To say that most heavy duty physical labour is done by men? When was the last time a female plumber, builder, roofer,painter and decorator, drain unblocker, or boiler or washing machine engineer came to your house?

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

To say that most heavy duty physical labour is done by men?

Where? I’ve never seen any thread that states men doing manual labour are a waste of space, in fact, I’ve never seen any thread even discussing men doing manual labour until yours.

Define "manual labour".

Nobody denigrates men because they do very hard manual labour. They get denigrated in situations where both parties work full time, but the man just sits on his arse when he gets home and doesn't contribute one iota to the work needed to keep the household running. Those kinds of men are useless wastes of space and deserve denigration. Hardworking tradie type guy who fully does his share at home? Excellent. No denigration from me.

Most women could do those jobs, I can change a tap, unblock a drain, refit a light to a hob. What most women can't do is hard manual labour - building, road work as we're not strong enough.
I don't think anyone who works and has an occupation is useless waste of space as they are contributing to society, physically and monetarily.

I remember manual labourers and the like being called "gammon" by posh people. They really dont like them except when they're required to clean their drains or the gutters.

That’s not what gammon means.

What do posh people have to do with women on Mumsnet?

Have you thought this man might be physically exhausted when he gets home and is not up to cooking or childcare? I did all of that for a while as the man was getting home at 10 at night.

You’ve completely misunderstood the term ‘gammon’.

Much as you seem to misunderstand everything else, including Valerie Solanas’ life and motivation.

You really haven't been paying attention. 'gammon' is related to someone's politics, not their occupation. Plenty of posh gammons around.

’the man’? What man is this?

Have you thought his wife might also be bloody knackered when she gets home from doing a 12 hour nursing shift and isn't up to cooking or childcare? What happens then? Leave the kids to fend for themselves? Or act like adults and share the work?

What if his wife is also physically exhausted when she gets home? The kids just fend for themselves? Sometimes you have to suck it up. 🤷‍♀️

This is that Jordan Peterson / Pearly Things Red Pill argument that women don't deserve equal pay, or even the vote ( Pearly Things saying that only men who fight for the country should be allowed a vote)

You are obviously a man with a chip or two on his shoulder.

It's a rhetoric designed to undermine women's worth, but tbh, women are more than capable of all of those jobs - the main reason they don't choose them us not because they shy away from hard physical work but because society is only just catching up with the idea that A girl can be a great builder or a man can be a great nurse: because of this,
children are still less likely to be given encouragement to train in roles traditionally associated with the opposite sex.

Citations needed.

do you believe that only the jobs you have listed are physically exhausting?

at least we have got to your point; you believe that men, by dint of doing the majority of the very specific jobs you list should be exempt from domestic labour. Why not just say that, rather than banging on about Valerie Solanas and inviting women to landscape your garden.

as I happens, no I do not believe that men are exempt from domestic labour in the house they live in and benefit from. Even if they are tired from physical labour, their wife may also be tired from a physical job.

we all know you mean “waaa mean woman don’t let big strong man sit on his arse while she runs after him, waa waa”, you’re not fooling anyone.

Hahaha. And there it is 🙄

I must be imagining all the predominantly women staff in hospitals and care homes or residential care who have to lug patients around and carry their shit.

Next question, why do men ignore women’s work everywhere?

The exclusion of women from trades was quite deliberately done by men 400 years back in the ‘early modern state’ period btw. The kickback after the Second World War when women were kicked out of jobs is also well documented.

Female plumber and female boiler engineer. Much more comfortable with the female boiler engineer than some man bullshitting me.

I feel this is an incentive for us all to try to employ female trades where possible and encourage growth in that sector.

I have fab male builder and carpenter friends now, but in the past the majority of men in that sector talked down to me and in some cases bullied me because I was a woman alone.

Not sure if there is a female trades section on here where they can advertise? Or a website? I would much rather not have an unknown male in my house 😅

Gosh, it’s still so low despite all the positive examples that people are posting about! How concerning. I guess it will take more time for perceptions about certain types of work to change when they have been so heavily male-dominated for so long, and all the things that go with that to support equalising things more - recruitment processes, role models, workplace cultures etc. I once had a student who mentioned that they thought that gardening was men’s work - we then talked as a class about a few other examples of these perceptions and I asked the group whether, for each of those jobs, you needed the physical attributes of average male to do them. They all said no for every example discussed, and the original student asking the question had a bit of a lightbulb moment!

Once we get to a point where there’s true equality of opportunity and all the structural and cultural barriers to all kinds of work are removed, then there may still be certain roles that attract more men than women and vice versa - and won’t it be interesting to see if that’s the case if we ever reach that position and can do a genuinely unbiased analysis? Until that point, though, as your data rightly shows, there’s an awful long way to go to remove those barriers.

So?

Which man? You?

Actually, my sister is a plumber.