Today I failed as a feminist.

enimmead I think we grow up learning that this is the stuff we should care about, be good at and be responsible for. Eventually we internalise it and become self-policing, as well as policing other women. It's the same process that happens with diet and personal grooming.

I'm really glad I found this thread, because youngblowfish I just realised I'm doing the same thing! Cooking every night even though my DP is a chef!

We split most of the housework equally, he does most of the vacuuming because of my bad back (not a small job with the amount of pets we have!) and I do most of the laundry. Everything else is split down the middle.

Since I do cooking AND dishes, I think DP will be cooking from now on (as I hate it) and I'll be doing the dishes.

Now as it's dinner time here, time to go find DP and ask what's for tea.

since when is feminism about.... you will cook one meal and i will cook one meal. You would only have failed as a feminist if you waited on your DH hand and foot, him refusing to contribute at all to the childrearing or the household for the last 14 months.

I do think it's unfair women are criticised for the state of the house and how their children are turned out. It's often other women who are doing the criticism TBH :(.

I do think many mums are also protective of their childcare role as Kim points out - and do find it hard to delegate stuff to Dads such as going to appointments, getting the hair cut, buying clothes etc. Is this because they see themselves as responsible for it because society will judge them (and not the Dad). Is it the same for the house appearance? Some women take more responsibility or worry about it more because they think they will be judged?

And who are the people doing the judging?

I'm too ashamed to say. Far Too Old

PlentyofPubes - what age were your dc's when you started the rota?

That might be the way forward.

Well done OP

Summerflower, I was in a similar position to you - I'd been a LP before I got together with DP and he moved in with us so all the routines were already in place. It took years for me us to tackle the issue. What finally did it was the DC reaching an age when they really should be a) pulling their own weight and b) learning the necessary skills for independence. What's worked for us is having a rota. That's probably a bit overkill for those whose DC are still small but once you're essentially sharing the house with young adults, it works a treat. Best of all, the resentment has gone and my relationship with DP is so much better as a result.

Book recommendation for those who are having real difficulties in this area: Susan Maushart - Wifework - actually I'd recommend the book to anybody whether they're having difficulties or not because it's really interesting.

I'm not very comfortable with the amount of criticism of women on this thread. I think it needs to be remembered that women are held responsible and criticised for the state of their houses, how the DC are turned out etc. in ways men never seem to be, even when the man is a SAHP.

I thought MB was a dad. I see I was wrong, but now we've got kim :)

Garlic - which two dads?

Interesting that two dads made the same point about women retaining ownership of childcare, even when their male partners view the responsibility as equal. I've seen it it RL, too, a lot. And I perceive it as anti-feminist.

Until we have genuine parity in public and in private, I'm afraid I think it's retrograde for couples to split the home work according to traditional gender roles. The fact that she's better at food provision, say, while he's better at woodwork, probably means nothing else than that they were respectively trained into those roles. Anyone can do cookery and put up shelves, as we find out if we go solo. Deciding to stick with what you know is not only lazy but politically irresponsible.

She who "allows" DP to feed the child according to her rules has pinned too much of her identity to her womanly role as feeder. Ditto the man who "shows" her how to use a rawlplug, then takes over when she flounders. I know, I sound awfully Seventies! But how can we advance equality if we don't let go of traditional gender roles in our own lives?

Back2Two, in my experience, it's not about views, it is about action, and inequality becomes much more apparent after children are born. But that is just my experience.

Can I just add to the OP, I don't think you failed here at all, I think this is a great example of equality benefitting everyone in the family

I have to say I have mused on this a lot, the wider issues the thread raises, I mean, not this thread itself. I have an unequal marriage, partly through circumstances as DH and I don't live together full time and partly as DH doesn't see certain things as his responsibility because I was a single parent before we met, so doing everything was my default setting.

It is a process of learning for him that a commitment to gender equality is more than just words, and a balance for me between making progress to equality and living in a battleground, where I just think I am better off alone. Truth is, we live in an unequal society and changing that on a personal level can be hard. I think the OP is right to raise it and to address it, and I think it is great she and her DH have resolved it. If others don't even have to have that discussion with their partners, that's great too, but survey after survey suggests their relationships are the exception, rather than the rule.

Back2Two, you seem very angry that the OP has realised she has imperceptibly fallen into those gender roles that so many couples unintentionally fall into and you're sneering at her for posting that she's realised it and she'd going to change it. Then you're implying that you're a much more competent feminist than her because you don't need to discuss this stuff with your DH as you've already got your domestic work sorted.

If any of the regular rad fems took this tone, they'd be slated.

What's the matter with you, why are you so angry that people acknowledge that it's very difficult for couples not to fall into gender roles and to congratulate someone who has realised that she was doing so but has nipped it in the bud?

Were we all supposed to snarl at her that she's a rubbish feminist who shouldn't need to tell her DH this stuff?

Mumble, the op is surprised that because both she and her dh identify as feminist, and both work ft, they have only just noticed that they have reverted to patriarchal stereotype in the kid's cooking domain. Nah, it isn't immediate life changing, but it is a shock when you realise how insidious these things are, even when you think you are fighting against them.

Your DH seems a decent sort and this sounds like something that happened by accident as you were the only source of food for the baby at first and it just carried on that way.

I often see couples out in town with their baby in a pushchair and the baby starts crying or needs some attention and the mother literally elbows the father out of the way. Have you been inadvertently doing that with food?

Now you have noticed what is going on you need to make sure you take a step back and count to ten and let your DH get it wrong or do it different to how you do it.

Best solution is get your DS on to a version of your food ASAP so it takes no extra effort.

I think 'congratulating' the op on having realised, because the roles are so internalised that even someone who identifies as a feminist can get caught up in expectations, for all sorts of reasons, and then suddenly wake up and smell the coffee.

It's congratulations for the realisation, congratulations for not letting the status quo go on, and congratulations for realising the importance of sharing this sort of stuff when both partners of whatever sex work ft. Because otherwise the 'default' setting of the woman doing the kid's cooking gets perpetuated further. Your husband, back, and now the op's husband, are making valuable inroads into changing the default setting.

But if you want to prove how much better at this feminist malarkey than she is, and demand praise for it, crack right on. You're both doing a great job. Bit small minded not to congratulate her for doing the same thing as you, though.

And a big well done for finding it so easy.

I saw the op as a 'fuck me, how did this happen to a feminist?' post. Because she realised that even the small things are important in the wider scheme of things, slowly changing the status quo.

I'm not at all sure why you are being so vindictive about it.

Don;t drink - did you mean the typos? Sorry, watching comedy and chatting with DH as I type.

I guess I was just surprised by the title of the thread really.

Yes, that is it Back2two - "equality to me means I don't have to have these discussions. Even if it had happened in my life I wouldn't view it as some big gender issue. Just something that my partner and I could review". Yep that is it.

If I asked DH to cook the meals and shop which i maninly do he would. Gender would not come into it. I don;t do above jobs becasue I have health problems and am physically much weaker than DH. If he was really poorly as... ah yes, have just remmebered, he had flu and I did attempt to empty the bin.... Not gender based.

What DH never does: Complain that he has to do anything, suggest that anything is because I am female/he is male, tell me I can;t do soemthing. When i tried to do the bin he complimented me on my amazing ability to get round diffuclt things (I had tipped bin on its side, wedged against dorr etc etc....)

Is OP suggested her other half hasn;t cooked because he is anti feminist?

It looks like there is wine in the Mumblecrumble abode.

The items never done by the woman form part of a picture, but we'd like to hear what the man never does. But even if it's all the traditional stuff, it's fine if the couple have thought about how they're living and they're satisfied with it.

Mumblecrumble: If "we" refers to an able-bodied pair of man & woman; if you do not have paid domestic staff, and if you as the woman do the cooking, cleaning & shopping - then yes. I would say it's about gender.

Since we moved intot hsi hosue togetehr 7 years ago...