Let's talk about cognitive dissonance ...

[colditz]

My relationship with my children's father broke up because he lied about money and hit me, and I finally, after many years of misery, refused to tolerate it. But why did I tolerate it for as long as I did when I was miserable?

I believed that children need their parents to stay together and that I would not cope alone. The facts were that children do not need one parent to be abusing the other, and that my life would have been easier without him merrily fucking it up.

The stress caused by the gap between my own personal beliefs and the reality of my situation was causing an uncomfortable feeling, often described as cognitive dissonance.

Is this the reason that people who consider themselves fair minded nevertheless perpetuate an unfair system? Intelligent women who do all the housework and childcare 'because he goes to work' must see the difference between theirs and their husband's exhaustion levels - why do they accept it, and decide that 'going out to work is really hard' when they surely must remeber the time when they went out to work and had no home responsibilities as being a darned sight easier than the life they live now?

I think it's bcause cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable state of being, and if you cannot change your situation, you must change your way of thinking to bring it in line with your situation or suffer the misery of inner conflict.

Which brings me to the rejection of feminism.

Why do so many women reject feminism when it would clearly improve their lot to be treated fairly?

Is it because they cannot easily become fairly treated individuals, not without huge conflict and arguments in their home and at work, so they decide, unconsciously, to believe that they are already treated fairly? And therefore feminism is defunct in their minds.

Intersting.

Really interesting thread. I've just finished reading Wifework which looks at how men and women continue to justify the unfair split even though most people say they think housework should be shared evenly in theory. Recommend it for anyone who's interested in the issues raised here.

Personally I've been really lucky in that DH and I have different priorities and I simply have refused to do anything that I know he thinks is important knowing that he will be forced to get on with it eventually. Also I think it works out best if one person gets total responsibility for a whole task rather than taking it in turns or sharing it. That way you do it in your own time rather than feeling you have to work to someone elses schedule. For us that works out as a fairly even split but I do usually monitor it to make sure it stays that way. On the occasions where i have felt the balance was wrong I have to say I'd be gutted if DH hadn't agreed to take on more without debate.

I am so interested in this debate. I'm a SAHM at the moment but on ML so still getting SMP as my spending money. DP pays for the house, food, bills etc. And I do all the housework, apart from the washing up after dinner which he does. I must say my standards have slipped as I just don't have time to maintain the house as I'd like to with my DD around. Is this fair? I mean he doesn't sit around of an evening and let me wait on him; I cook the dinner while he bathes DD, we eat then he washes up and I load the dishwasher. But I do somethimes think, as I wash his pants for the umpteenth time, hmm he used to have to do all this himself and now it all gets done for him by the SAHM fairy...

different standards IS an interesting problem (there are economic papers written on the principles here).

When she is in the kitchen Mrs Stubborn sweeps the kitchen floor once or twice an hour (I am not exaggerating) so it is certainly true to say that I never sweep the kitchen floor, as it never needs doing - and our standards here are SO different that realistically it is impossible to share that chore.

The only way to balance things up is for me to own some other chore - mowing the lawn - where our standards happen to be pretty much the same. When the lawn needs mowing Mrs Stubborn can be relaxed that I'll think the same, and will no doubt have the mower out Saturday morning.

a very interesting thread

writerofdreams I agree that judgement re state of the home falls generally on the woman. I have pointed this out to dp. if I went away and someone came and visited dp at home and it was a mess, they would be likely to think that it was because I wasn't there. whereas if he went away and the place was a mess I would be more likely to be judged for that.

this is despite the fact that we have a very even split of chores.

of course it depends on whether you care whether other people think of you as a messy/dirty person, but for me the irritation is that i would be more likely to be judged as the female of the partnership and as a man dp would not be

oh I don't care either. unless it was messy to an extent that I was worried about my health or personal safety

Interesting thread, though I find it difficult to identify with as DH and I have a pretty equal split, actually balanced more in my favour atm as am heavily pregnant (I'm growing a child, he can do the washing up).

That's not to say it has always been like this. DH has always been a reasonable partner, but hasn't always thought about stuff, so I would talk to him.

Things that bothered me were that I would always pick up milk and whatever I thought we needed on the way home from work, he never would. I was always the one that thought about food, what we would have for dinner etc.

When DD came along I felt like when we did stuff as a family I was always the one who sorted out DD's bag, thought about what she needed.

We discussed things and he is now much better. Helps that for the past 2 years he has been DD's equal or primary carer.

The food thing is still a long running thing, I still feel like I do most of the cooking, even though I was working more than DH, I'm the one who meal plans etc., thinks in advance what needs taking out of the freezer. He says I am better at it than him, also, he cares less, would eat pasta and dolmio every night happily. But I have higher standards, want healthy, cheap meals so cooking is my thing.

In every other way he does more than his fair share though, and if he didn't, I am satisfied that we can talk it over and he will make an effort, in the same way that I would vice versa.

I find it very hard to relate to friends who do most of the work, who's default job it is to do the childcare.

Leningrad, I'm allergic to dogs and cats too, do you know of any treatments that actually work? There used to b a marvellous non-zombying pill but it got taken off the market, and for some reason I seem to have become resistant to Flixonase.

I can;t handle Piriton, it;s one of the ones that really does turn me into the shambling undead, but thanks anyway.

A really tricky cove, cognitive dissonance. At root, one could ascribe it to a reasoning for anarchy, or nihilism. Moving outside of the domestic circumstance, it could be taken as a question as to whether we shoud have any social discourse or inter-action with anyone who is not exactly like us.

On this thread it's quite informative to arrangements made twix couples. The question is 'how do you mediate between what you think ought to be ( and is) reasonable?, and what is possible under current scio-economic circumstance for families as they are currently configured?

How far are people prepared to go to challenging the basis of their dissonance? This isn't specific to gender relations whatsoever.

Really interesting thread.

I was (I think) about to ask what Pan just asked.

How do we mediate? Do we have to live with either a) the cognitive dissonance b) abandoning the principle that creates the dissonance or c) extreme/unpleasant/uncomfortable action in order to uphold the principle, and its consequences? Seems like all three of these options are rubbish!

Going back to what someone said upthread about some people (creatives?) being more prone to work through or productively use a period of cognitive dissonance rather than taking the path of least resistance, my question is, what strategies make us more capable of coming through a period of 'cognitive dissonance' successfully? What would we qualify as success? How can we turn this dissonance to our own benefit?

(Will stop now as feel like have tied my brain in a knot.)

Quod - if it helps, I don't think you have to tie your brain into a knot!

Cog. dis. is another aspect of CBT - cognitative behavioural therapy - how do thoughts-feelings-behaviour
( 3-pointed triangle) relate to each other?

In a sort of answer to your query above, 'successfull' people often shunt away how they feel about things in order to acheive in what they think about things. So a dissonance is created which provides a tension in their lives.

all of that, dittany, assumes a 'false consciousness' or atleast an under-developed one. which I go along with whole-heartedly. Scary bit is to 'sell it' as such, without scaring your proposed audience.

I dont ever iron my husband irons all his own clothes and kids clothes and I just purposely buy things like leggings and tight tops so there is no need to ever iron. My husband had to teach me to iron as I was on daily inspections in the military.

After we had known each other a week he came and picked up all my clothes and ironed them all and bulled my shoes every night so I looked good before that I was getting in trouble nearly everyday as I had never watched anyone iron anything before as my mum doesnt iron and its my dads job to cook for the family as he does it for his trade.

My mum always says you have to set out your expectations early as when she got married in the 70s she said I dont iron or do washing so we pay someone or you do it. Then she just stuck by that so I just did the same. If they dont like it they dont have to marry you its as simple as that really. Shes not a feminist she just doesnt like doing some things, same as me.

I like tidying up and the easy making the house pretty jobs and the childcare but I dont like ironing, cooking etc so it mostly falls to my husband. It was 100% done by my husband for the first few years of our marriage but now I have tried making a few simple dishes but I have never made a meal from scratch and doubt I ever will.

It is the person who cares more because I wont care less if I looked unironed but it would really bother my husband so he does it.

MamaLaMoo that post was fascinating.
Also, I read somewhere that people who have problems with messiness tend to be more creative/intelligent. Do you think there's something in it? Or more that they see the pointlessness of the endless cycles of housework.

What would we qualify as success? How can we turn this dissonance to our own benefit?

Success would qualify as making enough changes in your life that life becomes livable. So you experience less boredom, nihilism, and depression. Which is survival more than anything. How can some people live knowing what they know about the world? It's very hard without sinking into depression. Denial is easier. Boredom often masks despair.

HOw do you turn it to your own benefit? You use it, creatively, or through activism, be that environmental activism, feminism, whatever. YOu try to change something when you can't live in denial any longer.

What an interesting thread. I agree that denial or action are the active answers to this, certainly in respect of domestic situations. I think depression is the other outcome. This can also apply to men of course...how many men were forced into the family business , or boring jobs they didn't like, when they would have chosen something else to do with their lives? Not so common now of course but in times past when oportunities were fewer.

The trouble is that with regard to the domestic, women are still expected to put up and shut up...hence my exH telling me that he would never clean a toilet...oh that'll be me then! And my exILs telling me that their son had far more important things to do than iron his own trousers for a posh do. Oh that'll be me again then...

I solved this problem by leaving. Now I do the same jobs (domestic and outside the home) I did when I was married, but no longer have the boiling resentment and anger.

Of course in the 50s and 60s this issue was solved by handing out Valium to all those poor women who did sink into depresssion. And I know it is very hard to leave a situation ..so the active resolution is the most difficult to take I think.

I try to bring my son up to treat women as equals, I would feel ashamed if he did have a partner in the future and did not pull his weight in all respects. And I try to teach my daughter to resist the pressure. If we all did this then surely the whole societal pressure would eventually reduce? Or is that hopelessly naive!?

I'm always very aware that if I'd been born 70 years ago my parents or my husband would have carted me to the mad-house because I just cannot put up and shut up when I experience unfairness. That's what happened ot lots of women. I read "Among the Bohemians" and some husbands put their wives in mental asylums for writing poetry .
I mean that was their only creative outlet.