Page 7 | To think we’ve lost the concept of men being men and women being women, and society is worse off for it?

ThatNimbleKhakiAnt · 2025-08-08T17:33:06+00:00

Traditional gender roles may not have been perfect but at least they provided structure. Now everything is blurred and instead of progress, we just have confusion. Are relationships stronger? Are people happier? I don’t think so. It feels like in trying to fix things, we’ve just made everything messier. AIBU to think we’ve lost something valuable?

MidnightScroller · 09/08/2025 07:14

MidnightScroller · 09/08/2025 03:44

I think supposedly “traditional roles” were discriminatory and didn’t represent much of human history where male hunter gatherers did their share of child rearing taking young boys out with them as a community group rather than expecting mum to raise all the children single handedly.

Recent equality progress has helped almost everyone apart from small minded domineering white men which is why we see so many of them desperately trying to assert themselves now.
The trans debacle was a blip that needed to be tackled to go back to acceptance of a minority group rather than promotion of a mental health disorder to exploit young and vulnerable people.

Plus internet and porn addiction has robbed far too many men of their social skills and any chance of a happy life, meeting a partner etc and this group of idle hands have been made very busy by hateful influences the world over.

GoodPudding · 09/08/2025 07:16

saphiregemstone · 08/08/2025 21:22

The Op hasn’t come back to clarify what exactly she was meaning.
I personally think that every change brings about consequences and some will be positive, some negative.
One of the negatives for example is that if both parents have to work full time people have become too tired to cook properly and have also, over time, lost the skills to do so. The reliance on processed food means the nation’s diet is pretty atrocious and the health of the country on the whole declines.

We need to accept that there are negatives to societal change and think about how to make it so we can find better solutions to them.
Talking about this doesn’t mean a wish to return to the past, or at least it doesn’t mean that to me. It means that if someone sees a problem that has arisen being able to discuss it, without being called names is important.
I understand that if someone simply says “ it was better back in the day” it is seen as dismissive, but I choose to think of it as a starting point where the person is expressing, albeit without having a wider view, their feelings on a certain topic.

Great post… Women have benefited lots from feminism and gender roles being relaxed, but there are some definite downsides in my opinion, such as those you outlined/. We should be able to discuss those without people assuming that this means we want a return to the 50s!

TooManyFools · 09/08/2025 07:19

Patriarchy caused the way we live! So if you ain’t happy, that’s why! Gender - why do women disfigure themselves with lip fillers etc and men don’t generally? That would be a more interesting question to ask.

Pinkgiraffe34567 · 09/08/2025 07:44

One thing that I find does annoy me is that both me and my husband work full time and long hours and so we both take care of things in the house. This actually does cause arguments and confusion; he will have bought something for the fridge that I’ve already bought, I might expect him to clear up after cooking dinner but I find the kitchen in a mess later on, things get missed because we think the other one has sorted it and they haven’t, we’re constantly arguing about who has the more stressful job so who therefore needs to take on more household organisation/ chores, he thinks cooking and loading the dishwasher are the only life admin tasks that need to be completed when there are actually loads of other things that need to be planned/thought about which annoys me. The list goes on….

So I do wonder if life would actually be more peaceful if only one of us took care of the house stuff, admin etc. and the other one worked.

In our younger days we both thought ‘this career is going to be great’ but now all we do is work and then argue about all the other household stuff that needs doing and don’t have time for seeing friends or taking on more hobbies.

PollyBell · 09/08/2025 07:46

TooManyFools · 09/08/2025 07:19

Patriarchy caused the way we live! So if you ain’t happy, that’s why! Gender - why do women disfigure themselves with lip fillers etc and men don’t generally? That would be a more interesting question to ask.

Because women dont appear to think for themselves

Pinkgiraffe34567 · 09/08/2025 08:00

Crushed23 · 08/08/2025 19:31

As long as there is a choice, you will have couples where both parents work (or non-parents, increasing number of child-free couples) in order to maximise combined wealth and buy a better house, etc. This will drive up property prices (and the price of everything else) pressuring more and more families to move to a dual income.

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Yes this is a big problem, moving to dual income households has made no-one actually better off, but it has meant that every household is forced to be dual income just to survive.

Imisscoffee2021 · 09/08/2025 08:04

Purely socially since thats what you highlight then no it hasn't, I mean there was a great deal of divide in the genders socialising, women couldn't access alot of work they may have wanted to do, didn't have same access to education, especially working class women which is vast majority. Fact remains that when things were more "structured" or traditional, women had less agency, is that a worthy price to pay for "structure"?

There is structure now between relationships and people, it's just more complex, and if it doesn't align with your views it probably seems like there isn't any but there is.

Households being worse off financially even when women and men work just shows that house prices have gone absolutely mental.

WeekendFreedom · 09/08/2025 08:30

Reportedex · 08/08/2025 18:36

As an autistic person, I’m glad I don’t have to fit into a gender role that I’m not comfortable with.

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I’m not quite sure where autism comes into this?

Livelovebehappy · 09/08/2025 08:33

I believe some women prefer the gender roles from way back, and that other women shouldn’t judge them for it.

CowHeronCow · 09/08/2025 08:37

Livelovebehappy · 09/08/2025 08:33

I believe some women prefer the gender roles from way back, and that other women shouldn’t judge them for it.

Of course they should judge! If someone has some dopey fixation with being treated as if it’s pre-women’s suffrage, she doesn’t need my validation, and she’s certainly not going to get it.

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 08:47

Pinkgiraffe34567 · 09/08/2025 07:44

One thing that I find does annoy me is that both me and my husband work full time and long hours and so we both take care of things in the house. This actually does cause arguments and confusion; he will have bought something for the fridge that I’ve already bought, I might expect him to clear up after cooking dinner but I find the kitchen in a mess later on, things get missed because we think the other one has sorted it and they haven’t, we’re constantly arguing about who has the more stressful job so who therefore needs to take on more household organisation/ chores, he thinks cooking and loading the dishwasher are the only life admin tasks that need to be completed when there are actually loads of other things that need to be planned/thought about which annoys me. The list goes on….

So I do wonder if life would actually be more peaceful if only one of us took care of the house stuff, admin etc. and the other one worked.

In our younger days we both thought ‘this career is going to be great’ but now all we do is work and then argue about all the other household stuff that needs doing and don’t have time for seeing friends or taking on more hobbies.

I really respect your honesty about this.

It is truthfully so much more peaceful having one leading on the home/children and one leading on work- each person is much clearer on what they are doing, arguments are minimal and both have more energy and freedom to pursue other interests and actually have some downtime.

If it’s of any help in your situation where you are trying to share, to help with clarity I can recommend reading ‘Fair Play’ by Eve Rodsky. She talks about what you are saying about one person needing to properly plan, start and complete a task or it creates confusion. I would also recommend lists and schedules for everything. Go through every room and area of your home, inside and outside. Go through every single task which needs completing and how often. It may help you both to have a really clear list of exactly who is doing what and when.

knottywig · 09/08/2025 09:29

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 08:47

I really respect your honesty about this.

It is truthfully so much more peaceful having one leading on the home/children and one leading on work- each person is much clearer on what they are doing, arguments are minimal and both have more energy and freedom to pursue other interests and actually have some downtime.

If it’s of any help in your situation where you are trying to share, to help with clarity I can recommend reading ‘Fair Play’ by Eve Rodsky. She talks about what you are saying about one person needing to properly plan, start and complete a task or it creates confusion. I would also recommend lists and schedules for everything. Go through every room and area of your home, inside and outside. Go through every single task which needs completing and how often. It may help you both to have a really clear list of exactly who is doing what and when.

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Men seem perfectly capable of doing this when they live alone, they cook, they clean, they do laundry, they do dishes. What is irksome is men regress when there is a woman there to do stuff so they don’t feel they have to. Why should the women carry the mental load?

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 09:48

knottywig · 09/08/2025 09:29

Men seem perfectly capable of doing this when they live alone, they cook, they clean, they do laundry, they do dishes. What is irksome is men regress when there is a woman there to do stuff so they don’t feel they have to. Why should the women carry the mental load?

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Both obviously have far greater demands on both of their time when they have children. I don’t think these things are such an issue when a couple lives together pre-children necessarily.

knottywig · 09/08/2025 11:03

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 09:48

Both obviously have far greater demands on both of their time when they have children. I don’t think these things are such an issue when a couple lives together pre-children necessarily.

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Interestingly my husband and I had more arguments about household chores before kids than after- I think I had just resigned myself that it was down to me again when the kids came along. I also earned more than my husband at the time!!

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 11:58

knottywig · 09/08/2025 11:03

Interestingly my husband and I had more arguments about household chores before kids than after- I think I had just resigned myself that it was down to me again when the kids came along. I also earned more than my husband at the time!!

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You shouldn’t put up with that if it is making you unhappy.

Either reduce your own hours/resign and encourage him to push for a promotion if you are doing everything at home.

Or insist if you are both working that everything else is shared fairly.

If you don’t feel it’s fair and you are unhappy about that hopefully things can change for you.

user1471471849 · 09/08/2025 12:02

MidnightScroller · 09/08/2025 03:44

I think supposedly “traditional roles” were discriminatory and didn’t represent much of human history where male hunter gatherers did their share of child rearing taking young boys out with them as a community group rather than expecting mum to raise all the children single handedly.

Recent equality progress has helped almost everyone apart from small minded domineering white men which is why we see so many of them desperately trying to assert themselves now.
The trans debacle was a blip that needed to be tackled to go back to acceptance of a minority group rather than promotion of a mental health disorder to exploit young and vulnerable people.

'Recent equality progress has helped almost everyone apart from small minded domineering white men which is why we see so many of them desperately trying to assert themselves now.'

Could you give me an example of what you mean by this? It seems like an incredibly sexist and racist thing to say to dismiss 'white men' as small minded and domineering in such a sweeping generalised way. It implies that you can write off anything a white man is saying, and I think this is partly why trans ideology has taken hold- because logical men (and women) are instantly vilified. This seems to be the new dominance hierarchy. Straight white men are considered automatically guilty and are at the bottom of the pile, whilst trans folk are instant victims, at the top of the hierarchy, completely untouchable. I think it's a very dangerous rhetoric.
Can you imagine the backlash if you said 'small minded domineering black men' yet you think it's ok to say it about white men??

Parker231 · 09/08/2025 12:06

Ashley911 · 08/08/2025 21:00

Because her husband should be able to handle it... she shouldn't be in that provider role

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Why shouldn’t she be the provider - they are both equal parents

Petitchat · 09/08/2025 12:24

saphiregemstone · 08/08/2025 21:22

The Op hasn’t come back to clarify what exactly she was meaning.
I personally think that every change brings about consequences and some will be positive, some negative.
One of the negatives for example is that if both parents have to work full time people have become too tired to cook properly and have also, over time, lost the skills to do so. The reliance on processed food means the nation’s diet is pretty atrocious and the health of the country on the whole declines.

We need to accept that there are negatives to societal change and think about how to make it so we can find better solutions to them.
Talking about this doesn’t mean a wish to return to the past, or at least it doesn’t mean that to me. It means that if someone sees a problem that has arisen being able to discuss it, without being called names is important.
I understand that if someone simply says “ it was better back in the day” it is seen as dismissive, but I choose to think of it as a starting point where the person is expressing, albeit without having a wider view, their feelings on a certain topic.

Great post. Completely agree.

Petitchat · 09/08/2025 12:37

CowHeronCow · 09/08/2025 08:37

Of course they should judge! If someone has some dopey fixation with being treated as if it’s pre-women’s suffrage, she doesn’t need my validation, and she’s certainly not going to get it.

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So you don't think women should have their own preferences?

SawPalmettoPrincess · 09/08/2025 12:37

CowHeronCow · 09/08/2025 08:37

Of course they should judge! If someone has some dopey fixation with being treated as if it’s pre-women’s suffrage, she doesn’t need my validation, and she’s certainly not going to get it.

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If a woman doesn’t want to work (I get no enjoyment out of going to work every day), but I get a heap of satisfaction from a clean home, a homemade meal and looking feminine, then why isn’t that lifestyle valid?

I’d love to give up work and be a home maker, but sadly that choice has been removed. I cannot afford to do that. So now I have no option but to work. We both have to work and that makes life more stressful. On the weekend, we both have to clean the house. We both had to look after kids (although grown up now) so no time for hobbies as a pp pointed out. I genuinely don’t see that as a ‘win’.

My sisters ex was a real waste too. Had my sister looking after him like he was some sort of princess. Completely unattractive.

knottywig · 09/08/2025 12:39

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 11:58

You shouldn’t put up with that if it is making you unhappy.

Either reduce your own hours/resign and encourage him to push for a promotion if you are doing everything at home.

Or insist if you are both working that everything else is shared fairly.

If you don’t feel it’s fair and you are unhappy about that hopefully things can change for you.

Show quote history

I’m not unhappy. I work part time, I couldn’t not work, I would go loopy. Kids are much older. We’ve made it work. Nowadays I couldn’t go back full time, not because of traditional ideals but because I’m getting old and lazy, I’d much rather sit on my arse and watch Netflix from start to finish than work full time, have the ability to go to coffee with friends etc. Thankfully we are in a good position for me to be able to do that.

Cinaferna · 09/08/2025 12:48

nocoolnamesleft · 08/08/2025 18:42

Men are adult human males. Women are adult human females. Gender is mostly made up bollocks used by the patriarchy to oppress and control women.

This. I have zero idea what OP actually means.

I do wish we could go back to a time where an entire family could live on the income provided by one of two parents. Because i think life is more harmonious all round if there are two (or more) adults sharing round the clock child care and an understanding that raising children is, in itself a job. The crazy outmoded system we have now where school ends at 3.30 but two parents are expected to work until 5 or 6pm then commute home just to be able to cover the mortgage, is insane. But that has nothing to do with sex or gender. It is economic.

EveryDayisFriday · 09/08/2025 12:49

How trad are we talking? My Grandmother's and great grandmother's always worked so I dont have any example of SAHMs in my family going back 100yrs.

My DPs had a fairly traditional marriage, he had the big corporate job with separate finances, she had a part time nursing job and was also expected to do everything else: cook, clean, garden, ferry us about to school/ clubs etc. The resentment grew in the marriage and as they approached retirement, it was clear he wasn't prepared to do anything at home and she divorced him as was sick of being a maid and housekeeper.

As a result, I ended up working FT whilst raising the kids and sharing the household roles and finances with my DH. Our marriage is much stronger than theirs was. So in my experience and anecdotal data of 2 relationships, YABU.

Lifeofthepartay · 09/08/2025 12:51

Scottishskifun · 08/08/2025 18:37

Provided structure?! Just wow!

I will take my modern husband any day of the week who parents as a team, is perfectly capable of looking after his children and actively wanted shared parental leave for more bonding time.

You probably say that because your husband is one of the good ones. A lot of men are just another child to raise that only wants to contribute 50% financially too. And no, is not the woman's fault for not choosing correctly. What I see on the dating scene (not first hand) is that no one wants to offer the bare minimum either....

ThankYouNigel · 09/08/2025 12:51

knottywig · 09/08/2025 12:39

I’m not unhappy. I work part time, I couldn’t not work, I would go loopy. Kids are much older. We’ve made it work. Nowadays I couldn’t go back full time, not because of traditional ideals but because I’m getting old and lazy, I’d much rather sit on my arse and watch Netflix from start to finish than work full time, have the ability to go to coffee with friends etc. Thankfully we are in a good position for me to be able to do that.

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You enjoy your Netflix! Well done for not letting anyone run you completely ragged!