So angry at all these threads on useless and selfish men

[Winterday1991]

Off the back of the thread where the H refuses to care for his sick child so the OP can get some much needed rest as he is on annual leave from work 😡. I am seriously fed up of reading threads like this, why are so many men so selfish?

Why is it always women who have to do the lions share of caring, pulling themselves in all direction whilst their male counterparts glide through life uninterrupted? Why is it always women who carry the mental load for family life and the men just show up. Why is always women responsible for maintaining the household?

Even in the 21st century, why do so many men get such a bloody easy ride, whilst often their poor wives/partners are running around like headless chickens keeping on top of everything.

Stillcountingbears post at 17:15 is spot on.

The fact is that women have sex with men they find attractive. Most of the women want/are expected to have a baby.
Then it us exactly as stillcountingbears described for a lot of women.
Until it’s more acceptable for 2 women to have a child and raise it as a couple or women can earn more and look after a child alone thus will be the case.
Single mothers are demonised. Is it any wonder they stick to crap men?

I don’t think this is very fair. It completely ignores the fact that for many couples this divide happens after they have children.

Sure there are some women who put up with awful relationships from the start, and ignore every red flag waving at them, but far more I see normal relationships turn difficult because after babies the mental load is inevitably the woman’s job, plus anything else she may do, and this is rarely acknowledged by the man. Even when couples split it still often falls to the woman to keep track of school uniform, school meetings, info about trips etc. I know one split couple who did this very well and fairly, until the H remarried, and the mental load is all taken care of by his new wife now.

I know three lesbian couples, who all share the load more equally, so it’s possible. I’ve yet to see it in a male/female couple.

I'm saying that you can't force men to be none abusive carers if children. A lot of children are murdered while in the care of their father's. Housework is one aspect (as said). You might leave your husband if he was useless. But you'd be leaving with your children? So that still takes us back to you and your children forever being a 'victim' (as such) of a man's uselessness. Which is why many women don't leave. People can quote all they like about the equal relationships that they know, but in wider society there's still many issues with male behaviour. The statistics around crime and abuse bear that out.

@SpiceAndCoffee

I seriously believe that. If women didn’t put up with it from the word go, then men wouldn’t do it. So you move in together and after a month you realise he’s not done the laundry, hoovering, changed bedding, bins etc. He’s done nothing without a prompt. So what do you do? Do you take it as a major red flag and give a final warning and then move out immediately when he continues to do nothing?

I fully agree, but you can see the signs long before you move in together. What is his house/flat like? Does he pull his weight when on holiday together? If he lives like a slob before you move in together, why do you think he'd be different when you do?

The signs are usually there long before you move in together, get married, have children, etc. Why do women think they can change their men? They shouldn't need to be changed - weed out the slobs and wasters much sooner and then you don't need to make the effort to "change" your man (which almost certainly will never happen anyway!).

Posters keep mentioning dream jobs or careers. The issue is dream jobs or dream careers are few and far between for all people. Babies come along, there's another person to feed. TBH some of this care is subbed out to others.

Doing it all is a mythological concept for the majority of the population.
Couples need to decide one or the other, trying to accommodate full-time careers for both and children is incredibly difficult and complex. Personally, I know full well my 50-70hr a week career is going to be tiring regardless of whether DP does all his work, home and children.
One of the issues is the fragility and longevity of relationships, commitment is sparse. People end up with one foot in home life and one in careers just in case. I honestly believe something has to give. Square pegs and round holes come to mind.
I think whoever is at home should care for and work in the home in the main. Undermining the relationship by incessant complaining about fairness is the problem. I think men, in general, are not tired by working in the home.
I certainly know DP doesn't find looking after a home and children tiring at all.
It's competitive tiredness, I know my job causes me stress and I'm tired. Dp on the other hand isn't tired at all. Looking at the other and asking why aren't they tired is so deliberately resentful and negative.

Well that's up to you. You can leave or you can have children with someone who you have admitted yourself doesn't do enough chores. If you are happy to take on the load and do the lion's share, then by all means do it. That is completely up to you. Just know that with a small child it's going to be bloody hard!

You have just repeated your previous point again.

My partner was a SAHD and at no point was I concerned that he might murder my child.

Women need to choose better partners and not reproduce with useless ones.

And if my partner did become useless, I’d not be a “victim” - I’ve been smart, I’ve maintained my career, and I’d be able to support them and maintain the same standard of life. Staying would make me a victim of his uselessness, not leaving. Because then I’d be telling my daughter that it’s okay to be treated like that, and my son that it’s okay to treat someone like that.

A woman earlier in this thread had admitted to this very thing, and THATS the problem. Along with the useless men, obviously.

@PrincessConstance

But we all also know that most men aren't the ones at home. So your advice is detrimental.

Most people aren't working 70 or even 50 hour weeks.

Yeah, 2 parents working full time is going to be more difficult but if both parents pull their weight it doable. There's no reason for that not to be happening

Most men are doing more at home than in previous generations.
Dp likes a mint house, clean. He does most of this and drops, picks his children, etc, etc, up always has done. And he runs his business in the construction industry. Yet he's NOT tired nor is he resentful. He thinks I'm foolish for dedicating my life to the aims of a business above all else including my health and mental well-being.
I used the example of work because someone used the phrase BIG job. Personally, I think admin or sitting around all day isn't an arduous task. Yet some make it out to be the equivalent of climbing mount Everest every day.

I think men look at the house and feel it's NOT equivalent to their roles and cannot grasp why women feel the way they do. I don't think housework or the home admin is either.
If a person is stressed out by cooking or bed making then that person is not suitable for big jobs or even the work place in general.

@PrincessConstance

It doesn't matter whether men (nam of course!) view 'the house' as equal to their job or not.

It still needs to be done. 2 people sharing both housework/childcare and financial burdens is the most obviously fair way to do it.

This is why some of us feel really passionately that the only real protection available to women is work. It’s the only near failsafe way to guard against this.

Yes women should use their common sense when choosing a mate (although that’s not reliable in spotting someone who will revert to his inner caveman after children).

Yes marriage also provides some insurance if you have been out of work raising children.

But if you want to guarantee you are protected from this substandard behaviour and have an escape hatch the only real way is to keep your job, keep your money and rely on no one other than yourself.

There's some interesting consequences arising from the mental load concept, though, which directly opposes reaching consensus of what counts as "enough".

If we accept that mental load adds to the overall perception of total workload, then even a partner who does 50% of all chores, or 100% of "their chores" isn't making any inroads into reducing the "mental load" of the other partner - the load still exists because that partner still needed to plan/organise/worry about it.

In corporations, the exact same relationship exists between blue collar and white collar workers. The people holding spanners genuinely believe that they create all the value because they do the physical work, whereas the people in the boardroom think they create all the value because they make high-stakes decisions about whether to hire more workers or invest in robots. Management carry all the "mental load" for corporate success, but are much better compensated because of it. Workers get an hourly wage, insist on overtime, and get to walk out of the door when the shift finishes and generally care less about the wider success of the company.

In partnerships where one partner has a white-collar mindset (mental load), but is doing the blue-collar work (dishes), of course there is going to be dissonance. If the other partner is a blue-collar worker, then the couple's problems stem from the fact that they are doing two lots of blue collar work, with one of them expecting white collar pay and perks. But the money doesn't stretch that far.

In partnerships where that partner does white-collar work, there is a better chance that the blue-collar work in the home can be outsourced to cleaners, gardeners etc. but the tension is merely reduced rather than eliminated.

It is only in partnerships where the housework is accepted as blue-collar, because the stay at home partner is genuinely blue-collar in their mindset - they know what constitutes "enough", take pride in the work they do in and of itself, and are willing and able to down tools once they've ended their shift - that there is any prospect of harmony. But that violates the first rule of feminism, which is that it should be possible to have it all. The sex of the partners is less relevant than their mindset.

@Mark19735

The blue collar v white collar concept is an interesting metaphor, I think.

But the problem with your argument is that more often than not the man in this dynamic is not doing enough of either the white collar or blue collar work in the household setup.

You seem to be suggesting that the dynamic works best when breadwinner is "white collar" with respect to mental load (ie doing a lot of life admin, scheduling, school-related admin, planning holidays and days out, booking childcare) and the non-breadwinner is doing the physical domestic work and childcare (usually, but not always, breadwinner is man but let's put this aside for a moment).

But in most households the problem is that the lower earner (who in most cases also works as well), is doing both the white collar and the blue collar work in the home. Most of the childcare, washing, cooking etc and also a lot of the life admin and "anticipatory" work. And nine times out of ten this person is a woman.

Leaving aside the worrying sex dynamics of having men be the "strategists" and women be the "labourers", at a practical level for your perfect scenario to work you would have to have a situation where the "white collar" person is sole breadwinner and the "blue collar" worker doesn't earn and is happy to do all the domestic labour.

In a world where the majority of people do some work outside the home and very few people want to do all domestic labour the numbers just don't add up. Plus obviously this is a recipe for resentment. We wouldn't have all these threads about this on a daily basis if non breadwinners (read "women") were happy to be assigned all domestic labour by default. So that doesn't work for me. And you haven't factored in single parents here who do absolutely everything anyway.

Surely the more workable solution, not to mention the fairest one, is for both partners to do some "white collar" and some "blue collar"?

@Mark19735

Your analogy doesn't make sense.

You appear to be trying to say that the person at home (blue collar worker/mum) should know their place and be happy to just have to do the scut work and not worry their pretty little heads about much else. While the white collar worker (bread winner/boss/man) does all the thinking /mental load? So they shouldnt ever have to do any of the blue collar work?

Except the blue collar worker carries all the mental load for the scut work and the white collar none.

Also, how does one down tools as a parent? When is parenting ever finished /enough?

A partnership is just that. Partners/equals. Not boss and employee

Certainly not my position.

But well wishes to others in this predicament.

No,, that is not what I am saying. That is what you are reading into it. But it is categorically not what I am saying.

But you just do you ...

@Mark19735

Funny, cause @Thepeopleversuswork read it exactly the same way

I could not have been more clear - "The sex of the partners is less relevant than their mindset."

I made no presumption about the sex of either partner - you overlaid your biases to that. There is nothing deterministic about white and blue collar mindsets and male and female.

@Mark19735

Its not bias to point out reality.

98% of sahp are women.

Even if you remove the bias (reality) the analogy still doesn't work

Sahp don't have zero mental load

@Mark19735

No,, that is not what I am saying. That is what you are reading into it. But it is categorically not what I am saying.

But how would you implement this in practice in a world where very few people are either willing or able to be purely "blue collar"?

If we went back to the 1950s and a world where working women were a small minority that might be possible. In a world where around half of mothers do some paid work you simply replicate this dynamic without forcing these people out of the workforce.

Also the real flashpoint in many modern manages, as this thread demonstrates, isn't so much that men won't do any housework. It's their inability to (or reluctance to) take ownership of the strategic domestic work (what you call white collar). The "brains" of the domestic work.

This is probably the area where many women feel most unsupported. It's the idea that he'll do the washing up when he's "on rota" and take the bins out but that he needs to be constantly reminded that its Little Johnny's parents' evening and he needs to book time of work or bullied to do two drop-offs a week. Or to think about where to go on holiday and do the research.

If "breadwinners" (to give you the benefit of the doubt but let's be honest they are usually men) are so reluctant or unable to do this now what you makes you think they are the natural "white collar" workers?

That's my point. Running a household has elements of white collar and elements of blue collar.

It is far less common in the workplace. People are either management, or shop floor/supervisory but seldom do that have the expectations of the one role, and the working conditions/reward of the other. Of course they'd be unhappy if they did.

Sublimeursula · Yesterday 15:43
blackbeardsballsack · Yesterday 15:42
Ok, sweet, let's all just suck it up then shall we.

“Speak for yourself.

It is not my reality”

Nor is it mine. Brought up in household with a violent, abusive husband/ father, I determined that as an adult I wouldn’t tolerate it. Most men I have known have been good people.

But also, the strategic work in a workplace is also usually treated as indivisible. It's not 'shared' in the workplace either ... hence burnout.

Yup ...

@Mark19735

That's my point. Running a household has elements of white collar and elements of blue collar.

Exactly

So, no.

1 person shouldn't be happy to just be a blue collar person because it's not possible

My partner is not my boss. I'm not theirs.