Aaaaaaargh, I despair!

I find it disheartening. My husband has no expectation that I should cook/clean for him, although I am increasingly aware that my expectations of myself are different.

But it is infuriating that I am considered "lucky" to have a husband who looks after the children, cleans, irons. Why? My contemporaries are educated and professional, and all work outside of the home. I start to agree it isn't just education of women.

Agree with NotCitrus, some of these comments come from my mother and MIL. My husband just had to acknowledge paternity to be considered a saint.

I agree with Basil.

DH and I were very equal before children. Not perfect, but ok. Then we had kids. First you have maternity leave, during which a pattern often develops of the person at home (until recently exclusively the woman, now still vast majority women) does more housework. Even when I went back to work, a lot of the kid stuff became me, partly because I just knew how to do it. Then currently I am a SAHM, with DH working away a lot. So I naturally do more. DH still does a fair bit at weekends, but he does things like expects to be able to shut the kitchen door to 'cook' for an hour rather than juggling children and throwing something together.

It's not an ideal situation, but becomes entrenched and quite hard to change.

It doesn't help that my mother is always congratulating him on being wonderful, because he is so much better than my Dad. Who is turn she sees as 'much better than my dad/a lot of men' because he does the washing up and sets the table.

I love DH dearly and, in many ways, he is a wonderful husband. He does work hard when he's around. But he tends to do the glory jobs and the fun jobs, leaving me still mopping the floor and cleaning the loo. And until recently, I was too tried to notice, let alone think about changing much.

Basil - How does the sudden change in partnership dynamic work? I mean surely the bloke was effectively living a lie for ten years prior to children? It can't be the case that he believed in equality for a decade then suddenly had an epiphany that actually "yeah, men are better than women". Can it?

RE: Paid work v unpaid work, I get very annoyed when people don't consider the value of being a SAHP, DW does this and my colleagues class them as officially economically inactive! Okay, so it's quite complicated to calculate the ecomonic value of a SAHP, but jeez come on inactive? Imbeciles!

Stupid bloody phone!

Ok home from work.

Firstly curlew I said that on my previous post because I wanted to clarify that I was asking a genuine question and not a sarcastic "what on earth do you think is wrong". People do tend to get offended quite easily on threads onlineand often it's because it's not clear how something was actually meant.

All of the things that you pointed out may still exist, but I still feel they are improved from say 30 years ago. Maybe we aren't as far forward as you'd wish but nothing is ever ever fixed quickly.

I'm sure there are many people, male and female, who are people pleasers. It's not exclusively a "female" concept.
And the guilt thing in my experience comes from other women and their expectations. Not from men.

I certainly have never felt objectified at every turn.

I married my partner because we are partners. There's no way he'd ever accept that it was my job to do the housework. It's just equally shared. I wouldn't be with someone who thought otherwise. Its just that simple to me. Don't be in a relationship if you're not happy with it. If he's abusing you, get out. If it's unequal, get out. People can only treat you this way if you allow it. So I don't allow myself to be walked over. Anyone can do it.

I saw how my parents relationship worked when I was younger and I swore I wouldn't accept the same for myself. When I was young my dad expected my mum to do all the housework, cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. And while he was not financially abusive he was definitely very financially thoughtless.

I saw that and decided I would not allow that to happen to me. We are in charge of our own lives. So even if this is still women's experience, it's is not EVERY woman's experience, and I think it's improving all the time. Children won't necessarily emulate their parents relationships, they may learn from them to ensure they don't make the same mistakes.

And now, over the past 20 odd years, my Dad has changed. I wouldn't say they do an equal amount but he's doing more and more as he's gotten older. Things can improve.

I really think there is plenty of hope for these women's children to live in a fair and equal society in the future.

Excellent point re comparisons, Basil.

I think that on some deep psychological level, a lot of women think a man wearing an apron, doing cleaning and dishes and dusting is somehow not a "manly" man, and deep down do not really want it?

That some of these tasks, as well as "being made to do them" ("henpecked") is somehow emasculating. The whole term "emasculation" is an interesting one really....

The same reason that in most couples, when traveling together, it is the man who drives. With us it's me, as I like cars and driving and DH doesn't, but we've had a fair few jokes and comments.

Also couples rationalise:

"I work more hours out of the house, therefore it's right that she does more hours in the house".

And because of subconscious assumptions, both women and men often over-estimate how much men do.

I remember reading that women compare their marriages vis housework and doing the grunt work, to those of other women, not to that of their husband.

So for many women, because the grunt-work balance in so many women's marriages is awful, in their marriage it comes out looking fucking brilliant in comparison to that of their friends and neighbours. If they compared themselves to the marriages of the men they know, they might not feel so satisfied.

Sadly glasshare there is a massive amount of victim blaming with regard to dv so your parallel doesn't really hold water. It would be nice if it was ludicrous to think of people responding to dv in the ways you describe, but actually a lot of people do.

All well and good but what we all know is that before children, many modern men do pull their weight.

It all goes to shit when women have children.

That's when the power changes. That's when all those subconscious expectations and assumptions, which were consciously held off in spite of the adverts BC, kick in.

I agree, the best strategy women can use, is not to live with men until they automatically pull their weight without needing to be prompted or persuaded or cajoled or blackmailed into it. But tell that to a woman who lived with a bloke for a decade in a totally equal relationship and then found herself in a bewildered 1950's state 2 years after giving birth. She's no longer as marketable, she's lost her confidence and she's perplexed as to how they got to this stage. While at the same time feeling guilty because she's probably bought into the shit that society throws at us, that paid work is better than unpaid work and therefore she doesn't have the right to demand better that her man goes back to being the decent man she thought he was BC.

Do men become like that or are they already like that? Are they made or born?

I've lived with two men. One nobber controlling, emotionally manipulating and didn't expect to lift a finger. The other the opposite: generous, kind, respectful and shares the load. I married the latter.

If we found men who don't pull their weight in the home as abhorrent as those who hit their partner that would be a good start. We don't say "he hits you?! Have you tried putting up a list of tasks that are not hitting you?" which we do for stuff at home "he doesn't help out? Put a list of jobs on the fridge and allocate some to him". The responsibility for the inadequate behaviour lies with the perpetrator. The responsibility for leaving the situation remains with the victim. The trouble is that we are conditioned to believe that it isn't serious and the responsibility for the situation lies with the disrespected partner. That's wrong.

It really is about our expectations and what we feel we deserve/should expect to put up with. If we don't teach our boys and girls that there is value in being equal partners, looking after children and the home and that it is a shared responsibility nothing will change.

If a womam lived with a man who hit her, or who controlled all the household finances leaving her with no money, or who constantly belittled her, or who tried to stop her seeing her friends, would we say that she should have known earlier in the relationship that he was going to become like that, that she shouldn't let him get away with it and that it is her fault and that she is responsible for making him change his behaviour?

If not, why do we think that women can make men do housework and childcare?

I would say, actually, that thinking of the men I shared houses with while a student & in the years after graduating (so a smallish but not tiny sample of cambs grads of that era), they were all pretty equal in terms of expecting to do their share of whatever housework / cooking got done. Admittedly this was often at a fairly basic level, but none of us were particularly houseproud.

They chose the wrong men. If you choose a man who does not pull his weight that is your choice.

Now obviously I know the issue is not as simple as that, but I think the solution is that simple. Choose partners for their qualities and abilities who will treat you well and respect you; a mutual partnership. If we as society start to find the alternative (current status quo for majority) abhorrent by educating our children and leading by example then we can change this for the better.

Our values need to shift a bit. Tall, dark and handsome is not enough. Must also be capable of looking after himself and family.

Actually, that's not true, one male contemporary has a sahm partner, but I know it was not his choice (she is not from the UK and definitely wanted that role). However whenever I have been round there he is in the kitchen looking harassed with children dangling off him so I think they share the non-work hours home labour

Interesting - I am pretty much the same age as you, Cambridge grad, left in 1991.

Your picture doesn't reflect my contemporaries that I'm still in touch with at all (admittedly a pretty small group). I'd say that they share domestic work much more equally than the average, at least 2 p/t sahfs (partners also p/t), and definitely none of the women do all the house work / childcare!

Yeah that's true Sal, once again I've fallen into the trap of victim blaming (sort of).

When I was at school there wasn't any kind of relationship education, sex education was a biology lesson, there was no emotional education so all the emotional side of things was left for society to teach me. This was a mistake that I'm led to believe is being rectified in many schools now, hopefully the new generation are learning to respect each other better than their ancestors.

Not sure how I would go about tackling those out of education and stuck in sht relationships though? Public awareness campaigns, resources being pumped into refuges and the ilk (the opposite of what sems to be happening)? Is there any hope of changing ingrained attitudes for men who treat women badly? Hopefully, if not a female friendly judicial system would sort that out.

• Another wishlist item that may not be realistic.

The other side needs addressing too

prevention being better than cure, and all that

when there's no solution to it?

Is there really no solution to it though? This is the kind of edcucation that should be being taught, people shouldn't have to put up with being second class citizens or partners. They don't have to stay in those relationships, there is help to get them out and there are strategies to avoid them in the first place. Rape Crisis centes, Womens Refuges, websites like this all exist to offer support. I'm not saying any of this is easy against the society we live in that is set up to tell women the exact opposite, but the education needs to counter these lies, as it has done in the past with other prejudices and discriminations.

Snap chub, though in my case it was Davids.

I think a lot of it is denial tbh.

Men who don't do their fair share of housework are basically making their female partners eat shit every day. By taking for granted the fact that they don't need to do the grunt work because the woman they're living with will do it, they are showing those women very clearly that no matter how much they say (and believe) that they love and cherish and respect and see as equal partners the women they live with, they actually have a sliver of contempt for them somewhere - the perception that the grunt work is good enough for the little woman, while he's above it.

Deep down women know this, they know they're living with it and that is so painful and so humiliating, that they go to great lengths to build up a total denial that that is the case. So they have to invent narratives such as "men don't see dirt", "he's just so disorganised" "he's hopeless at remembering birthdays" etc. - all those excuses where men who run companies and hold down responsible jobs, are supposedly incapable of running a household and taking responsibility for childcare, because to face the truth - that you're being dumped on by someone who doesn't value you as much as you deserve, as much as he claims to value you and as much as you value him - is really fucking hard to face up to and really horrible. Why would anyone want to face that, when there's no solution to it? I don't blame any woman who builds a wall of cognitive dissonance around domestic life with men in the 21st century. I'm not sure it's possible to live with most men without it tbh.

Definitely a guilt thing, or feeling that you ought to feel guilty if you don't feel guilty for not keeping the house clean/ensuring kids aren't the last at nursery/making homemade birthday cake/writing nice thankyou letters to zillions of people etc.

I think we need a couple more generations of our mothers and grannies to die off before equality can get properly embedded in hearts rather than just our heads - I say mothers and grannies because IME they're usually the ones saying "Oh, you let [male DP] pick the kids up and put them to bed? Isn't he good! I hope you thanked him properly. Did you send a thank you card to his mother for that nice present she got dc?" Dads etc tend to be much less bothered by a lot of the expectation (hence not explicitly teaching their sons to do 50% of childcare and housework, but not guilt-tripping them about stuff that isn't really important).

I do wonder how gender roles will change with increased unemployment and practically no jobs any more requiring levels of strength that traditionally needed men to do them - if there aren't enough jobs for more than 50% of adults, will we end up with many more one-earner families which may be more randomly male/female-earning, or just a sharper divide between the haves (having jobs) and the have-nots?

Yes, to the guilt thing I think. Or the idea that being 'successful' isn't 'feminine'.

I used to work at a law firm with more equity partners called Mark than women. Depressing.

Not sure how anyone could interpret that question as offensive, by the way.......