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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask why women are expected to do everything?

403 replies

HolyGuacamole28 · 12/02/2024 23:33

I read a depressing article in the Economist today ‘How Motherhood affects careers’ and it stated how more and more women are not progressing as they should after having children. And SAHP is on the rise as more people opt out of a system doomed to failure. I just don’t understand how mothers are physically supposed to work full time in a career/senior role (I do), manage a household (I have a 4 year old, 2 year old and a husband, also FT) that includes washing, cleaning, cooking etc and do activities with the kids, keep fit and see friends. Is this what society expects? Who is supposed to do the household role if both adults work full time? And why do we need two incomes just to survive? (COL is so painful re mortgages, childcare, energy, food). Rant over, just can’t see how society has evolved, it’s just put more on our shoulders. I’m personally at breaking point.

OP posts:
hettie · 13/02/2024 07:30

HolyGuacamole28 · 13/02/2024 05:48

Thanks for all the comments. I guess my issue reflects a societal issue. My DH grew up in a two parent, single income house (as did I) Wasn’t huge money either but was enough. His mother never worked and ran the house and children. DH was never expected to do anything and as an adult he just doesn’t really care enough re household stuff. But I care. Women are still the default carers and chore doers, despite now having to work as well. Society judges women much more harshly - provide an income but don’t let someone else raise your child. It’s sad as no win. I’m glad some have a 50/50 split but I can’t help feeling it’s not the norm. I’d love a cleaner and help but COL increases has made money quite tight.

Respectfully you choose to marry and then have children with a retograde sexist twunt. Why? Because you thought it was the norm? All men are like it? You're lucky if you've got a good one? It's the social conditioning that you're just about to replicate with your own DC.
Hell would have frozen over before I married someone like that. We were together years before I relented and got married and more years before kids. We set clear expectations with each other and asked lots of questions. We've shared the domestic and childcare fairly always. In truth DH does more these days. He knows I would have kicked him into touch and vice versa if he'd been a lazy sexist pig. And I really would of. BUT I didn't want marriage/kids at all costs. I wasn't prepared to settle. I would rather have been single and child free than in a crap relationship. I think too many women feel they "need' to have children and so put up with an awful lot of crap and so the cycle perpetuates.

kikisparks · 13/02/2024 07:31

Chocolateismylovelife · 13/02/2024 07:28

It’s a shame that most of these posts are still blaming women!!!

Yes! It’s our fault if our homes aren’t clean enough, if we don’t work enough, if we work too much, if we let “someone else” raise our children, if we don’t keep our male partners in line in keeping the house clean, and so on and so on. It’s exhausting. We need to start applying equal standards to men as a society and not expect individual women to do it.

Ursulla · 13/02/2024 07:36

It’s a shame that most of these posts are still blaming women!!!

Yes!

When all other methods of blaming women fail it's still actually all women's fault for marrying the wrong men.

(Btw working class women have always worked.)

RedToothBrush · 13/02/2024 07:38

Gowlett · 12/02/2024 23:44

I’m 47, and my work associates who are 10 years younger are still under severe pressure with this. Interestingly, it’s mostly the men who tell me that they think we’re doing life all wrong. Most of them work for US tech / banking firms. It’s relentless. I can only imagine how their wives (who also have top careers) feel… My generation lived through 2008 & negative equity, etc… But seemed to have pushed through. Most of my peers had bought their own property before marrying (age 35 or older). However, I do know plenty of women my age who’ve been keeping the show on the road just about. So many of them say they’d jack their job in tomorrow!

The 2008 crisis is a firm dividing line. The dividing line is roughly between age 41 and 45. Me and DH fall either side of it.

The difference is stark in our local community.

We have a lot of slightly older friends - they could afford much bigger properties despite having a much lower income at the same age. They paid the mortgage off by 50. They all had women who were able to be staying at home parents.

The parents of DS's peers are totally different. Both parents work in professional jobs or they can't afford to move to the area. Behaviour at school has plummeted. School who are desperate for parental support from volunteers for various activities struggle to get it because parents are working which was never previously a problem. The birth rate has dropped so considerably it's having an impact on all the local schools. The parents are constantly stressed and this impacts the kids. They are mortgaged up to the hilt and beyond and often have needed help to get started from parents.

It's awful. It is a significant drop in lifestyle standards.

But yeah I do think there's an awful lot of women who haven't clocked this change and have taken the extra burden on alone whilst their partners carry on as before.

That's the bit that needs addressing in so many of these cases, as the economic situation isn't changing.

Zanatdy · 13/02/2024 07:38

It’s possible - I did it without much help (single parent, no family nearby) and a serious illness on top. After school and holiday clubs helped a lot. Thankfully they don’t need childcare anymore and life is far easier and enjoyable now - I even have time for hobbies after work and weekends!

spriots · 13/02/2024 07:39

Wictc · 13/02/2024 07:27

No, it’s still your husband’s issue. My husband’s mum didn’t go back to work after having children. He was brought up to do housework, cooking etc.

Your husband isn’t an idiot, I’m sure he’s very capable at work. He can clearly see what needs doing around the house, knows clothes don’t wash themselves, and doesn’t believe food arrives magically on plates. He needs to step up and stop blaming ‘society’.

Totally agree.

My PIL have a very traditional marriage - my DH never assumed that was the only way and he is perfectly capable of doing half of the domestic load.

But as a PP said, I really didn't want marriage and children at all costs, I set my boundaries early and I would have walked away if he didn't behave like a grown up

gannett · 13/02/2024 07:40

kikisparks · 13/02/2024 07:31

Yes! It’s our fault if our homes aren’t clean enough, if we don’t work enough, if we work too much, if we let “someone else” raise our children, if we don’t keep our male partners in line in keeping the house clean, and so on and so on. It’s exhausting. We need to start applying equal standards to men as a society and not expect individual women to do it.

Who is "we"?

I expect the men in my life to be decent people who pull their weight and treat their partners with respect. I don't expect them to believe in regressive gender stereotypes and I don't put up with misogyny. I've picked a partner who ticks those boxes. That's the norm in my social circle as far as I'm aware.

But insofar as actually checking on the domestic split of individual households - that is literally not something anyone can do apart from the people in that household.

Top tip would be to find a partner you don't ever have to use the phrase "keep in line" about though. How awful for both sides.

DancefloorAcrobatics · 13/02/2024 07:41

It took covid lockdown and furlough for my DH to realise how much I was doing.

Granted, he used to work 12 hour night shifts and did the school drop off & pick up plus he re heated dinner that I prepared the day before.
Nowadays he does his fair share of cleaning, washing and cooking.

The answer is not looking backwards, but forwards. We need to teach our boys & girls that house work child care and earning money is a joint responsibility.

JassyRadlett · 13/02/2024 07:43

YankSplaining · 13/02/2024 01:09

A lot of women are able to have their successful careers because they outsourced their household’s domestic chores to a woman who’s poorer, less educated, and unlikely to be having her own fulfilling career complete with company stock options and a corner office. When the media pays attention to the problems of lower-income mothers, the topic is “poverty” or “the economy.” When the media pays attention to the problems of higher-income mothers, the topic is “feminism.”

And this framing is part of the problem, right? The idea that it's only women who are enabled to work and have careers by hiring domestic help; that it's women's work that's being outsourced.

The dichotomy you've set up here - a woman with a corner office and stock options vs a woman with very choices beyond domestic work is pretty unhelpful and unrealistic. The former group is a tiny, tiny proportion of women working in "white collar" jobs compared to the vast numbers of more junior female staff, alongside the women outnumbering men in teaching, nursing, who work in childcare themselves.

(I'm sure you'll be thrilled that my cleaners are a husband and wife team; they rely on wraparound care at their daughter's school as much as we do - affordable childcare crossing the issues of feminism and equality, poverty and opportunity.)

Olivie12 · 13/02/2024 07:47

I think for the most part women allow it to happen.

If you are in a marriage or a relationship, women should/must demand equal partnership which should cover childcare, financial support and house chores. Unfortunately, if you don't set boundaries early in the relationship, people will walk on you.

I've never stayed with someone who didn't see me as an equal but I respect myself enough to demand it and walk away if it doesn't happen. So women in this situation have a partner/DH problem.

Of course, it's a different ball game for single parents or partners with disabilities/chronic illnesses.

tralalalalalalalal · 13/02/2024 07:51

My dp does just the same amount of housework and childcare as me, and a longer commute. It's all about who you choose to 'life' with

kikisparks · 13/02/2024 07:52

gannett · 13/02/2024 07:40

Who is "we"?

I expect the men in my life to be decent people who pull their weight and treat their partners with respect. I don't expect them to believe in regressive gender stereotypes and I don't put up with misogyny. I've picked a partner who ticks those boxes. That's the norm in my social circle as far as I'm aware.

But insofar as actually checking on the domestic split of individual households - that is literally not something anyone can do apart from the people in that household.

Top tip would be to find a partner you don't ever have to use the phrase "keep in line" about though. How awful for both sides.

The first “we” is women and I’m talking about society’s expectations and the comments on here about how women are responsible for whether their partners do an equal share of housework or not (hence the somewhat glib “keeping in line” comment). The second “we” is also women, and men, society as a whole. We each have our own role in that and personally I think we should be moving away from a narrative that it’s a woman who is responsible for whether her male partner does an equal share or not and if she “picked wrong” or didn’t “train him/ keep him in line” then it’s her fault. In my view that attitude is misogynistic. The fact is that statistically women bear more of the domestic load and childcare and blaming women for that is probably not going to result in meaningful change.

helpfulperson · 13/02/2024 07:54

I also think women put far too much pressure on what needs to be done in the house/family life. Witness threads on when you make the beds, how often do you wash your towels/pyjamas, how much zoflora can you get through etc, christmas elfs, christmas eve boxes, outings with family every weekend, easter egg hunts etc. There is much more to be done that there used to be.

Up until a few years ago houses were clean and tidy but not immaculate matching magazine ready zones, at christmas we had some decorations, some presents and lots of chocolates, weekends were spend at home watching TV, reading etc with maybe a trip to the park.

alot of men don't get involved with these things because they don't care. I'm not talking about basic household task but all the extra's that seem to have arisen, particularly in the name of 'making memories' that children are unlikely to remember.

Getonnow · 13/02/2024 07:55

I think very often it's women who want to do it. Whether that's instinct or conditioning or both, I couldn't say, but women do a lot of complaining that they have to do it or it won't be done properly, which is control freakery and many women still enjoy the caring role.

I've just come back from an activity holiday where we made our packed lunches at breakfast. One woman (doctor, early 40s) made her DH lunch everyday "because she enjoys it"

bottomsup12 · 13/02/2024 07:55

WandaWonder · 12/02/2024 23:47

Becacue people need to own their own choices and stop playing the martyr, but as usual if you (you in the general sense) have a problem with a partner then you a have partner problem, deal with it with your partner

The point is @WandaWonder "dealing with the partners" is YET ANOTHER job for women... now we have to train a whole lifestyle into the husband of remembering every little child related thing, round the clock care. It's project management of the household which takes up enormous mental space if you're working full time and filling in the gaps while you "train" societal narratives out of the men

ShillyShallySherbet · 13/02/2024 07:56

As a woman, the moment you carry a baby in your body you are at a disadvantage physically, emotionally, financially. Some men take advantage of this shift in power that goes in their favour and some women let them.

MistressoftheDarkSide · 13/02/2024 07:56

Seriously though, how can it be overlooked that for several thousand years (give or take) we have collectively, men and women, been fed an archaic narrative that women were designed to be the help meet and dick receptacle for the "perfection" of men?

And the push back against that narrative in the West because science / rationalism / enlightenment has only been going on for about a century ? Elsewhere that narrative is still thoroughly embraced and keeps seeping back through - look at incel culture, trad wives, the way we are institutionally gas-lit to internalise our feelings about injustice still being perpetrated by men against women?

As others have noted, we're encouraged to blame other women first for "settling" for less than ideal men.

So many threads on here, about terrible things that men do are met with NAMALT,
and while objectively that may be true, my personal experience over 55 years is that even the good ones, like my late DP, who would call himself a feminist, could revert to Victorian Northern Dad in moments if frustration. It's unbelievably deep rooted, and so often once again women are expected to unpick and fix it for themselves, their menfolk, their children.

On the surface, on paper, women are allegedly better off now due to legislation and initiatives designed to promote "equality" but in real life the old tropes about women being over emotional, hyoer-sensitive, needy, deceitful and manipulative are still there. It's just more subtle these days in a lot of cases.

Think if that song - "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"

And then what happens when a woman is more like a man? Well, obviously that's wrong too.

Honestly, I don't know what the answer is, but as a very bitter and cynical widow, I'm almost glad I'm now out of the game so to speak. My DP was my Holy Grail, and the thought of having to puppy train another candidate is making me fully embrace crazy cat lady vibes moving forward.

JassyRadlett · 13/02/2024 07:56

RantyAnty · 13/02/2024 02:33

yes, I've found this to be the case too. do the bare minimum, pawn work off on someone else, toady up to the boss for a promotion, take credit when they did very little, talk a lot but do very little.

Let's not forget the pretending to work late to get out of any family or household responsibilites.

I had one guy I managed who was really put out when I kept sending him home at 6 when there was no urgent work on and there had been more than adequate time to get his work done during the day. He'd been doing a martyr "oh I've got so much to do, I keep missing my kids' bedtimes" but when you looked at his workload and how he managed it, there was no reason for him to stay late.

I suspect a lot of men who are in jobs with "no flexibility" haven't actually pushed for it...

BreatheAndFocus · 13/02/2024 07:57

It’s the social set up. Ideally, one parent would be able to not work and stay at home with the children. Looking after children and running a house (not just housework and laundry, the admin stuff too) is an important job but because it’s seen as ‘women’s work’, it’s not valued or counted as ‘proper’ work.

Another alternative would be to shorten the working week. That would help enormously as people would have a chance to rest as well as doing chores over the weekend.

Those things would also encourage more men to do this forgotten work and society to value it.

bottomsup12 · 13/02/2024 08:01

@BIWI how is to women's fault for "allowing it to happen". Why is it OUR responsibility to "allow it to happen"? Why are the men allowing it to happen ? Why are you just accepting that's the way it is and that women are the ones who should be project managing and training the men into doing fair share?

gannett · 13/02/2024 08:01

kikisparks · 13/02/2024 07:52

The first “we” is women and I’m talking about society’s expectations and the comments on here about how women are responsible for whether their partners do an equal share of housework or not (hence the somewhat glib “keeping in line” comment). The second “we” is also women, and men, society as a whole. We each have our own role in that and personally I think we should be moving away from a narrative that it’s a woman who is responsible for whether her male partner does an equal share or not and if she “picked wrong” or didn’t “train him/ keep him in line” then it’s her fault. In my view that attitude is misogynistic. The fact is that statistically women bear more of the domestic load and childcare and blaming women for that is probably not going to result in meaningful change.

OK so how do you suggest this works on a practical level?

I hold the men in my friendship groups to high non-sexist standards and obviously also any man I've dated or been in a relationship with. I've advised female friends to do the same. I have loudly rejected "society's expectations" (both on this subject and others) all my life.

Ultimately though I have no power over the partners anyone else picks. It's not blaming women to point out that they are the only person who actually has agency over that.

hettie · 13/02/2024 08:02

@kikisparks It's not about blaming women for 'picking wrong ' it's about all of us collectively saying...'exercise your free will' you have a choice. That's important for all of us to understand, change doesn't come from doing the same thing repeatedly (generation after generation). Change comes from women saying no, we want things to be different, I'm not putting up with that. The women among us who start to say that/model that things could be different are part of the slow trickle of changing this shit. I'm not going to shut up about it in the same way my great great granny didn't shut up about being a suffragette (thank fuck for granny and her tribe).

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 13/02/2024 08:03

kikisparks · 13/02/2024 07:52

The first “we” is women and I’m talking about society’s expectations and the comments on here about how women are responsible for whether their partners do an equal share of housework or not (hence the somewhat glib “keeping in line” comment). The second “we” is also women, and men, society as a whole. We each have our own role in that and personally I think we should be moving away from a narrative that it’s a woman who is responsible for whether her male partner does an equal share or not and if she “picked wrong” or didn’t “train him/ keep him in line” then it’s her fault. In my view that attitude is misogynistic. The fact is that statistically women bear more of the domestic load and childcare and blaming women for that is probably not going to result in meaningful change.

I disagree. It is not misogynistic to say that women have agency over their own lives and that they shouldn't have to put up with this shit.

What's the alternative? Telling them that it's unfair and that hopefully men will eventually see the light?

Aecor · 13/02/2024 08:03

BreatheAndFocus · 13/02/2024 07:57

It’s the social set up. Ideally, one parent would be able to not work and stay at home with the children. Looking after children and running a house (not just housework and laundry, the admin stuff too) is an important job but because it’s seen as ‘women’s work’, it’s not valued or counted as ‘proper’ work.

Another alternative would be to shorten the working week. That would help enormously as people would have a chance to rest as well as doing chores over the weekend.

Those things would also encourage more men to do this forgotten work and society to value it.

Ideally for whom? I certainly wouldn’t contemplate being a SAHP, and neither would DH. In fact I can’t think of anyone I know who would want to. The only people of either sex I know who have done it for longer than very short-term are trailing spouses, people struggling with illness, or parents of ill children or children with additional needs.

Unexpecteddrivinginstructor · 13/02/2024 08:04

HolyGuacamole28 · 13/02/2024 05:48

Thanks for all the comments. I guess my issue reflects a societal issue. My DH grew up in a two parent, single income house (as did I) Wasn’t huge money either but was enough. His mother never worked and ran the house and children. DH was never expected to do anything and as an adult he just doesn’t really care enough re household stuff. But I care. Women are still the default carers and chore doers, despite now having to work as well. Society judges women much more harshly - provide an income but don’t let someone else raise your child. It’s sad as no win. I’m glad some have a 50/50 split but I can’t help feeling it’s not the norm. I’d love a cleaner and help but COL increases has made money quite tight.

There will be some things he cares about. Clean clothes? Food on the table. Tell him he is doing his own washing and cooking for everyone a couple of days a week and he will need to care. Whenever he moans something isn't clean enough then it becomes his role to keep it clean. Yes there will be some things you care about more than he does which is fine you keep responsibility for them.