To wonder why so many women put up with this shit

[Stylishkidintheriot]

www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/15/how-to-achieve-an-equal-split-of-household-chores-kate-mangino#comment-158160830

I don’t get it: I really don’t. Not in this day and age.

if a man isn’t pulling his weight, why the fuck would you stay in a relationship or have children with him?

I have read your recent long post, it doesn't make any difference to my comment though.

The fact that you think that even if you need help with the laundry you would have to push the buttons is infantilising your husband to a massive extent.

Fair play to him for making the best of his situation. Sounds like the kind of man who can face new challenges, learn from his mistakes etc. He certainly doesn't sounds like someone incapable of using a washing machine.

I genuinely can't imagine living with a grown adult who is not capable of pushing some buttons on a machine.

Yabu to blame women for men's laziness.

Perhaps you could reframe your statement as - why do so many men think it's okay to let their partner do so much at home?

@Gruffling

The answer will still be because society tells them to.

And society is made up of men who do it and women who allow it.

And even women who love it because it means they don't have to work and think that's natural

@PewterHeart - I appreciate your explanation. In all seriousness, and as a bit of advice to think about: whilst you and your DH might well enjoy your traditional roles now, if you’re planning on children then there’s every chance you might e.g. find yourself in hospital for a bit after the birth with an unwell baby, or with bad birth injuries which mean you’re less mobile for a few weeks and unable to keep on top of housework, or barely able to keep your eyes open because you’re barely getting an hour’s sleep a night because your baby won’t latch to breastfeed and just screams solidly.

At any rate, with a baby your focus isn’t going to be on cleaning and laundry. And what you need then is a partner who can step up without having to be asked, or without needing to be shown and talked through the process of which buttons to press on the machine or how to sort out different items for different cycles. It’s best he learns all this now, and appreciates that it will have to become his job as well when he’s a parent. It will be much easier than trying to do it later down the line when you’re miserable and resentful that he’s still claiming he “can’t”.

Well it's like with anything.
You would also tell person who never properly closes their door and who gets burglared repeatedly that maybe they want to start closing their door instead of just moaning about burglars.
At the same time you can also talk about why do people think it's ok to burglar someone. But at the end of the day, whether people like it or not, they need to take some responsiblity for their possessions as well (or life in this case).

Of course armed robbery is different. Iykwim.

TedMullins,

"...but yes, it is worth asking why women continue to put up with it even once they’ve reached the realisation that it’s wrong."

"...Except some women realise this yet continue to put up with it. That’s what’s baffling."

Of course it is worth asking.
Systemically, collectively and individually.

I'm not about to kick off at you personally, Ted, as I appreciate you are seeking common ground here, but what irrirates me are the wilfully baffled which invariably pop up on threads like these.

We do know the many drivers which inform women's decisions to shoulder a larger part of domestic chores and logistical load, and to put up with less than brilliant behaviour from their partners and spouses. It's not mysterious or confounding but profoundly mundane and so often quietly tragic and isolating for the women in question. And because we do know, feminists in particular could stop acting so astonished. Expressing bafflement or surprise at someone's decision-making (e.g. "I just don't get it!"), seems to say "Your thinking process is so far removed from mine, and thus, so are you. I'm putting you over there, out of the sisterhood, out of any real sense of curiosity, compassion and inclination to engage with you and your situation." It's so not constructive. Sure, women are 'free' to judge other women, but wtf!? Why would you want to judge someone who by all accounts are already in a weak position? No one is free until we're all free. Where's the sense of solidarity?
The women I know who are drawing the short straw in their relationships, both socially and through my professional role, albeit in many cases worlds apart in terms of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and age, all wish it wasn't so, understand why they are where they are, have compelling reasons for staying put, and are experiencing some shame around making what appears a suboptimal choice.

It would be great if we could bypass this stage of unimaginative, smug, exclusionary bewilderment and go straight for creating policy, institutions and circumstances which enable women to make empowered choices.

I genuinely can't imagine living with a grown adult who is not capable of pushing some buttons on a machine.

Same here, and I said this on another, similar thread (god help us, there are so many), but so many women choose to believe that their husbands are genuinely incapable, instead of accepting that it's entirely conscious, deliberately strategic incompetence. I can see why, because who would want to accept that their partner has so much disrespect for them?

My husband wasn't brilliant at doing the laundry, because before we lived together he'd only ever had to wash jeans, t-shirts, towels and bed linen. It took one or two loads of laundry and quick explanation for him to learn the nuances of different fabrics, because he's not an idiot.

To give an example from the other side of the relationship, he has a convoluted set up of apps and a hard drive on which he keeps our collection of films and TV programmes. I find operating this system immensely annoying, so I get him to do it and have never really learned it for myself. I could very easily pretend that I was incompetent, when in fact it would take me about a minute to figure it out. I just don't want to, and it's only a leisure thing, so I leave it to him (it's his system anyway). I'm not going to pretend I'm mentally incapable though, because why would I want my husband to think I'm that stupid?

Because they're stupid. So desperate to have a man and kids in their lives that they'll put up with any old shit.

@Almondsandraisins I appreciate your point of view and opinion and I understand where you're coming from - I disagree, and it might be because it's not possible for me to adequately explain my situation here so people can fully understand... but that's alright by me. Thanks for your input, genuinely 😊

@ComtesseDeSpair thank you for your advice, you make some good points which I will definitely consider (in cases of emergency etc like you point out!). I'm sure everything will change slightly once baby arrives, and he will simply have to help out more with certain tasks, but we will see what those tasks are when we get there. Thank you again!

There are very few scenarios (if any) you could possibly put on here that would justify someone not being able to push a few buttons on a machine whilst simultaneously being able to hold down a job

You know your husband so fair enough disagree. But honestly I think the fact that he cannot be bothered to learn how to do the laundry properly and expects you to do it all for him shows a fundamental lack of respect for you. And putting yourself into an essentially vulnerable living situation with a man who doesn't respect you is the reason the relationship board is full of unhappy women.

@TheLeadbetterLife ah funny I was just thinking about that. DH is also into gadgets. Yes I often ask him to do something because he has set it up and knows very well how it works. But if he genuinely thought I, poor darling, was incapable of figuring out how the TV speakers work, that would be also worrying. Whereas many women seem to genuinely believe stoves and hoovers are too complex for men-folk?

@Almondsandraisins I mean I'm not sure it's as simple as pushing a few buttons, it's about knowing what needs the different products and also what is tumble safe at what temperature etc.

No, it's definitely not rocket science and with a few trial by errors he would certainly figure it out (if I died I wouldn't need to worry about him or kids being unclean), but I'm happy to do it because he does so many things so I don't have to do them... it's just one of the things that I do for us so he doesn't have to 🤷🏻‍♀️ or maybe I'm a bit of a laundry control freak, who really knows 😂

@EveSix

Are you not a feminist?

I’m actually just as much into gadgets @G5000 , but I happen to find that particular set up too irritating to deal with. I planned and installed all of our smart home lighting and electrics, and designed all the app settings.

to give another example, the pump that operates all our household water recently crapped out (we have a private well, so are entirely reliant on this pump for water). My husband is better at the plumbing than me, whereas I’m better at the electrics. So I rewired the pump while he primed it. This division of labour is entirely because I find electrics more interesting than plumbing. Each of us could easily learn the other thing if we wanted or needed to.

for either of us to pretend we couldn’t get our heads around laundry would be a joke, and a massive insult to the person who ended up doing it.

I have a friend who was a thalidomide baby. He has one arm with a thumb and a finger. He can use a washing machine.

@ everyone

It was more of an exaggeration/joke that my DH couldn't do laundry lol. Of course he could it's not rocket science. We just have our different roles that we have chosen and that we prefer to do and that we are better at - and that's fine!

I do the laundry in our household as well. Nothing wrong with that. Also clearly the person who does more of a certain task becomes more skilled and competent, and I have my routines and preferences.

But there are so so many posts just on MN though where women claim that men are different and simply can't see what needs to be done or are, by their nature, unable to dress children weather-appropriately. And all this definitely contributes to the fact that women are still responsible for running the household and men, if they are good, occasionally help.

I just don't think it's funny to joke about someone not being able to do a basic household task.

Personally I don't get a kick out of joking that my DH is incompetent. Maybe I was wrong about which way the lack of respect runs

It goes back to my rant above about the portrayal of men in popular culture as comedy, adorable doofuses.

How charming and funny that they are such idiots! Aren’t women just so much cleverer than them?

And yet men have wangled a situation where they are able to kick back and coast while women run around after them. They’re not really stupid, are they?

It’s the same thing with the celebration of the “dad-bod”, so you see male actors developing normal middle-aged spread and being lauded as sex-gods, while the female actors are still starving themselves.

Cui bono?

It’s the same thing with the celebration of the “dad-bod”, so you see male actors developing normal middle-aged spread and being lauded as sex-gods, while the female actors are still starving themselves.

Yes, this annoys the hell out of me. As does feigned incompetence.

It’s not that bloody difficult to use a washing machine. My 6 year old son knows how to separate darks and lights, put them in the machine and press the right buttons. He doesn’t pour the liquid in as it’s at his eye level, so too dangerous.

I am now sitting here thinking about different products into washing machine and wondering if my family are slobs with 1 washing powder and 1 softener or not😳

Well that's another thing Betty Friedan nailed over 50 years ago. Upselling crap that makes domestic chores needlessly complicated in order to make it seem like a real science, and an occupation that women should therefore feel mentally stimulated by.

The likes of Mrs Hinch continue this fine tradition, as do the purveyors of 20-step skincare routines.

Not that male culture doesn't have consumerist blind spots. There's a lot of (expensive) woo in the realm of speakers, gadgets, cables and whatnot.