Is it weaponised incompetence or are men just rubbish?

I just asked my DP what his views on this are.

He said, "that's funny, I was thinking last time I visited that I would do a bad job of the washing up on purpose so you wouldn't ask me to do it again. I left bits of grease on the pans."

So yes, it definitely exists.

Is there nothing in return you leave to him though? Like, there are certain household jobs that I do the vast majority of, but then there are others that I almost never do, because frankly I don't want to, and I leave them to DH to do. So it balances out. Like, I literally never wash up or take the bins out. (Obviously excepting a very rare occasion that DH is very unwell and can't do them and they desperately need doing!)

Honestly I think women are just accepting lower and lower standards.

My partner would never act like this, and he's equally or more competent than me at basically everything.

But this is probably because he's been raised well and also has to do these types of tasks all the time. If he doesn't do his laundry, he can't leave the house (unless he wants to go out naked) because I don't do it for him. So it's pretty quick learning once it's happened once.

He's not perfect, but if I remind him of something house-related he was supposed to do/didn't spot, he'll happily do it the second time.

If you're an enabler then no, they will never learn to do things, or they'll learn them but never do them because someone else will.

I think it all stems from entitlement. They really seem to think they are entitled not to have to do these jobs.

DH is brilliant compared to lots of men in my family. He will do lots of chores. I realise reading this back it sounds like a primary school report. However, if he touches the hoover, he might die. That's what I think anyway. Of all the years I've known him, he will do ANYTHING but hoover. Since I don't want to live in a shit hole, I hoover. Maybe I should go on hoover strike.

I think it’s a bit of both, I’m sure some men use incompetence as a weapon but not always. People are better at different things, my husband is brilliant at lots of stuff, is an amazing father and an amazing husband and more than pulls his weight at home, however… he’s useless at cooking, useless picking outfits for the kids and doing DDs hair, and really not the best at doing the shopping (generally forgets lots of stuff). The other side of this is I’m hopeless at gardening, DIY and managing the finances. We have “our” stuff and as long as it’s somewhat equal I don’t see any problem in each person sticking to their jobs.

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!

The hanging out of the laundry triggers me 😔.

My ex used to flash each item a ridiculous amount of times, because it made his ironing easier. Ridiculous, as he'd then spend an age ironing each item regardless of how well they'd been hung🤦🏾‍♀️.

Yes to whoever said men don't multitask!

Total bollocks in my experience.

The thing is, many men seem to believe that women are somehow biologically programmed to actually care. Like we enjoy going over every little detail that men don’t care about. And in a way, we are programmed, just socially. Because it needs doing either way and girls are put under this pressure to ‘do it all’ because ‘men just don’t see these things’. Indifference is just another word for not caring, and not caring comes from the belief that if you won’t do it someone else will (a mother figure). Or you just like living in mess/chaos/disorganisation which is simply unattractive. It’s not hard work at all to weaponise incompetence, what is hard for many men is the fallout when the person who has picked up the slack most of their adult lives decide they’ve had enough and leave.

I think a decent portion of it is total disinterest in terms of doing the task combined with ambivalence about the outcome. It’s absolutely a generalisation but on balance more men than women simply won’t care if the house is messy, won’t be fussed about carpets being a bit grubby or floors covered in crumbs or dust gathering on surfaces etc. Also less men will be judged as negatively for their house being a mess. If you dislike housework you’ll leave it till you feel like it really has to be done. If someone you live with dislikes it less &/or cares more about the state of the house they’ll end up doing it before you. It’s all very much connected with what is expected of men and women & there is a load of sexist issues in the mix but on balance I don’t think large swathes of men are deliberately planning to be shit at household chores. The fact it’s more careless than deliberate doesn’t really help much for the ones stuck picking up the slack.

Women can be similar about jobs they perceive as being men’s work but on the whole those are more one off type jobs than daily repeated things so it’s a bit less of a burden that way round.

Yes to whoever said men don't multitask!

My OH will prep the veg for a dinner but won't think to put the pan on to boil/ oven on / start the washing up/ fold some laundry / feed the cats/ write the shopping list... while he chops veg and cooks so on his night to cook.... he only cooks (and I will get asked questions that he could answer for himself (how many potatoes should he prep etc) so I can't leave him to it, where as on my night I cook and do a load of other tasks while he watches TV!

Because it takes us about the same amount of time to get dinner on the table he thinks he's doing his 'half' but he really isn't!!

Exactly.

Bit of a shit analogy.

See I work qith a lot of men and maybe this clouds my judgement, but I do agree a lot of men don't run to get things done but also get very angry that everything isn't done to time

I think a lot of men just believe things will get done but don't think about how or who. I don't think its deliberately expecting you to pick up the slack, it's just not thinking about the time or effort needed to do a task.

My dh seems to make jobs harder with his incompetence. He is a tradesman but he can't do any DIY at home. When he put up a curtain pole he didn't move the toy box so filled it with dust. Much easier to fill it with dust then clean the toys then move the toy box. He also has to unclog the odd fatburg and moans about the stupid chefs, but happily puts fat over the washing up in our sink both clogging the sink and then clogging the dishwasher. Much easier to take the u bend off the sink and the side panel of the dishwaher to unclog it than drain the fat into a bowl. Sometimes he serves the fat up to kids.

Because its either how he does it at work or he is a lazy thoughtless idiot. I think it's the latter. He is just a sloppy idiot who by some miracle is still in employment ( or he enjoys living in sithole because under no circumstances can I borrow his hammer drill to put up the curtain pole). He wasn't always like this. He hit 40 and every capability just suddenly died. I think if the it was a choice to get burgled or fix the front door, he'd go for having no front door. But at the same time thinks he is a ace trades man. Also I can't book in a tradesman as that sets off the territorial testosterone.

His dad had a heart attack and he said he needs to sit down and work out a weekend to visit him. It's been a month. I can only conclude he doesn't care, not a priority, lazy or a combination of all of the above.

When I first started work mum said to me 'you will never see the men run to get things done so don't you run either'

I think men are socialised to do one thing at a time and focus on it and to set thier own pace, wheras women are sort of told they are good at multi tasking even if they are not.

Basically men are just very lazy and selfish?

I don't think your explanation is better than weaponised incompetence. It's just being lazy and selfish

I don't think anyone's saying you can't make mistakes. But if you cannot learn very simple tasks then wither you are incompetent or deliberately shit.

Once is the key word there. But yes if your wife continues to drive on flat tires, wrecking her wheels and costing you time and money she is either incompetent or deliberately shit

I've never come across this but what I have noticed is women who assume men will be crap and 1. Have their own standards 2. Think it will be easier to do it themselves 3. Take over. 4. Appoint themselves house manager.

As a woman, I agree with your male assessment

Put simply, its not that deep. Men don't sit and plot about doing a shit job with the end goal of not being asked again. If it doesn't directly and immediately benefit them, they just superficially do the job even if its a terrible execution. Then it's ticked off, and they can move onto stuff that does immediately and directly benefit them.

I did the weaponised incompetence as a teenager. My mum wasn't having any of it. But it's a whole different thought process to simply going through the motions expediently.

There’s a happy medium though isn’t there? Mine is well stacked with none of those problems, and I rinse very dirty plates and cutlery, but I’m very fast at doing it. 40
minutes is a complete joke.

My DH does one thing at a time - stands there while the kettle is on, doing nothing else. It’s very rare that I do that - there’s usually something else that can be done .

Yes, exactly. Admittedly, in the middle of the all-too-common-covid relationship stress, DH once spent 4 hours vacuuming the house (which he'd been saying he'd do for DAYS, and hadn't). Let's just say things didn't go well because a) he honestly thought I should drop to my knees in gratitude for his efforts and b) he was even more upset when I was not only ungrateful, but complained as he hadn't bothered to do any of the corners which I had specifically been complaining about.

I think there is absolutely a thing from some men and some women where they take advantage of the assumption of a decent chunk of the opposite sex that they will be useless at a given task.

Does he actually take 40 minutes to load a dishwasher? I mean literally 40 minutes?

If so there is something very, very wrong, and he should maybe see a doctor.

My wife once drove to town and back on a flat tyre, with a flashing message on the dashboard the whole time telling her to stop safely and check the tyres.

Is it weaponised incompetence or are different people good at different things?

He spends 40 mins loading the dishwasher? That’s not normal and I struggle to see how anyone could drag that job out for so long, but let him have at it if it’s what he enjoys!

Ive just come to realise that there are only certain jobs dh can be trusted with - emptying the bins and basic diy mainly. It only drives me slightly insane bc he earns a lot of money and I don’t earn anything so it evens itself out! If I was going out to work to I wouldn’t put up with it, it’d be too annoying.