I’ll admit to only having watched maybe ten minutes total of “Jon and Kate Plus 8” ever. I have issues with people who abuse fertility treatment (you don’t end up with sextuplets if you and/or your doctor are doing what you’re supposed to) and then parade their kids around and accept a bunch of free goodies. And these two were apparently chasing the gravy train from the minute the doctor said “There’s six in there.” In other words, I have no respect for them and think they are exploiting their kids for their own personal gain.

That said, the vitriol directed toward Kate Gosselin with this latest controversy is quite surprising to me. The general line seems to be “Of course he cheated on her because all she ever does is bitch at him –she’s soooo meeeaaannn.”

I’m sorry, people – have you seen Jon Gosselin and the way he talks to her? He seems like a wussy little passive-aggressive jerk, and I’ll tell you what, if I was married to that guy, I’d be a bitch on wheels too. I mean, he’s all but admitted to cheating on her with some 23-year-old, and one of things he’s said to have done is wander uninvited into a college girl party and hit on 19-year-olds. He’s, what, 40ish? What normal adult male, married or single, thinks that’s remotely appropriate and uncreepy?

Blogger Lisa Daily over on HuffPo said nearly as much on her own take on the show, She also made a good point – Jon hasn’t worked since before the sextuplets were born. He says it’s because his employer didn’t want to pay the insurance premiums for six babies; his former employer says it’s because he spent more time trolling for freebies than actually working. They’ve been pretty much supporting themselves solely on income from the show and the attendant book deals.

Daily writes, “A friend of mine has five children, and she runs a pretty tight ship. I think Kate is probably the way she is because if she doesn’t take charge, no one else will.

If my husband seemed incapable, or unwilling to provide for our family, I’d do whatever I needed to do to make that happen. Even if it made me look like a bitch on national TV.”

I hardly think Kate’s a hero – they are both essentially famewhores who are selling out their kids and I hate to think what life in that family is going to be like once the cameras are off and the gravy train has stopped a’comin’. But there’s a nasty little antifeminist undercurrent in the “blame the woman” tone of much of the discussion I have read, and think we need to examine why Kate’s being painted as the monster in all this.

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