Family Feud Australia Thinks Women's Jobs are 'Cleaning,' 'Dishes'

Family Feud in Australia might need some help coming up with new ideas for their survey questions.

On Wednesday’s episode, the show decided to pose a question asking people what they think a woman’s job is. OH BOY.
According to Mashable, the answers to the survey were “cooking, cleaning, nursing, hairdressing, domestic duties, dishes, receptionist and washing clothes.” I’m not sure if the answers were given by people who time traveled here from the early 1900s, but I’m willing to consider anything. In addition to that hot mess, they also spread the sexism around to the men:

But don’t worry, men, they didn’t totally shun equality. They also followed it up with the question: “name a man’s job.” You guessed it, these came up as mowing the lawn, builder, fixing things, plumber, mechanic, carpenter and being a tradesman.

As you can imagine, people used social media to tell Family Feud to STFU with their sexist questions:

Some also wrote on Facebook, in response to a different question that asked “name something that’s French.”

“I wouldn’t know what they sell in France since I’m a woman and apparently can’t leave the kitchen/hair dressing salon/reception,” Mary Van Reyk wrote.

“Name a show on Channel Ten that uses questions to promote inequality between the sexes?” Mark Allan added.

Despite the social media shitstorm, show host Grant Denyer wasn’t ready to give in:

Sure, these may have been the terrible answers people gave in a survey, but whatever producer allowed this to get on-air should probably have a long meeting with their sanity (if they can find it). Why even have a category as backwards and dumb as “Name a woman’s/man’s job.” Isn’t kind of time to retire this shit? Look, corny daytime game show, I get you. You’re just trying to hand out some cash and prizes and make some people laugh when someone accidentally says a dirty word or says “turkey” over and over again. That’s got a be a hard gig, to come up with new questions every day like “Name Something You Find in A Bathroom.” (Hey, I’m pretty good at this!)

Unlike Jeopardy, where the gross sexism came right out of the blue and smacked you in the face, I’m actually not that surprised that a show like Family Feud did this. I can remember watching lots of episodes of the U.S. version (yes, we watched it after dinner) which always seemed to inevitably include some survey question dripping with gender stereotypes. Some past questions on the show have included questions like “What do most women expect most men to be really bad at?” (“Cooking” was the top answer, FYI).

Despite the host’s opinion on the matter, Channel Ten offered an apology following the backlash, according to the BBC:

On Thursday, Channel Ten said on its Facebook: “We apologise for including the two questions relating to what people think is a man’s job and a woman’s job in the episode of Family Feud which aired last night.”

“The questions were ill advised and should not have been included in the show.”

It’s also important to note, as Mashable points out, that some people questioned if this wasn’t just a cheap ploy for attention/ratings (because really, when is the last time your must-see-TV list included Family Feud?) If so, that would be—pathetic.