To think we’ve lost the concept of men being men and women being women, and society is worse off for it?

Of course they should judge! If someone has some dopey fixation with being treated as if it’s pre-women’s suffrage, she doesn’t need my validation, and she’s certainly not going to get it.

The Op hasn’t come back to clarify what exactly she was meaning.
I personally think that every change brings about consequences and some will be positive, some negative.
One of the negatives for example is that if both parents have to work full time people have become too tired to cook properly and have also, over time, lost the skills to do so. The reliance on processed food means the nation’s diet is pretty atrocious and the health of the country on the whole declines.

We need to accept that there are negatives to societal change and think about how to make it so we can find better solutions to them.
Talking about this doesn’t mean a wish to return to the past, or at least it doesn’t mean that to me. It means that if someone sees a problem that has arisen being able to discuss it, without being called names is important.
I understand that if someone simply says “ it was better back in the day” it is seen as dismissive, but I choose to think of it as a starting point where the person is expressing, albeit without having a wider view, their feelings on a certain topic.

Because her husband should be able to handle it... she shouldn't be in that provider role

I think supposedly “traditional roles” were discriminatory and didn’t represent much of human history where male hunter gatherers did their share of child rearing taking young boys out with them as a community group rather than expecting mum to raise all the children single handedly.

Recent equality progress has helped almost everyone apart from small minded domineering white men which is why we see so many of them desperately trying to assert themselves now.
The trans debacle was a blip that needed to be tackled to go back to acceptance of a minority group rather than promotion of a mental health disorder to exploit young and vulnerable people.

Interestingly my husband and I had more arguments about household chores before kids than after- I think I had just resigned myself that it was down to me again when the kids came along. I also earned more than my husband at the time!!

Both obviously have far greater demands on both of their time when they have children. I don’t think these things are such an issue when a couple lives together pre-children necessarily.

Men seem perfectly capable of doing this when they live alone, they cook, they clean, they do laundry, they do dishes. What is irksome is men regress when there is a woman there to do stuff so they don’t feel they have to. Why should the women carry the mental load?

I really respect your honesty about this.

It is truthfully so much more peaceful having one leading on the home/children and one leading on work- each person is much clearer on what they are doing, arguments are minimal and both have more energy and freedom to pursue other interests and actually have some downtime.

If it’s of any help in your situation where you are trying to share, to help with clarity I can recommend reading ‘Fair Play’ by Eve Rodsky. She talks about what you are saying about one person needing to properly plan, start and complete a task or it creates confusion. I would also recommend lists and schedules for everything. Go through every room and area of your home, inside and outside. Go through every single task which needs completing and how often. It may help you both to have a really clear list of exactly who is doing what and when.

One thing that I find does annoy me is that both me and my husband work full time and long hours and so we both take care of things in the house. This actually does cause arguments and confusion; he will have bought something for the fridge that I’ve already bought, I might expect him to clear up after cooking dinner but I find the kitchen in a mess later on, things get missed because we think the other one has sorted it and they haven’t, we’re constantly arguing about who has the more stressful job so who therefore needs to take on more household organisation/ chores, he thinks cooking and loading the dishwasher are the only life admin tasks that need to be completed when there are actually loads of other things that need to be planned/thought about which annoys me. The list goes on….

So I do wonder if life would actually be more peaceful if only one of us took care of the house stuff, admin etc. and the other one worked.

In our younger days we both thought ‘this career is going to be great’ but now all we do is work and then argue about all the other household stuff that needs doing and don’t have time for seeing friends or taking on more hobbies.

I believe some women prefer the gender roles from way back, and that other women shouldn’t judge them for it.

As an autistic person, I’m glad I don’t have to fit into a gender role that I’m not comfortable with.

As long as there is a choice, you will have couples where both parents work (or non-parents, increasing number of child-free couples) in order to maximise combined wealth and buy a better house, etc. This will drive up property prices (and the price of everything else) pressuring more and more families to move to a dual income.

Patriarchy caused the way we live! So if you ain’t happy, that’s why! Gender - why do women disfigure themselves with lip fillers etc and men don’t generally? That would be a more interesting question to ask.

The Op hasn’t come back to clarify what exactly she was meaning.
I personally think that every change brings about consequences and some will be positive, some negative.
One of the negatives for example is that if both parents have to work full time people have become too tired to cook properly and have also, over time, lost the skills to do so. The reliance on processed food means the nation’s diet is pretty atrocious and the health of the country on the whole declines.

We need to accept that there are negatives to societal change and think about how to make it so we can find better solutions to them.
Talking about this doesn’t mean a wish to return to the past, or at least it doesn’t mean that to me. It means that if someone sees a problem that has arisen being able to discuss it, without being called names is important.
I understand that if someone simply says “ it was better back in the day” it is seen as dismissive, but I choose to think of it as a starting point where the person is expressing, albeit without having a wider view, their feelings on a certain topic.

I think supposedly “traditional roles” were discriminatory and didn’t represent much of human history where male hunter gatherers did their share of child rearing taking young boys out with them as a community group rather than expecting mum to raise all the children single handedly.

Recent equality progress has helped almost everyone apart from small minded domineering white men which is why we see so many of them desperately trying to assert themselves now.
The trans debacle was a blip that needed to be tackled to go back to acceptance of a minority group rather than promotion of a mental health disorder to exploit young and vulnerable people.

Huh. What traditional gender roles would those be, then, OP? DH grew up in a very traditional, matriarchal culture, but I bet that's not what you're meaning.

I think we need to play to our strengths as men/women and not feel as women that we have to have it all- have an amazing career, be a mother, do housework, be a financial provider. It's ok to pick one or two things to focus on. And it's ok to have a traditional role and be a SAHM if that's what you want. I think if both people are on the same page, it's good if one person can look after the kids, especially up to the age of 5 and one can concentrate on getting in a wage but that only works if both people are working as a team towards the common goal of looking after the family. Nothing wrong with both parents working but I dislike the narrative that a woman is not contributing to a household if they are not earning money. It's more than enough to look after kids, look after the house etc.

However, since women entered the workplace, two incomes were taken into account for mortgages and now it's much harder to manage on just one income so you have to make a concerted effort and maybe some sacrifices to afford to have just one income.

And I suspect that men might feel slightly adrift in society these days as women can and do sometimes earn more and can be financially independent. I think men have a natural desire to look after their family and to feel needed. And women do need men, men need women and we need to work together and have respect for one another.
Somewhere along the way, some imbalance has occurred and now we have to claw back women's rights (in my opinion, overly compassionate women willingly gave way to trans identifying men invading their space and some men have taken advantage of this- so women and men are both at fault here but brave, foresightful women (and men) are pushing back on this. It's a big ship to turn around though.

Why does dividing the human race into 2 provide structure ? Strange . Why do you get confused ? yes I am happier with people who are able to treat me as a human without needing to make boxes for me

I was reading about a woman's experience of being on a maternity time out and feeling a massive financial weight to get a job and spiralling into depression. She had a husband. It isn't right.

In my opinion, I think some of the problems occur when some men think women now have to do all the traditional female roles as well as earn and contribute equally financially. Working class women have always had to do traditional roles and work outside the home even when you look back a hundred years. At least thanks to feminism we get the right to keep our own money and property.

also I really hate this ‘traditional’ roles that we seem to be inheriting from the U.S. Has anyone seen that interview with Pete Hegseth’s pastor about traditional male and female roles? Unfortunately these ideas are becoming more prevalent amongst the Christian far right in the US.