Do most men on some level see women as lesser than men?

[standandeliveroo]

I have a good marriage, we have been together for almost 30 years and we have a loving supportive marriage, I was recently ill and my husband did really look after me as I have done for him in the past.

However even in such a good marriage there are times I do feel like he sees me as a kind of supporting act to him in a way that I do not with him. If we have jobs to do round the house, he will need me there to help him do "his job" while the things on my list are secondary and that if he holds me up from doing my jobs he'll them be miffed that I can't sit down with him when he is done his chores. Its like I exist to facilitate him on some level and he has an expectation that I will keep the house to a certain standard and cook nice food. When we first got married he was appreciative of all these things I did and would thank me for the lovely food and cosy home I made for us on top of working but in time it all just became accepted and now all I get is ire if things slip. I also feel like I am supposed to help him manage his moods and emotions and smooth things over for him which of course I often don't mind doing because I do want to support him but I feel that in many ways he should be mature enough to manage his own moods most of the time e.g. he often gets hangry, getting into a bad mood when he is hungry, he is in his 40's and so I think he should know by now that he needs to eat before he gets this way but so often he doesn't and I end up bearing the brunt of his hangry moods or if I can I am trying to manage them, knowing he needs to eat before he does and so I'll feign hunger and a headache to ensure we stop for food like a mum trying to prevent her toddler from getting too hungry or tired.

I see and talk about the same types of things from the women I know in work and long time friends and it always feels like even the good men, still see women as their aids, as secondary to them in some way, second class human beings who's needs aren't quite as valid as theirs. I feel like perhaps most men are like this and do actually see women as appendages as opposed to fully human just like them.

Haha yes, they do.

I usually respond with a blank look or say, I don't know how to do that.

I remember years ago being a young highly paid consultant was asked to answer the phone while the receptionist took lunch one day. They guys asked me why I was answering the phone and I just laughed and said, I still get paid xxx per hour whether I'm answering this phone or coding.

Funny I wasn't asked again to do it but those guys were all clamoring for their turn to answer the phone.

@gannett yes that’s a fair point about the small talk. I think it’s particular to the fields I’ve worked in. It’s hard to explain but there have definitely been situations where I have noticed that if I don’t say something no one does. I have learnt to be happy with the awkwardness as I get annoyed at having to look after other people’s emotions.

Has a man ever done the Office collections / birthdays etc? It’s 16 years since I worked in an office hope it’s not still all women doing this

We simply didn't have these. When OH retired he simply got asked to make sure he handed in his kit. When I stopped working I was asked to hand my pass in at reception.

Do places still do these sort of things?

I think it is the case but as others have said even the good ones have a blind spot about it!

Before we had kids, we both had different active hobbies/sports that took up most of one or both days at the weekend. Shortly after we got married 30+ years ago my husband mentioned that it was expected that 'the wives' made food and then sat all day in some hut on the course waiting to serve all the sweaty guys enjoying their important sport who stopped by. And he thought I would do this 😳😂 I was flabbergasted. And so was he - he didn't even think I would object or might have something I wanted to do instead. His mum was an angel putting up with what she did!

I never did it of course and once kids came along to give him his due he voluntarily packed it in so he wasn't away all day every weekend even though I didn't go back to work straight away. He was definitely a keeper ☺️ Great dad too!

@standandeliveroo see I can't resonate with that because in my parents relationship it was my Dad who did all the nurturing not really my Mum - although I am more like him in personality. But in DHs family his Mum is very much the type to put herself second tk everyone else. In one way it's selfless but it's also kind of martyr ish and a bit manipulative.

Really interesting article about this: https://hbr.org/2018/07/why-women-volunteer-for-tasks-that-dont-lead-to-promotions

My observation at work is that men see a problem, assume their perspective on what to do about it will be shared by everyone so jump in and do it. They are less likely to be challenged than women so spend less time negotiating and more time executing.

The men look effective and the women look ineffective.

Then we find we have three different and incompatible solutions clashing, and someone takes that is a problem that needs to be fixed, and round we go again.

The possibility that the men fucked up by not asking if there were reasons not to do what they were about to do before they started, not negotiating and not getting buy in to what they were doing doesn't cross anyone's mind. It's seen as a process problem.

Sometimes I feel like my job is metaphorically standing in a field watching a bunch of men monologuing, each one ignoring everyone else yet assuming everyone else is listening to them.

My husband did most of the child care for ours. I was the one building my career and doing lots of travelling. He had a well paid job that he enjoyed and no interest in promotion (he'd be further away from the part of the job he enjoyed). He did the 'mum' things, sorting their clothes for nursery/school, cooking etc. I don't think he ever felt he was a martyr, he just loved being a dad. He still loves having the gc around. In some ways I feel I'm the one that missed out. I do love the girls and the gc but honestly he's much more 'maternal' than me.

IME women like arranging gifts etc as they like to make the person feel "special" whereas men don't really care so it wouldn't happen.

Men also seem to care less about "taking care" of children etc.

In many households the man is the higher earner and therefore has the pressure of bringing in the money.

This lot means people fall into their "roles".

@MaxTalk Perhaps but if men actually did care more about those things as they should especially taking care of their own children and women were valued more for their contributions elsewhere then people wouldn't have fall into their roles, its only societal misogyny that ensures women stay stuck in that role men demote them to.

I think the answer to this question basically comes down to how you were brought up and what your parents' relationship was like. I think a sizeable minority of men were brought up with really strong mothers and it wouldn't occur to them to think of a woman as being "less" than a man.

But I think a lot of men, while they may not explicitly think they are superior, have a mental "template" which was formed in their own childhood which dictates certain behaviour and assumptions. It's hard wired.

This ranges from out and out cavemen who think a woman's place is in the home barefoot and pregnant through to men who outwardly adopt all the trappings of feminism but default in their private lives to a traditional dynamic.

I think a surprisingly large number of men who present as being "progressive" (ie they would very much pay lip service to the idea of shared domestic work and encouraging their partner to work) actually have a fairly innate sense of themselves as being the "default" provider and the "head of the family" etc.

I have a very close friend whose partner is very "feminist" externally and in relation to his daughters (makes a big thing about taking them to practice male sports, encouraging them to do brilliantly at school etc) but has constantly discouraged his OH from going back to work because the kids "need her" at home. I'm sure he doesn't consciously think "a woman's place is in the home", and if he were challenged on this he would be horrified, but some part of him thinks of himself as the "provider" and the "decision maker".

There are some women who expect to be “looked after” by a man. I saw this on TV programmed “Say Yes to the Dress” recently! The woman said of her fiancé “Oh I know he’ll always take care of me”. It’s a rather old fashioned concept, but she was English and in her 20s.

I can’t imagine that, but then again she probably will indeed have someone who will take care of her, lucky her.

Another again more old fashioned or traditional concept is of the woman as “the queen”. Such women sometimes were rather selfish lazy mares! I don’t think so many men think like that now.

I myself was brought up by a single parent. She wasn’t a great mother at all but I’ve never seen men as more important than me, so wasn’t attracted to such men.

However such more self important men can often be the same ones who take on the main financial burden and have a more protective role. I’m not sure there’s anything wrong in being the ‘supportive’ person in that scenario.Maybe men and women do have different roles and that works for the good in sone ways. A lot of women seem incredibly stressed these days ‘doing it all’. So it’s not straightforward.

It's not just an individual thing, this or that man. Look at economic theories, they only consider what was traditionally the man's work. The domestic sphere is a closed box, that "just works", economists have no interest in enquiring how it works and how it enables and sustains "the economy". The economy being the traditional man's world.

The domestic sphere isn't even considered part of the economy, despite its smooth running enabling (traditionally) men going to work. He can only do that because he's fed, clothes clean and children looked after. In a modern world where women are expected to work child care, nurseries, after school clubs etc are actually fundamental parts of a well run economic and social system. So the domestic sphere is a key part of the economy. Adam Smith, a founding father of the modern system, neglected to note in his book on the economy who fed him, gave him shelter and washed his clothes. His mother 🤷‍♂️ It's part of a trend that runs through our entire system: politics, medicine, education, everything. It's only recently this is changing and there's still much work to do. I'm conscious of many signs inside and outside the home, to this day, trying to tell me that as a man I'm more important than women. Sometimes it's explicit and sometimes it's implied, and it's not always men communicating that

@spookehtooth in my workplace 20 years ago it was mainly men or women without children who made it to Professor - it has changed dramatically since then and we now have several mothers in that role and just as importantly men who take an active role in parenting their children and take parental leave. I think this has improved the atmosphere and culture for everyone and made it expected that caring is a valid reason for absence. But it is sad that one of the factors is that it took men deciding they wanted to do this (or maybe partners who expected them to!) to make it better for women - we now even have a contextual factors box on our annual progression review where caring (kids or elderly parents) responsibilities can be factored in to performance.

@Mytholmroyd I think the thing to watch for is when something is only important when a man is interested. Russel Brand is an example of that, until recently he only felt consequence after upsetting a man, Andrew Sachs. I feel a lot of traditionally women things require more men to be interested to raise their status, and I'm okay with that. It means we're sharing things more equitably. Where it goes wrong is when something shifts from large female representation to large male representation or men moving in to dominate the higher value roles.
I'd like to unpick exactly how some of these shifts work, the relationship between perceptions of sex and how values of tasks and skills have evolved and how they're measured. Science, philosophy and other disciplines are at work here, Darwin's notion of "survival of the fittest" has been much maligned and misunderstood, it doesn't mean physical strength and dominance, but its often been interpreted that way

Yes, or I guess where something (like my subject) is heavily female dominated at the student/lower levels (for example for every male PhD student I have had I have had 10 female and the same ratio in PhDs I have examined) but male dominated at the academic and particularly Professor level. Which it probably isn't now but certainly was 20 years ago.

You cannot get away from the fact that having children is still a huge barrier in the UK to female pay and job advancement. Childcare costs often come as a huge shock to first time parents. Much better in the Scandinavian countries and I think a necessity for equity.

Yes! At one point it was only possible for me and my ex to both do our respective jobs due to child credit to help pay for after school club. Even then, it was only just possible due to the location of my work. I had to leave work on-time and rush to the school on my bike. Luckily it was more or less en-route, and close to home, so once collected we walked home. I earned more, with much better potential to earn even more quickly,so guess who would've lost out? The wider world sometimes has no regard for personal values, and we can't always express them

It's very individualistic thinking having to pay personally though. Working people pay taxes, don't require "help", and someone has a job because of it. It's part of the economy

Yes - the hoops you have to jump through to raise a child and work - I feel for young folk now it is getting horrendously difficult financially. And probably why the birthrate is plummeting in European countries. Denmark had a campaign several years ago called 'Do it for Denmark' because they were justifiably worried about the economic implications of an ageing population. It worked apparently! 😂

That's a subject fraught with difficulties, there's never ever been a shortage of young people in the world. If anything we need to slow down and breed less!

There's only a shortage of the "wrong sort", if you know what I mean

So people who aren't the 'wrong sort' shouldn't have children? That's discrimination surely?

It works because that Big Important Job is Man’s Work, well paid and prestigious. You need to be smart, well qualified and experienced to do it.

Dresssing kids is unimportant women’s work . You don’t need any skills or qualifications, any fool can do it , it only earns minimum wage. It’s demeaning for an Important Man to do it at all, let alone be good at it.

It’s not they are too stupid to feed/ dress their kids, it’s that they are too important. It’s about status , not intelligence.

I never said that. You referenced a shortage, we don't have one and therefore have no need to provide incentives or encouragement for anyone to have children. The "problem" of an ageing population is exclusive to the white skinned population. It's only a problem if you believe there is some sort of competition between the people of different skin colours. It's of no consequence for our species if the white skinned population naturally declines or disappears

Collectively, we actually have a duty to future generations to understand and, at a bare minimum, work towards levelling out the numbers of people on the planet. A decline is probably preferable. Very little of the earth is untouched by humans, 96% of mammals are human or livestock and we're in the middle of a mass extinction driven by the actions of humans. There are many ethical tools at our disposal, and we need to start using them. The breakdown of our environment has already begun

We've just been watching a TV programme where a tricky driving manoeuvre was needed. My OH (who would insist he doesn't see women as lesser) expressed his surprise that the bloke was letting his wife do it. When I asked why he was surprised he mumbled something about her perhaps being the better driver.

So apparently the default position is that the bloke makes the decisions and the bloke is the better driver. It's deeply ingrained.

@spookehtooth in all bar 2 countries in Europe the birth rate is below replacement - seee link to 2023 birthrates below - so are we not already reducing it and 'doing our bit'? It is a problem if there aren't sufficient workers to fund services and pensioner's pensions for example.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-in-european-countries/

If you seriously want to reduce the world's population then you should focus your attention on the places where it is above 2 and growing I would think?

I don't understand why you have made this a race issue - I said nothing about race - this is a thread about the attitude of men to women and I have no interest in discussing 'white skinned' people so am leaving the thread now. I find your post offensive.

DH certainly does his fair share of household chores. But what he does do (and I don't) is give a blow-by-blow account of everything he's done, so I can show my appreciation for his efforts.

If I'm at home and he's out, and I've spent a couple of hours changing beds, rearranging the contents of the airing cupboard and washing the kitchen floor, it wouldn't occur to me to mention any of it to him when he comes in so he can praise my efforts.

But when he hoovers the stairs, cleans the glass in the patio doors or washes out the food waste bin he has to tell me all about it, and I have to view and admire his handiwork.

Just why??