men alike were likely to read her story, its satirical viewpoint was useful. She put her readers through a humorous virtual experience through the duties of a wife. It was perhaps a way to lighten the attitude of those she was trying to persuade, thus making it a bit easier to alter their beliefs. Housewives around the world were surely throwing down their oven mitts and shoving this article into the faces of their husbands.
             "I want I want I want-.