OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts: "My kids want me to stay home tonight so that they can play Hop on Pop. But I'm hoping that my wife and I will somehow manage to hop on a plane to Finland instead.

Finland, you see, will play host this weekend to the 11th annual World Championship of Wife-Carrying, a bizarre sports festival held in a country that loves peculiar competitions. (The Finns also hold annual contests in mosquito-killing, sand-skiing, beer-barrel rolling, and 'air guitar' playing.)

In the wife-carrying competition, men physically transport their spouses over a grueling 831-foot obstacle course that includes log hurdles, hairpin curves, changing terrain, and a four-foot-deep pool of cold water. Husbands can haul their brides any way they wish--piggyback, fireman's carry, over-the-transom style--but they are severely penalized if they drop their wives at any point."

After everyone has finished the course, the husband with the fastest time wins an array of prizes, including--get this--the equivalent of his wife's weight in beer!
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But I think there may be more to this than just a bunch of oafs trying to get in touch with their Inner Caveman by competing to win their wife's weight in beer.

Indeed, I find it curious that a He-Man event of this kind is held every year in the most androgynous region of the world. And I find it even more curious that the Finns--who determinedly promote gender equality in all of their "official" decrees--just as determinedly promote gender-specific roles in the World Championship of Wife-Carrying.

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Still, it is important to note that the World Championship of Wife-Carrying doesn't fit very neatly into the Western world's official framework for gender relations.

Over the past half-century, our official gender debate has often forced people to choose between gender equality and gender-specific roles. You could be against misogyny. Or against androgyny. But you couldn't be against both. At least not in the official debate.

But in our private lives--especially in those leisure pursuits that often (unconsciously) reveal our deepest hopes and aspirations--I get the impression that most couples somewhat paradoxically want both gender equality and gender-specific roles....