This type of thread pops up quite frequently.
There was one a while back in which some posters admitted that, in the early days of their relationship, they'd taken on the majority of household responsibilities because they'd wanted to show their partner they'd make a good wife or to look after them, to make their partner's life easier.
Some women admitted 'when children came along, they had 'just assumed' their partners would 'just step up' and play an equal part. And were upset, frustrated and exhausted because they didn't.
It was interesting because I've only ever seen that on that one thread but I have often wondered if that were the case.
Similarly, with threads where women complain that it is their responsibility to buy presents for their partner's family. Some women say it was something that they had started doing during maternity leave because they were going to the shops anyway and they didn't mind but then it became something that stuck when they returned to work and once a second child had come along, it became harder to keep up and resentment set in.
Then there are threads where women complain that their partner wants to take the baby to his mum's for the day and half the posters replying will say he's unreasonable to expect her to want to spend any time at all away from the baby or where women won't allow their partner to do any childcare because he doesn't do things the way she wants them done or they won't go to a hen do because it feels frivolous to do something for themselves when they have a baby at home and their husband has never put the baby to bed before and doesn't know what to do. Some women who boast about giving up their hobbies when a child was born because their child is the most important thing in the world and they can't bear to be apart.
The same goes for housework.
It's labelled as 'weaponised incompetence'. Sometimes it is but sometimes it's just the status quo that has been established.
I've known a few women (mostly of my mum's generation - she's in her early 70s now) who would say to each other, "Honestly, he's useless! No idea how to use the washing machine!" and it was always said with a smile and a sense of 'Bless him! He'd be lost without me!" Or where they've declined invitations out to dinner on the basis that, "I can't. I need to do his dinner. He'd live off beans on toast if i werent there to cook for him!" So what? Beans on toast for a night won't kill him!
I've never really heen able to articulate why this is. But i have seen many, many women who are complicit in creating the situation irl.
And then the man is criticised for not being involved or taking on an equal share.
But it's everywhere. Threads where women are in the very early stages of dating and they're 'seeing each other' and having sex but it's not an exlcusive relationship because he doesnt know what he wants and a pervasive idea that men don't know their own minds; don't know what they want; don't know what's good for them. He does know what he wants. And he doesnt want a relationship with you but he also doesn't want to tell you that and cut off guarantreed sex.
There are threads where women talk about what they are looking for in a man and high earner and good looking often crop up. Or where they have complaints about his behaviour and attitude towards them but earns well and good looking crop up in the pro list. Yes, wanting someone solvent, with a good work ethic and probably.a similar earning potential to yourself is understandable and finding someone you find attractive is important but high earner and good looking will only take someomenso far inna relationship. They are not qualities that will make someone a good partner or father alone.
Women aren't responsible for men's choices or behaviours but we are responsible for deciding what we will accept in a relationship; for what we prioritise in a partner. Those men will still exist but we don't need to marry them or have children with them.
My advice to my daughter has been to start as you mean to go on. Set the precedent you want.
Don't accept something in the early days that doesn't work for you.
Yes, misogyny is rife and we live in a patriarchal society. We all know that. But, on an individual level, we still have choices. Choices around who we choose to share our life with, choice around who we create children with, choice on what we will accept.
I'm not an anomaly in having a partner who takes on a truly equal share of everything. Other women do too. I married one and, when dating between him and my partner, I didn't have a relationship with anyone who wasn't a fully functional, independent adult (and I've never had to give anyone a list!) And these were all men in their 50s I dated over the past 10 years.
There are plenty of willing and capable men out there but as long as women keep telling each other that most aren't and 'all men are like that', women will keep finding themselves with someone 'like that'