I always thought this song was about the underground railroad, and escaping slavery to freedom in the North.It seems to me that finding deprecatory gender roles in this song is just a case of looking too hard for something to be offended by. The point is that everybody's help is required for the escaped slaves to make it to freedom (or whatever the actual goal is, if I've got that part wrong).
On the sailing aspects, note that he isn't rowing the boat the whole way; he's rowing it ASHORE. The last 10 feet, maybe, of the whole trip. Sister sailed the thing all the way across the river, and for the last 10 feet Michael gets to row. Who is offended now? The feminists, since Michael made Sister do all the hard work and only pitched in for the last 10 feet? Or the masculinists, since Sister got to do the fun part, and Michael had to do the boring physical labor when the fun part was over? See what I'm driving at? You can slice anything any way. This is why so much of the fault-finding done by feminists is characterized as "whining" by men -- if you find fault with EVERYTHING (it's like the boy (or girl!) who cried wolf), then your credibility goes way downhill.
Finding fault with MRTBA is a little over-the-top. There are plenty of women-hating songs out there to bash, if bash you must. Better yet why not write, or dig up, some songs that have positive things to say about women?
I have known some very strong and capable women, who have done things I'm not at all sure I would be able to do (my mother, her mother, and my wife come instantly to mind), and whom I admire greatly. But I also think 32-20 Blues, which is about a man planning to shoot his girlfriend, has some of the most incredible guitar work I've ever heard.
Somebody mentioned "My Husband Has No Courage In Him" as a song with a pro-female (or at least anti-male) POV. What about "Single Girl, Married Girl"? This is as anti-domestic-servitude a song as one could wish!
But what do I know? I'm married and have kids, so I'm obviously an abusive rapist, right?
O..O
=o=