How are we supposed to do ALL of this?

[cakestop2016]

Modern society is completely screwed up for modern women as far as I'm concerned. Why are we expected to go to work AND juggle all of the housework AND take care of the children's needs? Why haven't men caught up in assisting us? My DP is slowly learning that he needs to do more but why am I having to write him to-do lists, why can't he think for himself? Why does he fail to notice the greasy finger marks on the kitchen cupboards when he 'cleans' the kitchen?
why is it like this? Why does all the meal planning get left to me? I'm now seriously contemplating leaving DP and taking our DD with me because I can not live like this anymore.
what's the answer for modern women?

Of course it's victim blaming Lass. You are placing the blame for lazy arsed men at women's feet. Men need to take responsibility for house and children just as much as women. It shouldn't be women's burden to make that happen. Yes individuals can make their circumstances slightly better, after much effort. But overall it is societal attitudes need to change. Men are responsible for that. They are the ones that need to change. Women are already pulling their weight on the repetitive, thankless tasks. Men need to step up.

And there are ways of telling women that actually they don't have to put up with an unfair situation without also saying it's their fault they're in that situation in the first place. Especially when societal expectation is weighted towards that situation occurring in the first place and the women are being the conscientious ones.

Driode, there there dearest. Grown up conversation too difficult for you?

Yes individuals can make their circumstances slightly better, after much effort

Individuals, should have drawn the line at the start and called a sexest twat and walked away. women should be calling out this behaviour on first sight. There are plenty more fish in the sea.

Honestly I feel like I've fallen into a time warp sometimes on mumsnet.

But if it is endemic then and we have gone backwards. Then WE all need to start educating everyone again.

I agree with Eustace2016

Many of us for generations have not tolerated sexist men so the first post seems very strange to us

What the fuck happened? Why have we now got a generation who can't see the subtle signs of sexism and then wonder why they are in a sexest relationship?

So it's still women's responsibility to police men's behaviour, is that what you are saying? What about if a man only exhibits this behaviour after having children? Should women just up and leave then? What about women who've had inputs all their life that tells them that men doing nothing around the house is normal? Yet they still struggle with that? Are they just stupid? Or a mug?

And the only input into men's behaviour is how women react to it? Because you haven't suggested anything else that might change men's behaviour. All you've suggested is that women change theirs. In fact you haven't suggested changing men's behaviour at all and they are the ones at fault. You've just advocated passing them on to the next woman who may be less equipped or more vulnerable to deal with him.

If find it ironic that you advocate women leaving men over this behaviour but you don't want to call it abusive.

You know what I wish we were in a time warp and men didn't behave like this. But unfortunately they still do.

I have suggested that we start educating everyone men and women again.

Jesus call it abusive, if it makes you feel better. But i think you are doing a great disservice to people in actual abusive marriages.

Bottom line is society needs to re high light it. So that men know it's not acceptable and change. But women need to have a mind of their own too. They also need to know what's not acceptable.

I you don't think telling a man he's a sexest twat, is doing anything? Because if you have ever called a sexest a sexest you know, normally you have to back it up. So yeah telling them exactly why what they are doing/saying is wrong. Oh and they will argue even sometimes get angry. But you just keep telling them what they are doing IS wrong and why.

Yes educate boys and girls from an early age.

I'm just frustrated that I thought we'd passed all this stuff.

scallopsrgreat

Have you ever, called some one up on sexest behaviour? Actually called them a sexest? Actually educated them on why you called them sexest and how they should behave?

Because if women don't call it? Who will?

""Sorry but I really think that you end up with the partner you deserve"

That is a really vile thing to say to someone who has a horrible partner. You're telling the OP that she deserves a manipulative, exploitative partner. Nice.

I don't really know how you can argue that deliberately exploiting someone you live with and claim to love, every single day you live with them, is not abusive behaviour.

Just because it's not knocking them against a wall or swearing at them and calling them names, doesn't mean it's not abusive behaviour.

It is abusive to exploit someone. We know this in other contexts. Why is it not abusive to exploit someone in the domestic sphere? Why is that context alone, immune from connections being made between someone's behaviour and what that means for how they feel about someone?

Or are we arguing that exploitation isn't abusive?

Or that shirking your fair share of shit stuff that needs to be done, isn't exploitation? If it isn't, what is it?

And OP btw, you've said you'd rather not live with someone who is like your DP.

I think you're right. I think women should just stop living with most men tbh. With a few honourable exceptions, it's just not a very good deal for us.

But it isn't necessarily men shirking their domestic responsibilities, it is often that they are not performing them to the woman's satisfaction. But why should she be the one to decide how housework is done & how much of it?

Mumsnet usually seems to me to be full of complete clean freaks, I could never live up to their demented hygiene standards & I would resent being expected to. If women are coming up with lists and rules, that shows real disrespect for their partner. Perhaps he doesn't think the floor needs mopped every day & the sheets changed every week? I certainly don't want to waste my precious time on such uptight unnecessary chore making, if women want to do that, I am not going to respect them moaning about it. Just. Stop.

Ah yes the "women have impossibly demanding standards that no sensible man could ever be expected to live up to. They're all just like Monica in Friends" argument.

Bullshit. Most women have perfectly normal standards, because most women aren't maniacs. Pretending we are, is buying into that misogynist bullshit that says we're irrational and loons and generally inferior to sensible men and we should stop doing that, because a) it's sexist rubbish and b) it undermines women who are genuinely trying to have equal relationships.

Unless someone is genuinely crazy, it is pretty nasty to deliberately make their home, where we all have the right to expect to feel comfortable and safe, into an uncomfortable, horrible place to be.

Stop making excuses for people who do that. Stop gaslighting women by pretending that we are all fucking Monica. We're not. We're mostly normal.

I completely agree with the comments about unnecessary chore making. Christmas for example is always a bumper fest of AIBU threads complaining about having the responsibility for things like buying presents for armies of relatives on husband's or partners' side. Why agree to do it in the first place?

Especially when societal expectation is weighted towards that situation occurring in the first place and the women are being the conscientious ones

Is it ? In the context of 2 people living together? One party has no volition of her own?

AskBasil - you do realise I am a woman, just as much as you are? Just because I am not inclined to sympathise with women who do loads of domestic shit then whinge about it, doesn't actually make me a man. It makes me a woman who doesn't do much housework. You should try it - it's great

Just to be clear AskBasil that is not my quote, as it looks like you are addressing me.

Nice why not polarise the argument by using example of a man banging heads against walls. When we all know physical abuse isn't the only sort of abuse there is.

Seriously if you can't see how one woman moaning about her dh not pulling his weight. Is not abuse. There is no point carrying on with this thread.

Why don't you just carry on whining , it's snot fair, and then do fuck all about it.

No skin of my nose. I'll just carry on with with my life, and still call a sexest a sexest when I come across them.

You seem to be assuming that all the women who are in this position have 'demented hygiene standards'. It's obvious from a brief perusal of the relationships board that it isn't about that. It's about men who refuse to support their partner or behave as a member of a team, who essentially see their partner as a maid.

where we all have the right to expect to feel comfortable and safe, into an uncomfortable, horrible place to be

Just before I go. I do have to agree with you on this.
My answer? Leave the sexest bastard.

Unless someone is genuinely crazy, it is pretty nasty to deliberately make their home, where we all have the right to expect to feel comfortable and safe, into an uncomfortable, horrible place to be.

Yep. Spot on.

Hey, I have no problem with my life, I solve the problem of lazy good for nothing men by not living with them, not blaming women for the fact that they are lazy and good for nothing and telling women that they deserve it. I'm not addressing any poster personally, I'm addressing this tide of sneery shit that masquerades as feminism while refusing to actually apply a feminist analysis to an issue that is being asked about in the FWR section. This isn't AIBU, it's FWR and so the questions raised are perfectly proper to discuss from a feminist POV.

I ask again: if somebody deliberately, continuously does something in a relationship that they know hurts and distresses and angers the other party in that relationship, how would you characterise that behaviour, if not as abusive?

What would you call it?

And of course ILeaveTheRoom...(and now I am addressing you ) when women say to other women "leave the bastard" because of him not pulling his weight, they are told that that is a frivolous, outrageous, irresponsible thing to tell a woman - because housework is trivial and marriage is serious and how can you be so ridiculous as to advise ending a relationship over a few unwashed dishes.

Well, my feminist analysis is that women shouldn't do so much housework. I am always amazed by the amount of cleaning etc that seems to go on according to Mumsnet. As I said previously: Just. Stop.

Well I wouldn't say that to them and trivialise it. So I hope we can agree on something.

Look I don't want to blame a woman, but I do find it frustrating. Because as I have said before it is right up there on my will not tolerate list.

I understand that it is obviously not on other womens lists and it saddens me.
And yes needs to change.

It's not a feminist analysis to say women shouldn't do so much housework when

a) you are not defining how much housework they are doing

b) you are not defining how much they "should" be doing

c) you are not defining what the point of all this so called "too much" housework is.

d) you are using the word "should" in regard to women's behaviour, always a tricky thing in a feminist analysis of anything.

Most people understand housework to be just cleaning up your own shit. Putting dishes away, hanging clothes up, putting stuff back in cupboards when you use them. That sort of thing.

Most women who complain about their partners exploiting their domestic labour, are not complaining that their houses don't look like houses in advertisements. They are complaining about the fact that they are having to do all the organisation, thinking and "ownership" of routine domestic tasks.

The pretence that women are doing too much housework because they are too stupid to relax and read a book, and so malevolent that they want to inflict their irrational housework mania on their long-suffering, rational husbands, is born of pure misogyny. It plays into a stereotype which really doesn't hold up in most of real life.

OK - women should do as much housework as they want - is that 'should' OK? In may case, that is very little.

My definition of 'too much' housework is any amount that makes you unhappy and feel like an exploited drudge.

Honestly, there is nothing misogynistic in saying women shouldn't do housework they don't want to do. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But it won't change ILeaveTheRoom, if we continue to blame women for it, rather than requiring men to tackle it.

Telling women that they should just leave their husbands if they stop pulling their weight, is placing the burden of changing men's behaviour, on women.

It's an individual solution. It works for me. But most women want to live with men and buy into the idea of heteronormative families and most of this exploitative "I've forgotten how to load a dishwasher or pick my own socks up" shit, starts after women have had children with men (coincidentally just like most domestic violence does).

Men start behaving like this when their negotiating power has increased - because in patriarchy having a child makes a woman less powerful (less able to earn her own living, less marketable, less attractive as an employee) while it bestows power on a man (fathers are paid more than non-fathers, even if you weight data for confounding factors like age and class - they are seen as more mature, more serious, more committed adults, better employees). At a gut level, men know that having children makes them powerful and funnily enough that's when they start to abuse the power their society gives them.

Women don't know that. It happens gradually, imperceptibly, over the course of years. And to be fair, men don't consciously know it either and that's why it's so hard to recognise it's happening until you realise you've got to this place that 20 years ago, neither of you would have predicted or wanted.

It's not good enough to just say that women should simply walk out on their homes, marriages and relationships and embrace poverty, stigma and conflict, because this happens. "Leave the bastard" is not a feminist response to a crie de couer from someone who is asking for support and comment (she's posted in FWR, she could have posted in relationships, AIBU etc.) That might ultimately be the only solution, but it is not a practical analysis of why this happens in relationships and how to guard against it.

"Be like me, not stupid enough to choose the wrong man" is just a pretty shit response IMO. I don't recognise it as a feminist one, just a cool girl/ mean girl one.