To wonder if feminism fucked us over

[splendidisolation]

Looking around at lots of relationships -

Women got the right to work and make money.

In many cases this seems to mean that they now have the right to pay bills, rents and mortgages as well as doing the lions share of cooking, household chores and childcare whilst feeling under intense pressure to engage in hardcore grooming and be sex goddesses.

In the 60s many women didnt work and let their lady gardens grow free - it was all men really knew or wanted.

Fast forward 50 years and they're expected to have careers and strip it all off.

Im muddling loads of points here but does anyone see what I mean?

My DP is pretty good but I still pull more weight than him. The other evening I got home late and started to get up to make dinner. He was like "dont bother yourself making dinner, lets just make sandwiches".

Sandwiches? Bother? I mean, I appreciate the gesture mate but its like...why not just make fucking dinner yourself?

Sorry for this rambling, ranting and general mish mash of thoughts.

Feel free to muse!

Pengggwn I have explained. If you don't get it that's fine.

Feminism has not gone far enough.

Sweden is clearly more feminist than UK, and unsurprisingly, Swedish men are on average much better at sharing childcare and housework as well. So it's work on process.

But are some women really saying life was better before we had any choice in how to live it? At the very least you can choose if you want to marry that lazy sexist slob or not - not too long ago you would not have had any means to support yourself as a single woman.

I have a different set of social & personal expectations, I can't identify with this thread. I'm very happy not groomed... don't aspire to be sex god... do minimal housework. DH does most of the house management. How much we each do at home has to do with who is working most hours. Also, he is better at routine jobs & I'm better at one-off chores. So we work within that rule.

Feminism has a lot to do with my opportunities but very little to do with my lifestyle.

The language we use is important- it reveals and informs our thinking.
All the "he helps" "he's very good" "he's very well trained!" stuff. And also the infantilising "he doesn't see dirt""he doesn't know how the washing machine works" " he does cook, but he makes such a mess it's easier to do it myself"

I honestly don't think feminism can be blamed for that!

And the division of labour is very interesting too. The number of times you see posts like "We play to our strengths- he doesn't wash up or hoover- I don't top up the oil in the car or put up shelves" As I've said before, you must not be able to move for shelves in some houses!

I know! And how often does the oil in the car need topping up??

Seriously, there is so much farther to go on this.

@Pengggwn

It was actually really obvious. Shes questioning how you phrase things not your DP himself.

So why do you have to "insist" on anything? Why write as if he's fantastic, being "fair" so "he does it"?

The language you use makes it sound like we should be so grateful to be with tjese enlightened men when in fact it should be a completely unnoted given.

Why isnt he in a position where he has to insist you do 50% of the housework, with you accepting that because you're a very generous person?

I think, like some posters on this thread, when I was younger I thought that feminism had largely "won" at least in the UK. No-one contested equal pay, or the rights of women to keep their jobs once married, surely we had, at least on a local level, got what we wanted? However, as I have got older (and got married and had children) I have realised how much we still have to do. When you are in a heterosexual relationship for any length of time, you cannot help but see how our patriarchal society has shaped the expectations and behaviour of EVERYONE, male and female. My husband is in his fifties, he does what he considers a fair share of the housework and household management, but everything he does is really shaped by what is expected of him by society. Unsurprisingly, I suppose, since we married his career has taken off and mine has stagnated. This wasn't what we set out to do but it is the result of a thousand small decisions (all of which made sense at the time) which have led to me dropping behind him in pay and status. This is not the fault of feminism though, but of society. My mistake was thinking that feminism had already transformed society. It has but only to a certain extent. If anything, feminism has not fucked us over - it has only just started to sort us out!

I have a genuine question for the many women on this thread who have said that their partner does nothing like his share. Was that always the case or do you think it's something that happened after children?

Couldn’t agree more OP I was thinking the same thing yesterday!x

@Pengggwn

It is though. Rhetoric is another way of saying "argument".

I'm going to show my friend this thread. She works full time and does all the housework and gardening. So many times we've said what's the point of living with her DH, he does nothing but go out to work and come home, she may as well live on her own. But she loves him blah blah and like Bert said earlier makes excuses like he doesn't clean like she does. He burns the dinners.

Every so often she's upset and knackered but nothing changes. I used to be angry with him but over the years I am furious with her because she's enabling his behaviour.

Rhetoric can mean that. The language we use is so important. It's often more revealing than we know!

@Pengggwn

Jesus. An argument doesn't mean a fight in this context. An argument means a stance or point of view taken in a debate.

Was that always the case or do you think it's something that happened after children?

When it was just DH and I, there was less work to do obviously, and it was easier to "see" what needed doing. I would say we were more or less equals. When children come along, they bring with them a whole lot of "household management" tasks that I was not even really aware of (and DH still isn't). To give just a couple of examples, this includes laundry but also sorting out sports kits, keeping up to date with labelling and buying new clothes and recycling old ones. Taking children to doctor's appointments is relatively simple but keeping up to date with health certificates for all the afterschool clubs, booking and taking them for compulsory ecgs, notifying schools of vaccination schedules, collecting blood test results, also takes up time and mental energy.

The big difference is that without kids, if something doesn't get done then only you and your partner are affected. With kids, the consequences fall on them - and that is not fair and this is what pushes a lot of women to take up the slack. They don't want their kids to miss out or be at a disadvantage because stuff didn't get done!

So why am I doing everything? My husband earns more than me so I went back to work part-time. This did and does make financial sense but also means that my career is stuck and that I do most of the housework (although we also have a cleaner who does some too!) BTW I am not complaining about my husband here. Now that I am part-time it makes sense that most of this work falls to me. However, I am also rather sad / bemused / annoyed with myself when I see how I have given up a lot of myself - even though I did it voluntarily and also because I also WANT to be there to help with homework etc and to be with my children. I guess you could say I am conflicted!

@MargaretCavendish before children we were both lazy slobs around the house. Now we are still both lazy slobs but I do more than him. Partially because I took four years out of the job market to see our twins through to school and got into the habit of running the house, organising everything etc, and also because he has developed a slightly disabling condition.

I suppose I think feminism is part way through. It got us into work, but has a long way to go on getting better attitudes towards women, so that "wife work" is no longer a thing.

How about we change "rhetoric" to "language around" and move on?

Why on earth is it feminism's fault if you've made a shit relationship choice and married a lazy fucker?

There are negative aspects to everything-feminism is no different. Grass isn't always greener and all that. It's life, it will always be difficult no matter what changes.

Can I ask why you used the word "insist"?