To ask why women are expected to do everything?

[HolyGuacamole28]

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.

Beezknees · Today 08:31

I've been a lone parent since DS was a baby. So I've done everything myself but that's because I had to. Honestly I'd rather that than have someone who could pitch in but doesn't. Hell will freeze over before I ever run around after a man.

But you are running around after a man. You're doing all the work of raising a man's child, alone. A man who not only does no housework in his child's home but is actually absent from his child's home is just patriarchy taken to its ultimate conclusion.

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?

That's your 21st century interpretation. Learn about Inuit cultures, for just one example, and imagine whether they really saw women as inferior. When western explorers arrived in the Arctic, Inuits thought them bizarre for travelling without the companionship and skills of women.

Until very recently, surviving, feeding ourselves and protecting ourselves required a hell of a lot more than driving to Tesco and hiring a locksmith.

Who chased down the prey? Fought rival family groups?

Blame biology. Men and women have very many subtle biological differences that presumably evolved because they were advantageous. Humans survived for a very long time because, with some variations, they arranged themselves in social formations, with different responsibilities, that suited their biology and kept their groups and children alive.

By the way, today it is still predominantly men who do the most dangerous and dirty jobs society needs to keep running.

@HappilyContentTheseDays

Oh Lord, yes, the insanity insinuations - exDH was a past master at that.

Anything that I wanted to do for myself that might impact the smooth running of his life was met by the serious implication that I was mentally unstable plus guilt tripping about the DC even when they were older teens and on their way to flying the nest

That marriage ended spectacularly badly, and I swore off relationships as a result.

Meeting my late DP was an unexpected bonus warily received but ultimately worth it.

I guess so when you look at it that way. Still glad I don't have to pick up his pants though 🤣

Agree - it’s not ok to blame women for not choosing better.

The reality is that they get far less choice in partners than men - if we want to have children we have a ten to 12 year window to find someone, get into a full relationship, buy a house and have a child. That is less with further study/career building.

A man has decades longer and even if he’s older, as long as he is reasonably solvent, will have his pick of much younger partners. Plus millenial/ gen x women are still breaking free from societal constraints of previous generations and embedded mysogyny.

I totally agree with this.

So many women thinking they should be the homemakers, cleaners, nannies, cooks and their partners’ personal assistant while keeping a full time job, so their partners/husbands can keep a job and contribute very little of their time to raise the kids or do house chores.

I bet that if a woman arrived home expecting dinner, a clean house, children ready to go to bed and come the weekend, devote her full attention to the children for half an hour before disappearing for the rest of it to spend the vast majority of her free time and salary in hobbies, nobody will be saying “but she is wonderful mum and a good partner”.

Lots of people saying it's a problem with DHs - whilst that is part of it, the main issue is that society expects women to do it all.
I'm still smarting after working in an industry with a bloke for 20 years we had exactly the same position, starting from the same uni course within 2 months of each other, we had exactly the same training and experiences but I took on extra skills with quoting, billing and admin. Covid came and we were reassigned to different teams - I was moved down from a senior role to a junior one, he was made head of team.

I am really looking forward to seeing how our childrens generation split tasks and parent due to growing up and seeing their fathers had equal input into the household/parenting.

I find it really interesting that because my siblings and I were expected to do so much as children, my parents now have a really messy home that's always behind on cleaning. It's like they've forgotten how to look after themselves.

(Background: my mum was part time self-employed from home, my dad did no housework, but we lived rurally so there was a lot more outdoor work than typical.)

On a micro level it always looks like it’s women’s fault : your dh is useless because when you stumbled home from the hospital leaking, bleeding, shocked, sleep deprived with a tiny helpless human to keep alive, you didn’t immediately start training the other adult human in your home.

On a macro level, when you look across cultures and history, it’s very clear that the problem is men. But all the solutions to men’s uselessness has been the subjugation of women.

In the west equality is predicated on the suppression of awareness that they do not care about the same things, that they have a completely different sex drive and balance of personality traits. In cultures that acknowledge these differences, the solution is always to limit and disadvantage women.

The last attempt in the UK to make men take responsibility for their offspring was the Marriage Act that dehumanised women and took centuries to unpick.

Men are the problem. Fortunately for many divorce is an option, provided you earn enough to pay for help, or are desperate enough to plunge your dc into poverty.

And as long as we keep blaming wives and mothers for men, we’re getting absolutely nowhere.

When someone said 'Women can have it all' in terms of equality (which there isn't anyway), it really meant 'Women will do it all'.

"If you let your partner slob about that's on you'. So it's our responsibility to make men do their fair share?! FFS, YOU are part of the problem. You somehow think because 'your wife wouldn't stand for it' that makes you enlightened. Absolute BS, you sound like an utter tosser who has contempt for women (because apparently it's all our fault)

And i dont get this obsession that some women have with how men have it. Why on earth would I want to be competing with career obsessed men to spend lesstime with my own children?? 😵‍💫 Surely anyone's kids are more important to them than anything else in life, including their career anyway 😵‍💫

Why doesn't this apply to the father of the children then?

There are so many factors to this. The short answer is get: a cleaner; sort out good childcare whatever is within your price bracket; don't go out as much.

The women I know who stayed on the same career trajectory pre and post DC got nannies. All of them got that big promotion at work pre DC so that they could afford a nanny. This simply isn't realistic for most 20 / 30 year old women. Also all their DH's worked in 'big' jobs as well, so essentially 2 substantial wages coming into the household.

The longer answer is that it's only really been the last 2 or 3 decades that you have needed 2 wages coming into a household so engrained patriarchal patterns have failed to shift significantly.

Only now that the UK's productivity is so shit is the Government trying to get women back into work.............. but not decent high paying work, any work. Which is shit.

Also be aware that once you have gone part time, statistically your chances of moving on significantly in your career is virtually zero.

I am hoping the next generations have it easier. I will be making sure my 2DS know about household chores being equally distributed.

I don't think this is the case at all. My DSs stripped their own beds, sorted their own laundry from about 5yo. As teens they were fully competent at all household tasks, we saved detailed instructions on their phones initially, so there could be no excuse for doing half a job, as adults, when they're with me they cook and clean more than as much as I do.

Their girlfriends fuss over them and treat them as hopeless men who can't be expected to get anything right and need everything done for them. And yes, DSs let them, but I don't think you can lay that at my door.

• Conditioning (women are still expected to do all the 'caring' and look after the home even if they work)
• shitty men
• the fact that too many women put up with a lot of nonsense by the above shitty men and enable their behaviour.

But also your DH absolutely needs to step up on chores.

You need to workout for your household. I have always done more than my DH, mainly because he works longer and has a 'big' job, he is around less. When he is around he does his bit.

Full time work was designed with one persons at home taking care of the home, children, cooking, cleaning etc. it wasn't designed for both parents doing this and that's why it just doesn't work.

Have you considered asking your DH to take on more responsibility and potentially employing a cleaner/ironing?

Both me and DH had high pressure careers. Once we decided to have children I knew I wanted to work part time so we discussed this as a family, made cuts where needed to get us in a good financial position) before even having kids so that this was possible. I knew my employer would be supportive and still have a good salary because I maintained my senior position.

I still have small DC at home and love the balance of working PT and can't ever imagine working FT again. My DH career has sky rocketed and he works extremely long hours so I take on the lions share at home. But again that's because we discussed this and we're both happy to take this on as a team.

I know my career could have continued and I could have had a much higher paying job by now working full time, but that's not what I want. I get my fulfilment from my family and work and I love pottering around the house doing jobs. I'm grateful COL not massively effected us as my DH salary has increased in recent years and it must be so difficult to be trapped working full time because of COL.

To ask why women are expected to do everything?
Expected by whom?

It shouldn't be all on us. We agreed when we had our baby as FTP that I'd do the majority of caring for baby and DH would do the meals and housework as well as working 6 days a week. I've recently gone back to work and we share everything out - DH walks the dog whilst I get baby ready before nursery, we split the nursery drop off and pick up, DH does baby's tea whilst I get bathtime ready then I do bathtime and he starts the tea. At the weekend DH does the mopping hoovering & bathroom and I change the beds and do the laundry. I'm really lucky that DH hasn't even considered burdening me with everything. Unless your a single parent I don't understand in this day and age how it can't be a team effort.

And choose the men, but then don't do anything when they realise what they are with

Again each person is responsible for their own choices

In the households I know where a sexist gender-role dynamic exists, it's because the woman wanted kids and prioritised it over deciding who was the best person to have kids with, then stayed with him in order to have the desired number, then stayed with him in order to keep their family together. They're all now miserable and spend most of our meet ups moaning about it all.

In the households I know where it doesn't, it's because the woman or couple don't want kids and so have either remained single or chosen a partner more carefully without the biological pressures interfering (and been more prepared to break up with said partner if problems arose). Those relationships are much stronger and aspirational, and there's very little moaning (other than us singles moaning about how expensive everything is by yourself).

I firmly believe that this is a strong factor in why the birth rate is falling all over the world. Older millennials are the first generation to have genuine control over whether or not they have kids, and a lot more women are looking at the standard of men available and going, "I'd rather not", or limiting the number of kids they have with such men.

Ok. To unpick a bit, I did make the mistake of generalising and am well aware that historically other cultures have had different structures etc.

However, due to colonialism and the "Christian" narrative thos cultures have been absorbed and over written because they interfered with the agenda of the invaders.

Clearly my observations are about the manipulation of society to subjugate women in the guise of protecting them and making sure that good old biology takes precedence because women - child bearers, carers etc.

Blaming biology is pretty reductive when we live in an advanced period with so much more knowledge and understanding of humans both male and female. Of course there are biological differences but surely by now we should be able to construct a working society that is far more equitable for both sexes.

History is how we got here, and cultural narratives about how women have been regarded play into our present.

As for the men still doing the majority of the worst jobs, at the speed technology is advancing, that may not be the case moving forward, and then how will we deal with further disenfranchised men because Lord knows society will be as ineffectual as ever about what they do next in the rush to capitalise on technology that these manually driven blokes will probably be excluded from.

Everything is a clusterfuck but the division between men and women us still relentlessly widened despite alleged progress.

I wonder why that is?

I blame Richard Curtis.

Not really of course but the entire universe tells women that a) bagging a man is the biggest achievement of their lives and b) love is all that matters.

Well love is a tiny part of the equation, as any cohabitee knows. Love doesn't feed bellies, pay bills or wash it's own fucking socks.

My best friend fell for it hook line and sinker. She truly believed that upon marriage, her slobby boyfriend would be transformed into a responsible husband. He remained slobby but it's a bit embarrassing admitting this mistake so she's thrown good energy after bad for fifteen years now, with plans to leave once the kids are at uni.

I do not consider it misogynist to think women should make honest and informed choices. He was demonstrably lazy and useless, but she thought it would somehow change. Why would it? Because 'love', apparently.

Because we live in a patriarchy where men are made to believe they deserve leisure at the expense of their children's mothers.

Mothers are seen as disposable drudges.

Honestly lone parenthood is a much better option for most women.

Part of the problem is that men are typically raised seeing their mothers do everything domestic. They often don't question this naturally and there is really deep seated male privilege behind this. When I started out in my relationship with my husband, I pushed for equality at home as we both work full time. We had a more even division of labour before we had chosen. But over the years, and with children, I feel worn down over it all and I definitely do more domestic work and child related tasks than he does. This has really impacted my career as I'm too tired and overwhelmed to put in the effort needed to progress.

I don't think it's fair to blame me for not demanding equality for a sufficiently lengthy period of time. I've just had to get on with life as best as I can.