If young men want ‘traditional’ gender roles, we need to know why - Kathleen Stock

I get pleasure and satisfaction from housework/wifework.......certainly when that is my main occupation. If you like your life to run smoothly and enjoy creating a home, your environment being comfortable as possible, then mending and furnishing your nest comes quite naturally. Obviously most people, men or women, would prefer someone else do the household tasks when they've been out at work all day.

I guess it also depends on your standards. I know that I have a tendency to think that I do the things that I tend to do way better than the way my husband does them - so I end up doing whatever it is myself. He has roles and tasks that i have nothing to do with and quite frankly am happy to let him do them.

My main point being that the the politics of oppressor versus the oppressed, in which the victim turns the tables to become the privileged - which is how Intersectionalism has evolved, has become an unhelpful and monolithic effigy - and whether it is appled to race or to sex or to any other category is not helpful and simply breeds resentment. I can fully understand how men might find the continual 'privilging' of women, and dissing of men, quite galling.

This topic is not really about race relations, but I'm not sure what "always defer to a black child when talking about their experience" means; if it's about racism the black child has experienced from a white person, it would be reasonable to give credence to their account and turn it into a learning opportunity unless there is a reason to do otherwise.

To (very slightly) expand on the privilege part:

The notion that white people may have certain privilege in the West even when they are not wealthy or healthy becomes clearer when one understands that this privilege may not be so immediately conspicuous in the first place; the higher likelihood of the general society giving white people benefit of doubt, less pressure to avoid being a negative example of one's racial/ethnic group, etc...it's often subtle in social interactions and may be easier to notice when dealing with the legal system.

If I write more I'm afraid I might veer off-topic, so I'll stop here.

On a side note, I think this is also what we're seeing with some of the WASPI women. I'm on the fence about whether they should receive compensation after years of privilege and no doubt retiring earlier than I ever will.

Realistically I don't think teen boys today or even men in their 20s have been brought up to expect that.

What baffles me is the amount of men who seemed to not care at all for their partners. They just don't care that the woman they claim they love is run ragged, working hard and struggling. Has barely any leisure time, has so much responsibility yet they have no compassion and don't even think to lift a finger.
They don't see that if they support each other, life could be much better for both of them.

according to statistics you are way less likely to get killed if you don't have a husband though

I never thought it strange that I should do domestic chores. My father (born in the 1930s) used to do housework as a matter of course without advertising it or seeking praise. He regarded it as an entirely practical matter - this needs doing so best to get it done. His father was very traditional so perhaps growing up with two sisters influenced him - he shared a house with one of them in adulthood.

The example rubbed off on me - I regarded housework as something I should just do as a matter of course - clean up the mess I'm half responsible for. Well, 100% responsible these days.

On kids and dark themes - I was pretty ghoulish as a youth but the dark thoughts were more related to the great fear of the time, nuclear war.

This.
Because not many people actually enjoy "wifework", like cleaning, putting food on the table every night, buying birthday presents for DC's friends, etc.
Some people genuinely enjoy this stuff, but on the whole I bet most people would like someone else to do their laundry for them.

So why would those in the dominant position, who have had this kind of service, be willing to give it up? They are not willing.
As countless posts on this site show, most men will never, ever, willingly take on traditional "wifework". They only do it because the alternative is she will divorce him.

Also, many of the traditional female roles men are being asked to take on are the drudge work. It’s not exactly a surprise that they’re not queuing up to clean toilets. Same as women are not queuing up to go down mines or up scaffolding.

The obvious reason why is that equality feels like a loss of status to a group that has been privileged up to now, and any approach that suggests formerly disadvantaged groups should be treated with respect (i.e. liberal attitudes) will undermine the hierarchical model these young men have been brought up to expect.

men's fragile egos

😀Thought it was going too well - a pendulum just gotta swing if it wants to keep busy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7227885/Tradeswoman-trolled-online-beating-men-Plasterer-Year-title.html

A cousin of mine back in 7Os came out top in driving digger at her company. Only girl - left soon after due to treatment by colleagues. Ended up driving taxis.

I'm sick of women being expected to smooth men's fragile egos.

I think people spend too much time worrying about what teenagers think.

For instance there seems to be an obsession with getting worried about teenage boys referencing Andrew Tate and a moral panic around it, when I can imagine that a lot of the boys are only repeating it because it's rebelling against the school environment, a few years later they'll grow out of it.

I'd be more concerned about the men who have those opinions once they go out and start earning money, and then in a position of influence.

Teenagers grow out of a lot of things, a lot of them will grow out of misogyny and gender ideology.

In the rush to celebrate what women can achieve, that as individuals we can install shelves and chop wood, we’ve lost the fact that it’s just easier for men to do it.

My youngest is small, and perhaps feels he can’t compete in manliness with his six foot mates. I need to subtly check he realises he has a lot to offer, and is still ten times stronger than me!

Mine are great with their granny, not so good with me 🤣 I am apparently mistress of all things and less in need of manly assistance!

I think there is type of feminism that cannot see nuance and therefore cant accept that men may be better at some things than women as that is seen as a threat to equality.

It's often a fairly daft failure to distinguish between sex class vs individuals.
More men than women will have the necessary physique to be firefighters but that doesn't mean all men will be better than all women at that job so no women should do it, to take an obvious example.

It’s odd because now a lot of people celebrate girls getting their periods, as a sign that their bodies can now do something amazing. But boys become physically stronger and bigger as adolescents and that should be prized too, as it was/is in many traditional and indigenous cultures.

Although physical strength is now less essential for work and survival, it is still important, particularly in the domestic sphere. My DP and I have a 50:50 split of childcare and I out earn him. He does laundry, cooking etc etc. But there are specific things he does that I can’t do and I really value that (eg hedge cutting - I can’t lift the hedge cutter high enough).

I think there is type of feminism that cannot see nuance and therefore cant accept that men may be better at some things than women as that is seen as a threat to equality.

The interesting thing is the exam was designed with an assumption there would be no difference in the boys and girls results.What societies have failed to grapple with is the long tail of underachievement of boys.
Reading is one of the factors and yet for many working class men and boys reading is girl's stuff.

At uni in the early 70s friend of mine had wanted to study medicine. She'd been refused a place not because of her grades but there was a cap on the number of women.

The fact is women are just as capable as men - otherwise there wouldn't have had to be so much effort put into keeping women out of education and jobs.

As more careers attract women they lose men as they gradually become lower status and less well paid. It started with token women who were accepted as 'special' but as soon as it became about 30% it became seen as a take over. Eg GPs, teaching, librarians, HR departments. It could be seen as male flight.

I don’t think this is universally true. Many women wanted to get married/have children but in the absence of contraception they needed husbands to provide for them. Although of course women did work in various ways.

I think that while many men benefited from the old systems, I don’t think there was a conspiracy to enslave women. I can’t really think how you’d avoid women being dependent on men in a world without contraception.

@IwantToRetire You did say that ‘I disagree with nearly everything she said, but agree this is something that more people need to be talking about.’

you should have added ‘who share my view’ in between ‘people’ and ‘need’.

We need a world where both men and women are happy, and that requires compromise. All social relationships require compromise, and problems can’t be solved if only one set of needs are considered.

Jordan Peterson identifies a problem and a solution- that young men need to shape up. He doesn’t ask women to accept substandard men- he points out that long term they are unhappy if they do that. I’ve only ever seen him suggest men shape up.

A PP identified one of the things men offer women- protection.

Another thing men have is strength and endurance. Downplaying that does none of us favours. My boys have strength beyond measure, and have little idea how much harder every physical task is for women. We should be celebrating that, not diminishing it.

Women and men offer each other companionship and combined resources- both in the home and the workplace. It takes two to raise a family- less than two and it’s hard, hard work and sacrifice for the remaining parent.

If we can address the motherhood penalty, we’d all do so much better.

I did my 11+ in the early 1960s and I wonder if one factor (among many) in girls’ higher performance was that they may have read more, both through expectations (sit quietly and read a book) and inclination (greater intellectual maturity).
The exam was very literacy heavy in those days.

I agree to an extent about the different offerings of men and women, but I think what's often lost in discussions like this is how the male/female dynamic works in a healthy, functional relationship. When I look at my grandparents and parents, the biggest thing that men offer women is companionship, love and someone to share the burden of life with. It wasn't so much trading offerings but pooling skills and attributes to make life easier and more enjoyable for both.

Men still have this to offer and it's a shame that they don't lean more into this. The man's share of responsibilities might look different now than it did 70 years ago but there is still a lot to be said for lightening the load and being someone's partner through life.

What men offer (other than paternity and provision) that is unique to them, especially in a less civilized context, is protection. Having a man as a partner protects a woman and children from predators, such as other men. The reason men are physically bigger than women is that women have consistently chosen physically bigger sexual partners over thousands of years. As a species both human sexes have to be attractive to the opposite sex (unlike the peacock/peahen for example). How the sexes look different on sight has developed through sexual selection.
Women therefore decided having a male partner who could physically protect them and any children was a quality to select for. Men still do the majority of protecting jobs to this day: military, police, firefighters etc. Jobs where physical strength and ability to manhandle people or equipment are important.

@TheScenicWay men had something to offer back then because they stood between women and the resources women and their children needed to survive. They were providers in the sense that a prison has to be a provider for the prisoners. That was on purpose, so that women would be forced to trade sex for survival. It was worth it to men to work when it ensured access to a woman's body, and her lifelong service. For the moment we're not doing that anymore (although lots of men, like Jordan Peterson, advocate that we go back to that system) but we don't have an alternate set of cultural norms to switch to, we're making it up as we go along and both men and women are having to invent new ways of valuing themselves and each other.