AIBU to be depressed that women atre STILL appeasing men for a quiet life?

[Hakluyt]

When I was a young woman a million years it was considered quite normal for women to put their wishes, even in quite trivial things, second to their husbands' and then third once children arrived. Men were often expected to get the best chair, the best bits of food- the household tended to revolve around their needs.

And it sometimes seems to me that not much has changed. The number of threads on here where people talk about doing things "for a quiet life", giving in because "it's not worth the hassle- I can't be doing with the sighing and huffing". Even women putting up with crap and then getting secret revenge instead of talking about things like grown ups!

I just find it so depressing that little seems to have changed. Why are we still doing this?

I notice it too - I've even done research on it - one of the things I found was that the couple would say "we decided that she should be a SAHM" but when digging deeper you find that actually there were no options and the man assumed his career came first and the woman was just invited to agree with this position during a conversation.
They said it was a discussion, but it wasn't really.

I noticed it was almost always assumed that domestic work would be done by women and how men don't even notice how reliant they are on a woman's unpaid work in order for them to be high fliers etc.
Don't get me started on the "well he works so hard he is just too tired to do housework" stuff that perpetuates this male opt-out.
Women's work doesn't seem to be considered work - it's just taken for granted.

Also, I discovered, really depressingly, that women have almost no individual power to change this, if their husband refuses to join in the parenting and housework there is almost no sanction or pressure the woman can apply. She really then has to accept her husband gets away with contributing zilch or leaves him.
That's the compromise a lot of women truly face.

One coping mechanism of this is for the woman to convince herself that she is the only one who can do this stuff and becomes a domestic super-power who then excludes her husband from housework on the grounds only she can do it - these women invariably end up as the subjects of nightmare mother-in-law threads as they have to control everything in their family.

Fay, I have exactly the same relationship with my DH and I have been a SAHM for just over 8 years now. It has worked out brilliantly for us and whilst I might be financially dependent on him on a day to day basis our finances are set up in such a way that I would be protected. (Not set up deliberately that way I might add).

Obviously I have days when DH annoys me and I might come on here an moan about him which is where people like Hakluyt think we put up with crap and take petty secret revenge. Oh yes, that was my thread and as was mentioned on there, you totally missed the point. DH is a lovely wonderful man but is a whinger. Drives me mad. So my "secret" revenge is how he knows I was annoyed as repeat conversations over and over again aren't going to change him being a whinger. He is one, I am not. He knows it bugs me. He knows he's going to get payback at some point. He has a sense of humour. He finds it funny. It makes him laugh. That is why I do it. If it upset him, I wouldn't. We talk about the really important things. Mumsnet is not a true mirror image of a relationship. Though as a PP said, there are some truly awful relationships posted about on here. I thank my lucky stars everyday for my DH. Even my MiL told me off for spoiling him. But you know what, I do it because I want to and not because I have to.

and even though I am a SAHM and DH works long hours - he really pulls his weight with helping with DC's and around the house.

I think there are lots of reasons and I see it a lot - not only in the UK but with friends overseas as well.

First reason: societal expectations - women are still supposed to kowtow to men. How many times do you see comments on online fora about "why have children if you go out to work and not look after them". Has anyone ever said this to a man? Do men get online abuse to the same extent as women? They may do, but not based on their sex.

Second reason: economic power - lack thereof. Men work, earn the money, women stay at home and look after the kids and have little or no money. Even if they work part-time they are probably earning less than their partner. It's difficult to assert yourself if you have no escape.

Third: martyr syndrome. Not something I suffer from. A healthy dose of selfishness does no harm.

And yes children's NEEDS come first. Not wants. I don't think some parents (both mums and dads) always get the distinction but that's another thread.

but everyone does it to everyone, everyone keeps quiet about things with our parents, work mates, outside work mates, partners, kids.

it is called not being a selfish twat.

I do more housework than DP. It's because when I moved in to his house, I already knew that for example, he didn't care about making the bed every morning, or leaving dishes in the sink for a couple of days before washing them. Because I have (slightly) higher standards, I think it is reasonable for me to do more of the housework in order to get the result that I want that DP doesn't care about.

That said, I can see where the indignance and anger of the OP is coming from, but thinkin about my own friends I can think of as many cases where it's the woman in the couple calling the shots as the man, and where I'd say he is under her thumb rather than the opposite. If I look at my parents' generation though, that is very rarely the case and I can think of many more couples where I feel the man massively takes the piss.

Yes my MIL has lived her whole life like this. It's all very amicable and passive aggressive, FIL comes across as an amiable person, but she seems completely subservient to him.

She is the designated driver so he can drink. She goes on holiday to the places he likes (which means they always go back to the same 2 places). She always cooks the meals he likes and looks forward to having visitors so she can cook something different, something she actually likes, (and obviously cooks something else for him).

She wants to downsize, he doesn't, so they aren't moving (even though his health is bad and she is the one who would be left with a huge house to sort out and sell on her own).

However, there is one other male figure she is even more subservient to and even her DH comes second in precedence to this one - God. The church definitely comes before FIL in her hierarchy, though only just.

Miggsie, I agree, but given that, tbh, we all know that stuff, and many of us possibly watched our mothers defer to our fathers, spoil our brothers, assume that men were more important than women and girls etc etc - why are so many women still sleepwalking into these situations?

Also, I discovered, really depressingly, that women have almost no individual power to change this, if their husband refuses to join in the parenting and housework there is almost no sanction or pressure the woman can apply. She really then has to accept her husband gets away with contributing zilch or leaves him.

if a wopman does less housework than a man wants what sanctions does he have?
this is an honest question and not being goady.

I don't buy this women do things for a quiet life. In my experience it's the men that often do things for a quiet life. Or protest but the women get their own way in the end. But the secret is find a partner who agrees with you on most things. I've not taken my own advice by the way. DH and I hardly ever agree on anything.

Do you think any of it has to do with the ages we are when we get together with our OH's. I mean like, DH and I got together mid twenties and had DC's early thirties. I was used to fending for myself, my own independence etc. I also knew who I was, which I think a lot of people don't. We have always reached decisions together. Like the point up thread about the decision to be a SAHM. DH didn't want me to be a SAHM as his Mother wasn't so he didn't get why I would want to be. He now really appreciates that I am and has given me some wonderful compliments about our children as he sees me as the primary caregiver and disciplinarian as I am with them the most.

Marshmallow, that's pretty much my mother, including the god stuff, bar the fact that my father is teetotal. I think he is probably on the Asperger's spectrum, and his preference for never doing anything that deviates from a cast-iron routine governs her life. They're retired, she has health problems, she does all the housework, and still serves him his dinner first on a tray in front of the TV, while she eats in the kitchen like the hired help. Because she's still living in the aura of the days when he was The Man, The Breadwinner, The Head of the Household.

The sad thing is that she has twice his intelligence, but doesn't know it. My two sisters and I are very work-focused and take no shit from anyone. The others are single and childless by choice. My mother is baffled by my marriage, in which DH has no 'protected status' as the breadwinner, in which he makes compromises to support my career, we share chores and childcare. But I grew up with the consequences of the 'traditional' version, and I was never going to let myself end up in a similar state.

I agree with whichever poster said that a healthy dose of female selfishness was a good thing.

My Mother has always done everything for my Father - he always had what he wanted to eat - even if that meant she had to cook more than one meal. She was a SAHM and he worked hard to provide us with everything. I asked her once why she always put him first and her answer has stayed with me. "You and your brother will grow up and leave home and DF and I will be left together with the relationship that we created before hand. We will be important to eachother then, so we need to be important to eachother now". He's retired now, she still does everything for him. He worships the ground she walks on and they are eachothers best friend. They've been together since they were 15, they are 68 this year. I want that.

if a wopman does less housework than a man wants what sanctions does he have?
this is an honest question and not being goady.

He has the option to do it himself rather than treat the woman like an unsatisfactory employee.

My friend has split up with her partner. She's in quite a tough position as they weren't married, she doesn't work and he is a pain with the child support.

What I find odd is she says things like "oh he never wanted me to work", "oh he wouldn't let me learn to drive" etc.

I've known her over 30 years. We're from the same backgrounds, have had the same education, influences etc. It just makes me very sad that somehow she's still fallen to the same kind of things that women in our mothers' generations were subject to.

YANBU.

There is an element of compromise which is fair and acceptable.

Then there is avoiding confrontation. I'm guilty of this, even separated. I thought I was prepared to make XHs life convenient because of his work. Yes he is busy, yes he is away a lot. So I thought I would have the kids 100% of the time, allowing him to dip in and out. Fucking crazy, he still rules my life and I am still a slave to his work.

But as he has now said that I brought nothing into the relationship of 15 years (SAHM to his career, his equity in his flat, his pension, his paying the mortgage on the family home, me moving 200 miles when his work relocated) and that I wasn't entitled to anything - he is being generous. I have now decided the gloves are off and I will not be going down the 'anything for a quiet life' route.

AppocolyseThen He has the option to do it himself rather than treat the woman like an unsatisfactory employee.
but so does the woman, the post i was responding to led me to believe this was an inequality i wasn't understanding

Yes, totally agree. I read about research where they asked couples how they decided to divide up housework and childcare, how much they each did, and then observed them. The research found that women overestimated how much men did, and men underestimated how much women did.

In the research I did I found that literally women just did walk into these gender roles without realising - and there wasn't any discussion, it just happened - they moved in with a man, and their career and needs were instantly demoted.
One actually said "I don't know how this happened" and "we never discussed it"...and suddenly there was all the housework, her responsibility even though he'd lived on his own and done it himself until she moved in.

It's such a dominant cultural expectation that isn't questioned - until women find they are doing 80% of the housework.
Justifications are "women have higher standards", "men earn more and work longer hours so shouldn't have to do housework as well" (evidence shows that if you add up women's paid and unpaid work they work more hours than men), "women are just better at housework than men", "women care more about their home" etc.

Couples with kids had these great narratives about how a woman is more suited to childcare etc and if the man was involved he just "helped" and was a sort of semi-incompetent who needed constant supervision.

There's some research on couples who've gone for equal parenting and housework but they are not exception not the norm. What struck me in one interview was the man who said "why should I not be able to have the relationship with my children that it is assumed my wife will get automatically?" He really wanted to be close to his kids and involved in their lives emotionally - something that is normally assumed to be the woman's job/role.
Equally interesting was that the same man then went on "of course, to do this I've given up any idea of a high flying career" and he'd passed on a promotion that would have him flying round the world regularly, he said his kids were more important. I thought it interesting that he basically said that some careers prevented you from parenting effectively.

Also - Hochschild in her great book "the second shift" talked about how women do two jobs now, paid work and all the housework; she talked about "economies of gratitude" where women were expected to be grateful for anything the man did around the house, like it was a gift or special favour, but everything she did round the house was taken for granted and she would not receive praise, but would get criticism if her housekeeping was not deemed to be good enough.

This is normalised in our culture.

I was brought up by a "surrendered wife", in a rural area. I was so naiive when I left home and married.
My father, although a benevolent dictator wouldn't allow my mother to work, or learn to drive.
All major decisions were his to take. She was happy and felt protected.

I stupidly followed the same construct when I left home, but things were not so stable. An abusuve husband , my mother's advice was to appease him, and not stand up to him so much that he would punch me.
My father died, my mother is like a piece of flotsam on the waves.

Now many many years later and having done the growing up of two women just to bring myself to a "normal " state. Things are good.

It has not been easy though.

Miggsie, I can't be that exceptional, though, and nor can my friends - what is it that has made us resist cultural expectations that I agree are still dismayingly dominant?

I work as many hours as DH, childminder pickups are shared, he does all the shopping and bill-paying and most of the cooking etc - bedtime and bathtime are his responsibility if he is at home. I'm not at all grateful. He's being a parent, juggling parenting with work, just as I am. We pick up the slack for one another as necessary. All my female friends work and their work is important to them, and I have two close female friends with SAHFs as partners.

What is it that makes some women able resist cultural narratives? We're all highly educated, but from what you say that doesn't make a huge difference...?

Interesting Migsie

This bit There's some research on couples who've gone for equal parenting and housework struck me as we're probably quite close to that.

Both work f/t with some flexibility built in to both jobs to enable school pick up/drop off. Chores are split pretty evenly - he definitely has higher standards than me though. I cook most nights as I'm home first but he does breakfasts and most of weekend cooking. I look after the laundry. He looks after the cleaning. He does the garden/DIY, I do the admin stuff - insurance, birthdays etc. We're definitely equal parents.

But we didn't plan it this way. We never sat down and did a division of labour (with the exception of working out how flexible working would happen). So how did we get here?

I think there's a few factors. We were a couple for a while then we lived together for a good while before marrying/having children so we knew what we were getting. My MIL raised a self sufficient, good man. I'm not a natural homebird so left entirely to me we'd live in squalor.

It's with pointing out that when I was sahm Then a sahm, I did more of the cleaning and shopping but never to the extent where it felt like it was arduous or I was taken for granted.

But I genuinely find it hard to fathom why people fall into an unfair arrangement. Surely the one with a better deal KNOWS they're getting a better deal. Why dont they feel bad?

I have done 90% of the childcare, 99% of the cooking and 80% of the housework over the past 17 years.

THis construct hs worked for us because of the external structures within our society. It's easier to work around them than to fight them.

Sorry that should have said "worth pointing out that when I was a sahm or pt worker"