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.

And also I was saying...
If my husband earned enough, I would gladly give up my job.. he therefore would be facilitating me in the lifestyle I choose. As is the case for many women that want to do this.

Really interesting thread. Thanks OP. This resonates with me, senior academic, very few women at my level, very few. But lots of men with partners who run their households. The result is a culture where 5pm seminars are the norm, conference attendance important for career progress and research away from home vital. Try doing that without home help.

Irony for me is how many of these couples have daughters for whom they have real academic ambition. Great, but what kind of message are they getting from their parents’ set up?

One of my favourites

Take your life in your hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no-one to blame
Erica Jong

I’m uneasy with compulsion.

There should be the choice of shared. And that’s not enough on its own, because men won’t share it unless structurally, society ‘allows’ it without penalty. It’s no good saying ‘technically you can share’ if vanishingly few men take up the leave because they feel they can’t.

Here in Sweden the leave is encouraged to be shared. Each partner has 90 ‘use it or lose it’ days and the rest is whatever you want it to be. The imposition of the use it or lose it days seems to have been the catalyst for increased male takeup, because it forces men to do a certain amount or miss out, and that has big knock on effects. Men get more bonded with offspring. Hiring choices are less biased if men might be off too, etc etc.
Sex equality is much better here as well and this happens on that background.

And still, still in all this with a dad who is equal (currently in the floor building some duplo cars with ds) we still find that it’s hard for us to be equal because society (and most specifically our American employers) are entrenched in the paradigm of facilitated man able to be free whenever and wife at home doing all the facilitating.

It hampers our choice to be equal.

20nil, are you saying they want their daughters to have careers in academia?

Again melody- the concept that women can do things for themselves doesn't fit in with modern day feminism- because we're all "victims"- of patriarchy and men and all the odds are against us. Were to believe that all our problems are because of this not because of our other lifestyle choices.
If women really did want to get ahead in their careers they could, the truth is many choose not to and are happy to keep it that way because the focus is elsewhere.

This is a very pertinent thread for me and I've been thinking about this issue a lot. I guess I'm exactly the kind of "facilitating" wife the OP describes. 3 DC, eldest is 14. In that time, I feel like I've not even had the space to even think about how to return to work. I don't even know whether I would want to now. My husband runs his own companies and is practically a workaholic. I know he won't/ can't change. I'm educated to post-grad level, but haven't been in the workplace since the age of 28.

In my case, I just knew that DH is not the type to take on 50/50 childcare and the "mental load". I know many men are and if you're with one that's great, but there are some that are just not. It's like their whole sense of self is tied up in their business achievements and they are addicted to the pursuit of money and success. It is like an addiction actually. So what do you do?

I had to make a choice between being there for my kids and creating a home life that is not too frenetic, or, splitting myself in two, trying to cope with three DC and a job - and DH. If I was a single mum then obviously I wouldn't have had the choice, but I always felt very uncomfortable about the idea leaving the kids with childminders when I didn't need to. We didn't need the money and anything I could earn would have been insignificant in the scheme of things anyway. The guilt was always stronger than the need to prove myself in a career, I suppose.

I guess DH and I had opposite mentalities - neither of us could have done what the other has done. He has been hugely facilitated, yes. You could say I've been hugely facilitated by him though. To be honest, I'm not sure what to think.

Sylvia, sometimes. But I mean more broadly putting a lot of money/time into their education, presumably in preparation for careers, while mum is at home facilitating dad. I see this time and time again and can’t help wondering what they actually want for their daughters? A great education and career facilitated by partners (like dad) or a great education and then becoming a facilitator for their partners.

Obviously, I think all sorts of combinations of work/ caring are fine for both men and women but there will be no equality or genuine ‘choice’ until they are arranged in a radically different structural context.

Vashna-
I would say you facilitated each other as a partnership and that's fine.
One way we do facilitate too much is by stepping up in terms of housework and perpetuating a myth that somehow men are incapable of this. If work is shared, so should housework be. I think the solution is a hands off approach, don't immediately do everything or tell them it needs doing.

I put a lot of effort into my children’s education because I believe education is important for everyone, regardless of their potential career. I would hope most people felt that way, especially those involved in educating young people.

This has been a fascinating thread - thank you windygallows for starting it and all who have shared their thoughts and their struggle, especially Anatidae.

I'm currently facing being made redundant on health grounds. And my mum was a single WoHM in the 80s when it was less common and the instinct to rely on myself is strong. I guess chronic ill health and disability are associated with poverty unless you are married - and my husband left last year. Anyway that's irrelevant - or a whole other thread perhaps.

I see my peers, between early 30s and early 40s maybe, and I think she who has come back full time is looked at as an oddity - but she seems less conflicted than the part time, endlessly struggling to leave on time, mums. And the malevel colleague with 2 children is a hero for managing bath time a couple of nights. It feels very entrenched and like a PP said we are struggling for role models and sometimes I feel like we struggle to ask.

Interestingly my mum and my aunt's professional achievements are one of the things I'm most proud of in them - my sister practically thinks it's child neglect, but in the fullness of time along with our female cousin we chose partners less qualified than ourselves, able to take the slack perhaps? I'm just pondering. Choices aren't made in a vacuum eh?

Missy makes some good points. Why is society so desperate for everyone to be out working and for people other than parents to do the early child rearing (after 1 yesr) because that's how it's set up (SAH parents get less tax breaks than WOH)? Is this what's best for children (after all - big picture - these are the workers of tomorrow) ?Everything is about money and this is bad for men and women. So, I'd add to my list of demands that parents should get the right to flexible and home working particularly in the first 3 years. Also childcare settings should never be for profit and the staff should be paid more.

I definitely think the 90 days use it or lose it parental leave is the way to go. There has to be proper structural changes to begin to balance the inequalities that start when children come along.

Someone up thread made the point that women usually don't like leaving their kids, or that they find it harder to leave them to go to work than men do.
This is only my experience: I also found it very hard to leave my baby in nursery, but if I hadn't had to be there at both ends of the day, running from work- if I had had a fully committed co parent who could take up 50% of the slack, it would have been much easier to go to work and actually concentrate on my job.
Often women "want" to stay with the children because it's that or send them to childcare for 10 hour days, and thats not much of a choice really.
None of this is about SAH versus WOH. It's just not!
As antidae has pointed out women who work full time still do more and are facilitated less. It's the assumption that having a family will not impact a man's job, because in the background of his life is someone taking care of the domestic details.
And PLEASE with the "just don't do it then" comments. I don't! I never have facilitated a man. But I see facilitated men all around me. I see women my age frantically keeping all the balls in the air while their husbands get better jobs, work longer hours, come home late to clean kids and their tea on the table. And I'm talking all kinds of couples- it's not confined to any one class.
And I have been facilitated in part by my mum and my aunt. I have been able to do certain things because I am lucky enough to have a tight knit family who have helped me out, but I am very aware of each and every way my family have helped me; everytime I had a work thing and my mum babysat, there was no assumption from me that she would do this. It's not the same as having 24/7 support.

missy it's not about looking for someone to blame it's about bringing change.

It's also not necessarily personal. I'm rich and successful, white and able bodied.

I've managed to bring up two wonderful children to happy healthy adulthood and had a great career.
My DH doesn't expect or want a facilitator. So we share the running of our home and lives.

There's no great need on my part to change society. I'm a winner in the game.

But doesn't it behave us to try to make things better for others?

You say middle class women don't speak for poor women. In part that's true. But they're far better at at least trying to than the rich white men who currently make all the decisions that affect women.

It’s terrible but I am guilty care for our DD alll day and go to work 4- 10 pm look after DD in the night do all house work money shopping appointments Birthday and any other occasion
But I do this because he works 40 hours on nights and goes to college during the day and has very little sleep
But in total honesty my DH hasn’t ever done any cleaning in our home in the almost 13years we have been together before DD
I hope that if our financial situation improves that he will do his own share of the work load that is ours
I want to hope that I and my daughter will have equality in the future

“the concept that women can do things for themselves doesn't fit in with modern day feminism- because we're all "victims"- of patriarchy and men and all the odds are against us. Were to believe that all our problems are because of this not because of our other lifestyle choices.
If women really did want to get ahead in their careers they could, the truth is many choose not to and are happy to keep it that way because the focus is elsewhere.”

Sorry but I call bull shit. I HAVE done this- I’m doing extremely well in my career because I WANT to and I have pushed and pushed to get to where I am. Does this mean that the opportunity set is equally available to men and women? No, no, no it is not. It’s incredibly patronising and sexist narrow minded to say that of women just “tried a bit harder” or “really wanted it enough” we could get to 50 per cent on boards (for example). And by doing it for myself it has opened my eyes even more to how much harder it is for women and how the STRUCTURES of our society and culture are set up to facilitate men’s careers / financial independence / personal wealth / quality of life. To recognise that male privilege exists isn’t being a “victim”. Denying it is like saying racism doesn’t exist! FFS. Urgh

Yumchoc, you are not ‘guilty’.

ifNot very true.

My industry is addicted to meetings. All the time with the endless fucking meetings to discuss things already discussed by telephone and email.

And whilst the industry constantly talks about diversity it never stops to think how the endless meetings might actually be a barrier to diversity .

Often women "want" to stay with the children because it's that or send them to childcare for 10 hour days, and thats not much of a choice really
Exactly, and my choice was this for a net increase in household income of about £200 per month (taking into account childcare, commuting, transport costs). So all that stress for so little money.....It's really not a free choice. The 90 days use it or lose it does seem the way to go. Also Lass upthread mentions shared parental leave, but it will take a while to see the effects of this as for many families the first was still before this was a thing.

grumpy if only women, people of colour, the disabled, the poor wanted it more...

Funny how the only people good enough to be part of the decision making processes, the only ones who want it enough are rich white men.

What a coincidence.

Yes - to the “just don’t do it” brigade - it’s the kids who suffer if you don’t. So women end up making the lions share of the sacrifices. Agree you need structural change ( like use it or lose it SPL ) otherwise the expectations (and often reality) will be that women will do that stuff while men continue to benefit from that facilitation and those expectations get continuously perpetuated.

Yep, structural change is the only way as people with privileges rarely give them up willingly.

Yes - to the “just don’t do it” brigade - it’s the kids who suffer if you don’t. So women end up making the lions share of the sacrifices

How do children suffer if your husband irons his own shirts?

There is a happy middle ground between living in squalor and being the household martyr.

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?

Um Sylvia, my DCs live with me full time and exDP lives 6 hours away and sees them once every 4 months. I'm pretty sure my situation is a different one - I have no choice but to look after them because I am their sole carer. That's different from living with a man and ironing his clothes, washing his pants and sorting his life. I do what I do because I have no choice.

I agree with ifnot I could have left my tiny DC at a creche if I'd done early drop offs and their dad had done pick ups or vice versa but he wouldn't help AT ALL.

So we were locked in to this set up where his career flourished and so he earned more and then of course his job was more important than mine and I became more and more powerless ''because I earned less''. So I'd no voice at all.

Then I left!

Happy ending. I'm doing everything now. BUT I'm not wasting my time pleading with an entitled adult to do 10%

I know women should in theory have the freedom to make the decision that works best for their own economic unit, ie, family, so if they earn less they choose to stay at home. States need to recognise this is a problem not a solution.

Incentivised parental leave for fathers
subsidised childcare paid for from tax, and yeh, pity about the men who are high earners and have to pay tax that goes towards childcare. Why is it women's financial responsibility to bring children in to the world. Generation after generation women pay the price economically for something that it is recognised we do need, population growth of 1.8% minimum is it? And yet, women are left cornered financially.