Is it weaponised incompetence or are men just rubbish?

It speaks for itself that you're not in a healthy relationship with someone who has no respect for you.

In reply to the guy who said that it's not weaponised incompetence but complete indifference...so you're indifferent to women's feelings while you expect them to do all or most of the drudgework...What a lovely basis for a healthy relationship...no wonder divorce is so common...

The title of the thread is "are men just rubbish" not "is Bob from accounts just rubbish"

I’ll be honest I’m a woman and I don’t care that much about that stuff. The house can’t be a cesspit but I’m not running myself ragged because it’s a little bit messy. If some jobs like mending clothes or sorting boxes of old toys or taking stuff to the dump or painting the downstairs bathroom take a while to get to it’s not the end of the world & if we only sweep up a couple of times a week in between the cleaner coming and there are sometimes crumbs on the floor I don’t care. I actually think accepting good enough and spending just enough time to achieve that is efficient and pragmatic rather than lazy.

I've also never known a man who, on being visited unexpectedly, will say 'oh, sorry about the mess,' whereas almost EVERY woman I know will do, even if the place isn't untidy at all.

That has nothing to do with housework.

my DH splits jobs fairly with me - fortunately I'm mostly in change of interior while he deals with the garden

and DIY -he's good about the dishwasher and washing but takes4 times longer than me

Very few. But how many men work on building sites or oil rigs?

I dont see why Bob from accounts doing the same job as Julie from accounts gets a free ride on dishwasher duties because john works on an oil rig.

Plus my personal experience of men is the more 'man' the job the better they are at running the hoover round or ironing etc.

But that might just be me being lucky.

weirdly focussed on dishwasher loading efficiency

I also focus on dishwasher loading but for no other reason than I am the one who empties it. The better it's loaded, the quicker I can empty it first thing before catching my bus!

Not in my experience. My grandad was a fastidious cleaner (might be an ex-army thing?). My dad, male flatmates, husband, brothers have all been extremely competent (some weirdly focussed on dishwasher loading efficiency).

I am clean and tidy, but relatively slap dash (same with most women I have lived with), my husband will flat dry all my wool, put all my tights on a delicate cycle (I didn’t realise this was a thing), regularly run cleaning cycles. I’m just not really that bothered. I do all the cooking as that’s what’s he’s not so bothered about - works well between the two of us.

Also men and women’s brains ARE different and traditionally male and female tasks started that way because it is generally speaking what each gender is good at!

It's not really about being 'good' or 'bad' at things - most household chores require no real skill level to achieve to a decent standard (cooking and DIY possibly the exceptions). Effort, yes, but not skill.

DP has owned a bike now for 10 years and still has no idea how to pump up the tyres or how to oil it. We've lived in the same house now for 20 years with stuff kept in the same places, and if I said 'go and fetch me a screwdriver' I would just get blank looks.

I've not seen this, to be honest. Most men I know are perfectly capable, rounded adults.

I'm interested to know how people can confidently say this? I mean, I can say this about my own husband, because I live with him, but anyone else I'm going by what I'm told and maybe a couple of hours visiting.

By the way, my husband is a perfectly capable adult - but that doesn't mean he can't be a lazy so and so on occasion!

It's so interesting! I have teens...a boy and a girl. My DD won't sleep unless her bedroom is perfectly tidy and everything arranged just so. My ds doesn't make a huge mess to be fair but he just doesn't really care about what it looks like.

My DH is the same. He will take an hour to clean the bathroom while I can clean multiple rooms in the same time. But he is slow at everything, including reading things, it drives me mad because he just takes forever to do anything and I can't watch (and it's not even done that well).

My son is only 8 and I am already seeing this. Its frustrating.

I think he's lazy, DH says that it's because "males just don't care that much about that stuff"

omg yes - my husband does this with the kitchen - deep cleans twice a year but the regular day to day is me and he thinks he knows better.

There are social, practical, and physical reasons that e.g oil rigs are vast majority men.

Social - boys are encouraged to follow the school-entry level job at energy plant/college path that preps them for oil rig type jobs. Girls of same ability level are encouraged into beauty, or nursery work.

Practical - men that work offshore for weeks at a time are good providers, women who did it would be bad mothers

Physical - lots of these jobs require lots of strength. Of course women can be strong, but the average difference is huge.

Other side of the coin, I once read a ‘comic’ piece by a male journalist saying that a really good way to piss your wife/partner off, was to occasionally do the hoovering super-properly, and then say smugly, ‘Goodness, it’s been an awful long time since the hoover went under there (e.g. the sofa) hasn’t it?’

I’m afraid to say I did laugh!

Yes dh will take as long as he needs to on task A and if there is no time to do task B it can't be helped. In the meantime I'm rushing completing C, D,E and now B in the same time

And actually, i often see women on here saying its amazing how men can do all this at work but not at home...but in my experience, many many men in the workplace are very good at prioritising and spending a lot of time on that one, high profile/important task, and somehow leaving the shit to someone else... usually a woman.

How many women work on building sites or oil rigs?

You say that, but the number of times I've seen on MN when someone says "he told me I fold his socks wrong" followed by "well, tell him he can fold his own damn socks then" sorts of comments.

I do agree, but I think both sides are guilty of parallel indiscretions here. Men SEEM to use the 'be crap, she won't ask again' attitude, while women (from MN) SEEM to use the 'he gets what he's given. If he criticises, he does it from now on' attitude.

I think appreciation is key, and is often sadly lacking.

On holiday with DP last year, went to pick up the food from Tesco, the guy was flabbergasted that DP put the shopping in the right bags (e.g. chilled in the freezer bag, cupboard stuff in another, fruit and veg in a third) without minute supervision from me. He's so used seeing men (and he was specific that it was men) chuck stuff into the boot completely randomly. He reckoned that it was so they wouldn't be asked to pick the shhopping up again.

He was especially impressed that the bread was carefully placed so as not to get squished. But as I pointed out, DP likes his sandwiches sandwich-shaped and not Meldrewed.

This. I think they are socialised to be Big Important People and so of course the 40 minute perfectly stacked dishwasher is the most optimal use of his time. Because <insert self-important monologue about optimal dishwashing is optimal, completely ignoring the fact that suboptimal dishwashing gets the job done just fine too and also other household tasks done>.

I do think that most men don't carry the mental load in the same way we do, and therefore He Has Got His Tasks Done, who cares that there's also still laundry to do, lunchboxes to fill, dentist appointments to be made, and reading to be listened to?

Wow imagine if a man had written that about women. Basically you are calling them airheads. My dh does all the things you mention above as quite honestly I am not capable. If I got run over by a bus tomorrow this household would continue to run smoothly. If dh did we’d be right up shit creek
on many levels.