Is it weaponised incompetence or are men just rubbish?

[NarnianQueen]

I absolutely believe that men pretend they can't do things like cooking or laundry without making a disaster of it, so they won't be asked again, but now I'm starting to wonder... I've seen so many men struggle with simple tasks when it really isn't going to benefit them to do it badly. Sometimes I think it's because they believe their way of doing it is the proper way, and everyone else is bodging it. My dh will meticulously place items in the dishwasher, taking 40 minutes to stack it, whereas I would take 5-10 minutes to shove it in - probably not to his liking, but perfectly adequately. But it's one of his jobs (his choice!) so I know he's not doing it slowly to make me take over. Same with guys at work - I work in events, and there can be lots of waiting around - when a man's in charge we all just stand around, when a woman is running it, she will always say "While we're waiting for the lights, let's sort out x..." You get so much more done.
They genuinely seem to struggle with things that women just get on with! Anyone else notice similar?

In my experience if there's something a bloke wants to do or is interested in doing it will be done. Otherwise forget it. They have zero interest in anything unless it's particularly important to them. Completely focussed on self.
Add that to a herculean level of laziness exhibited by most men and you have the usual situation where women do almost everything whilst carrying huge amounts of mental load for children, elderly parents, siblings and men just carry on unbothered.

There is always some paragon of virtue, a man whose great with their children, great cook, brilliant at house work but they are outliers and frankly why would they be seen as amazing when women just do all that stuff anyway.

Couples seem to slot themselves into what will be their normal early on in a relationship. Many a 50/50 split of everything or some happily negotiate a labour split that works for them, you won’t read much about these couples on here because they are happy and functioning as a team. But for all these sort of couples getting on with life in the background, there are the ones who have a shit time with a lazy man and an overworked woman, but personally I’ve got no sympathy for either, it’s their fault that they formed these shitty unbalanced relationships.

Couples like this get together and a woman won’t care she’s treated like shit because her guy is hot or cute when he lays there on the couch and lets her serve him and of course he’s never gonna change, he can do fuck all, but eventually that lazy twat is laying on that couch with a beer belly, she’s run ragged with a twat but it’s too late, they are stuck together, they forged their dynamic while blinded by love, but when you first start dating you’ve got to look out for these red flags, and I don’t believe they are not there.

Another type of scenario I’ve seen with toxic couples is a woman who micro manages and martyrs herself, they guy cares enough but not to her standards and she takes on too much stress and everything has to be her way, it’s usually controlling and I equally have no sympathy for a guy who lives with that sort of shit, that controlling behaviour would be there from the start.

what I’m saying is at the beginning we need to look out for red flags and what sort of relationship we want to have, it can be done, most are not manipulated into these situations, some are but not most, but lots are blind at the beginning and don’t want to see these faults until it’s too late, I have no sympathy for men or women who don’t look objectively for a life partner who will work with them.

No idea, but as a gay woman I can tell you that this generally isn’t a thing in my gay men friend’s relationships!
The male couples manage to run households - from cooking to cleaning to laundry to mowing the lawn to fixing the car to taking out bins to doing DIY etc - just as well as me and DW do…
And my widower dad has an immaculate house and garden so he too seems to be able to manage it all.

I agree with this. I made a lovely Chinese meal from scratch the other night and was a bit stressed playing it all up at the same time and asked husband to put the rice in the microwave, omg, what a palava reading the instructions within an inch of their life asking about 50 questions about it, ahhhhh! He is a good cook himself but needs a huge amount of time to do it.

The unloading and re-loading of the dishwasher takes the EXACT same time as making a cup of tea!

I don't know tbh. My DH seems perfectly capable and he pulls his weight. He doesn't always approach tasks in the same way that I would, but I don't always assume that my way is the only right way, so this isn't really an issue.

This is a really interesting threat and the PP Felix sums up my suspicions. No malice in it, just men have different brains and can’t hold the thousands of parallel thoughts that woman might be having in a day regarding school uniform, shopping, Christmas thinking that starts happening in October, what’s for dinner, ingredients needed for dinner etc etc. I do think they would cope without woman but the world/house would be a dirtier and less organised place. Kids would turn up to school half dressed and fed on whatever is in the cupboards. They’d probably all be perfectly happy and would get around to it all eventually just in a really inefficient way. All the dads would be at the supermarket the night before Christmas jumper day rather than just a handful of mums. Or maybe they would forget completely and all the stupid pointless things that mums have to do everyday would fall away and cease to exist. Like natural selection for household jobs.

yeah, if they wanted to do it well they would... most of them hold down jobs...so presumably they turn up to work on time looking clean and presentable.

Many just don't care if the house is untidy and the dishes are unwashed.

Some are very tidy and clean though, my BIL is. And it's his wife who is messy... though she is still cleaner and tidier than your average man.

Dh is very competent does most of the laundry. He is a good cook but my god he is slow. You cannot be a perfectionist chef when bashing together Tuesday tea before activities. He cooks weekends only now.

Oh my god yes

Ha, I agree! It’s definitely not taking me 40 min to load the dishwasher (how is that even possible?), but I do make sure it‘s done properly.
Hate it when stuff comes out dirty or the filter gets blocked up with muck 😣

I hate loading the dishwasher so I did it in a really bad way. My DH now does it all the time so I never have to do it. It’s not just men.

I’m sorry but bollocks to your last paragraph - are you a tradwife?

Despite being 'trained' by me (his anal mum) DS has developed this good enough attitude to, seemingly, everything in life. He sees no point in going the extra mile when good enough, is good enough. He is so much more laid back than me. In some ways I am a little envious.

Wow imagine if a man had written that about women. Basically you are calling them airheads. My dh does all the things you mention above as quite honestly I am not capable. If I got run over by a bus tomorrow this household would continue to run smoothly. If dh did we’d be right up shit creek
on many levels.

This. I think they are socialised to be Big Important People and so of course the 40 minute perfectly stacked dishwasher is the most optimal use of his time. Because <insert self-important monologue about optimal dishwashing is optimal, completely ignoring the fact that suboptimal dishwashing gets the job done just fine too and also other household tasks done>.

I do think that most men don't carry the mental load in the same way we do, and therefore He Has Got His Tasks Done, who cares that there's also still laundry to do, lunchboxes to fill, dentist appointments to be made, and reading to be listened to?

On holiday with DP last year, went to pick up the food from Tesco, the guy was flabbergasted that DP put the shopping in the right bags (e.g. chilled in the freezer bag, cupboard stuff in another, fruit and veg in a third) without minute supervision from me. He's so used seeing men (and he was specific that it was men) chuck stuff into the boot completely randomly. He reckoned that it was so they wouldn't be asked to pick the shhopping up again.

He was especially impressed that the bread was carefully placed so as not to get squished. But as I pointed out, DP likes his sandwiches sandwich-shaped and not Meldrewed.

You say that, but the number of times I've seen on MN when someone says "he told me I fold his socks wrong" followed by "well, tell him he can fold his own damn socks then" sorts of comments.

I do agree, but I think both sides are guilty of parallel indiscretions here. Men SEEM to use the 'be crap, she won't ask again' attitude, while women (from MN) SEEM to use the 'he gets what he's given. If he criticises, he does it from now on' attitude.

I think appreciation is key, and is often sadly lacking.

How many women work on building sites or oil rigs?

And actually, i often see women on here saying its amazing how men can do all this at work but not at home...but in my experience, many many men in the workplace are very good at prioritising and spending a lot of time on that one, high profile/important task, and somehow leaving the shit to someone else... usually a woman.

Yes dh will take as long as he needs to on task A and if there is no time to do task B it can't be helped. In the meantime I'm rushing completing C, D,E and now B in the same time

Other side of the coin, I once read a ‘comic’ piece by a male journalist saying that a really good way to piss your wife/partner off, was to occasionally do the hoovering super-properly, and then say smugly, ‘Goodness, it’s been an awful long time since the hoover went under there (e.g. the sofa) hasn’t it?’

I’m afraid to say I did laugh!

There are social, practical, and physical reasons that e.g oil rigs are vast majority men.

Social - boys are encouraged to follow the school-entry level job at energy plant/college path that preps them for oil rig type jobs. Girls of same ability level are encouraged into beauty, or nursery work.

Practical - men that work offshore for weeks at a time are good providers, women who did it would be bad mothers

Physical - lots of these jobs require lots of strength. Of course women can be strong, but the average difference is huge.

omg yes - my husband does this with the kitchen - deep cleans twice a year but the regular day to day is me and he thinks he knows better.

My son is only 8 and I am already seeing this. Its frustrating.

I think he's lazy, DH says that it's because "males just don't care that much about that stuff"