Men whose lives are facilitated by women - how did this happen??!

[windygallows]

Now that I'm in my mid-40s I look around at my peers and am astounded that so many men my age have their lives facilitated by women: wives who don't work or who work part time who manage the household and make lunch for their DHs and do all the childcare and prop men up. It's just amazing how many men have a leg up by this support.

And they become blind to what it's like not having that support. My boss has a female PA, two female assistants, and a wife at home who looks after the household - leaving him totally supported and completely free to focus on his job. He thinks he's responsible for his success and doesn't understand why others can't mimic what he's achieved or even the time he dedicates to work.

How did we let this happen? How did we create a situation where so many middle aged men have such a leg up over women because they've been given so much support?

I've put this in Feminism because for me this is a feminist issue. If anything this situation it creates an absolute imbalance in life but also in the workplace, with men given much more freedom to dedicate to work and devoid of many domestic responsibilities that burden women.

I've also put this in Feminism because I'm trying to avoid the usual comments by women like 'We're a team' (referring to her and her DP) or comments like 'It works for us' or 'DH works hard and makes enough for both of us - should I go out to work just because you want me to.' blah blah blah I appreciate too that some women benefit from a set up where a DP/DH is 'looking after you' when you then facilitate/prop up his life in return, but I'm not quite sure it's really helping anyone in the grand scheme of things.

For context I'm in my mid40s, single with 2DCs and work FT and definitely frustrated when I see the advantages that 'facilitated men' have in the workplace and in life.

FaFourtis
There's no such thing as free choice

This belief lies at the heart of this and many other debates here. If you genuinely believe this then it pushes you towards having an entirely external locus of control and playing the role of a victim in any situation. It means that giving consent is actually impossible.

It also forces to question what a "belief" is. None of us were born with any. They are learned so they can (with effort) be unlearned and replaced. I don't want my daughter to believe she is incapable of making choices. She might not be able to change society or her situation but she can always choose her response.

Shouldn't that be at the heart of empowering ourselves?

I constantly get told how lucky I am with my oh as we do work as a team to facilitate each other’s careers.

For example we share pick up/drop offs, work together to figure out who is best placed to stay at home with a sick kid/Drs appointments, etc.

He grew up watching his mum do everything for his dad who couldn’t/wouldn’t even make a cup of tea for himself!

But still I get told by women that I’m lucky. No, I’m not, I have someone who is my equal partner in our family.

I will bring my sons up to also be equal in their relationships and not expect someone to pick up after them.

melody no.

Feminism is not just about me, me, me.

It's about making the world better for women as a class.

To misquote Caitlin Moran: just because the poison hasn't killed you, don't leave it behind for another woman to eat.

I can see the problem and it hurts.

I was the main earner in a senior career role, husband was setting up his own business, DD1 in private nursery - husband doing drop offs, pick ups & tea times as he had no boss and could be flexible. It worked well.

3 years later and his business is successful and thriving, he travels around the country and overseas for work - often overnight. I have given up my role to care for DD1 and now DD2. His long working hours and mine were incompatible with having children. it was a reluctant decision.

I do all childcare/domestic work/school liaison. I don’t get any time to myself without the children. I don’t feel that the work I do is valued, or even recognised. His response when I raised the fact that I was feeling flat and unfulfilled was “look for a part time job”, essentially adding to my load of “wife’s work”.

I love my children so much but I have gone from a professional woman to a facilitator and I’m really feeling it.

I'm an academic with 3 children. I'm finding I do not have the mental energy or freedom to progress any further. All those above me are men with wives who do the childcare, and those are men who have very little (or mostly, no) mental burden from having children.
From the outside my marriage looks equal, husband does childcare about half the time, but it absolutely isn't despite everything I try. I'm a facilitator too, to my shame, but the people who would suffer if I didn't do it would be the children.

The thing with it being a structural issue, is that even if you have perfect "loo roll parity" (which rather trivialises other women's real concerns, Lass)

I didn't make the point first. My point was why take on all this drudge work in the first place? Posters seem vocal enough on here that they hate it all falls to them. It does not require a vast societal change to sort out the allocation of drudge work in your own home.

Windy, then isn’t your ex dp facilitated by not having to do half of everything for his own kids, because you’re doing it?

We both work ft but DP works from home. I think we share pretty equally but it is still bloody hard.
I’m doing housework/childcare all weekend while he finishes a project. Then I start work again on Monday.

Many male colleagues have a wife with a ‘wee job’ at home. They are not exhausted on a Monday morning.

Posters seem vocal enough on here that they hate it all falls to them. It does not require a vast societal change to sort out the allocation of drudge work in your own home.

You don't get it Lass. There is no free choice.

God yes even at work! There’s a bloke at work, same grade and position as me, who has several times demanded that I do facilitation things for him.

These are not my remit, not my project, and the request is not couched in an ‘I know you’ve done this before and I never have so can I seek your advice.’ But in an ‘I want x and I expect you to do it.’

When I politely but firmly pointed out that x is not my project, he got arsey and asked me ‘what exactly it is you’re supposed to be doing here’

Jaw dropping.

it does not require a vast societal change to sort out the allocation of drudge work in your own home.

We DO fifty fifty at Home. I’m STILL disadvantaged because my work and his work EXPECT this dynamic to exist and treat us accordingly.

This is a topic very close to my heart. When I first got together with my now DH I earned slightly more than him and my career prospects were probably slightly brighter. Fast forward 10 years and following two (1 year long) maternity leaves, not to mention the inevitable wind down that happens during the last few months of pregnancy, and add to the mix the fact I reduced to a 4 day week and worked from home a few days a month, and my DHs earnings (pro rated) had overtaken mine. It all felt like a big cliche.

Now I was raised by a working mother who instilled in me a fundamental belief that financial independence is key. So what did I do? I persuaded my DH to switch to a 4 day week (this was not an easy thing for him to request! We both work in (alpha) male dominated industries).
I reviewed my current position, realised I had been pigeon holed and was essentially on a "mommy track" and so I went out and got a better job that pays marginally more than my DHs so we are back where we started. (I requested a 4 day week and fortunately got it). But most importantly for me and my children, we are a near 100% egalitarian household where we both work 4 days, we share domestic activities and "wife work". My DH doesn't need to be told to go and buy and wrap a present for a party. It's not hard and all these "senior " men also have to remember very very mundane stuff to excel in their jobs. (Think if the tedium of preparing a presentation to the board, every slide meticulously picked over and edited). They've just been let off the hook at home so it's someone else who takes the blame if a present isn't nicely wrapped. We need to start delegating to men at home and accept they might take some time to get up to speed but they WILL get there because clearly they manage to carry out mundane tasks at work. Because it matters to them at work.
Our house is messy, is missing all those nice finishing touches that our friends all seem to have (they mostly have one SAHP) but you have to let go of all that perfectionist stuff if you don't want to end up taking on too much on the domestic front.
The only people who can really fix this imbalance is us because men have less incentive to do so.
However having compulsory shared maternity leave would help - it's controversial as many new mums don't want to share but over the length of one's life as a parent (and employee) it pays off to establish an equal division of labour as early as possible. It's gets harder to correct the imbalance later when one parent has a successful, facilitated career and the other doesn't.

This is eye opening:

<a class="break-all" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sunday/poor-little-rich-women.html?_r=0&referer=uk.businessinsider.com/banker-wife-bonuses-2015-5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sunday/poor-little-rich-women.html?_r=0&referer=uk.businessinsider.com/banker-wife-bonuses-2015-5

This thread is really interesting and I must admit my heart sinks a little when I see ambitious and clever women go on auto pilot when they have children to play second fiddle to husbands career. Even when they are the higher earner!

I am very senior in a male dominated industry and have struggled to find women I can look up to in terms of managing their home life and career. They are either childless or never see their children and out source them to nannies etc. I raised this issue in a leadership coaching session once and the advice really stuck with me. The coach told me If I am lacking in role models, I need to work harder to become one myself. As a result I really see it as one of my responsibilities to make sure I set a path for the women to come up behind me.

I did the whole first mat leave and then my partner went part time when I returned to work. Second time round I took 5 months and my parter took the rest. We outsource a lot of household chores with a cleaner but child care is equally split. I earn twice as much and could support the family on my income but have never felt entitled to facilitation but feel if I were a man it would be a different story.

I don't find the "he earns a good salary" a particularly compelling explanation for facilitating. Until the mentally of children being both parents responsibility becomes the norm, then the imbalance will continue.

I’m wondering whether the real issue isn’t the “facilitating” as such, more the lack of recognition of the facilitating?

The usual feminist perspective is the lack of recognition.

I think that certainly has to be the start pugs.

When men recognise their privilege and those facilitating recognise the male privilege they're supporting that will be a good start.

We have no fighting chance of solving or even alleviating a problem we're not willing to name.

melody
I agree with you.
I hate the way feminism dismisses women's lifestyle choices by insinuating we're "victims" of the patriarchy.
I also think there's two ways of looking at it, a woman "facilitates" her husband to do well in his career, he "facilitates her" to have the privilidge of being a stay at home mum, spending time with children, which some women do value. I'd love be a stay at home mum, but I have no choice but to go to work.
Why is the career seen by feminism as the most important issue, above everything else?
I also think quotas for 50% of women in senior management is flawed. If I get a promotion it should be because of capability/merit and because I want it- let's not force women into it, ignoring all other lifestyle choices.

Generation Ex - it’s not always the salary that’s the decision maker. In our case it was time. My career is a full time career - part time not a realistic option. My working day was long, getting home after DD’s bedtime. Husband now works away several nights a week and often leaves very early / arrives home very late due to cross country travel. Both of us working these hours simply would not work without outsourcing the childcare completely.

You are fortunate that in your case your husband was in a position to work part time and take paternity leave. You facilitated each other. My husband works for himself so this was not an option for us without having a huge negative impact on the projects he was managing, and therefore his business.

I admire you for being a role model in your field. However, you must recognise the support you had in doing so. The women who outsourced their children to nannies, or gave up their career entirely did not have the same set up and support as you.

If I am lacking in role models, I need to work harder to become one myself.
This is excellent.

Not sure I agree, rather than focus on recognition can't we (women) just stop falling into the trap of become facilitators in the first place. Men are NOT biologically better equipped to go out to work and apart from maybe the first 6-12 months we are NOT biologically better equipped to parent and run houses. We just have done it more and some women have become maybe more efficient than their partners as a result but men can do it too. Society has brainwashed us all and society is still patriarchical.

I hate the way feminism dismisses women's lifestyle choices by insinuating we're "victims" of the patriarchy.

Feminism strives for the equality of women, legally, sexually, societally.

So no, it doesn’t dismiss your lifestyle choice. You’re spectacularly missing the point. There are women of colour in board positions, that doesn’t mean there still isn’t endemic, structural racism.

Your choices are your own and they work for you. That’s great. None of this debate is criticising your individual, freely made choice.

The debate is about how society is structured so that it is expected that men will have as little disadvantage from child rearing and life in general and how they don’t see that they get a massive structural advantage from this.

Your individual choice to sah or work has absolutely zero bearing on it

Okay, so we stop recognising facilitating activities then? No parental leave, no carers allowance etc?

Anatidae- exactly!

I’ve been a facilitator all my life to DP and male bosses. Actually I have just realised at this precise moment how pissed off I feel about it! Great post OP! Time for me now....

Antidae-

No im simply saying some of the suggestions-
Compulsory 50% representation
Compulsory shared maternity leave-
Is taking away rights from women who don't have the same career aspirations.
Equality of outcome and equality of opportunity are different.
The voices of feminism seem largely middle class, career women- who should recognise they don't speak for all women.
Thus I made my comment to say I agreed with melodys earlier posts- as in why do feminists feel they have the right to dictate to other women-you will share your maternity leave, you will take up management- dont want to, 1000s of women don't!