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.

I agree PolarBearGoingSomewhere we were fortunate to have the same set up when the DC were little and I don't regret it for a second. Not saying that it's for everyone, but I'm very grateful for that time and was very good at providing the DC's childcare. DH benefitted indirectly, but I did it for the DC not him.

The problem is biology. Pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, recovery. All things that men can't do and which require our time and energy. We are expected to slot into a world built around male wants. The goal should be supporting women who want to give this stage of their lives their full attention. Making it easier for them to get back into work at the same level when it's time.

Babyjungle

I totally agree with you, it isn't men holding us back, it's other women.
My theory is that women who criticise others is because they think their decisions are the only right ones. Because a certain situation works for them it must do for others, they are successful and other women can't be as successful as they choose something different.
One person's success is another's failure.

I’ll write more later, but this is definitely something I recognise & it makes me so, so angry.

palliser, this is a key insight

"In one way I think women have it worse now in that society still subconsciously expects men to be facilitated while utterly denying the value of that facilitation."

YES YES YES

I have had this conversation so so many times with my DH.

But can I say it’s not the DH fault entirely for example my mother in law looked at me with utter distaste when I said I want to go back to work after 4 years and not stay at home with the kids. Organising all the childcare is down to me. Everything from food, clothes, trips, finances, getting a boiler quote, hair bobbles, activities (carting kids too and from) on top of this I work part-time from Home now to facilitate the kids school run as DH couldn’t possibly go in early one day a week to do this.

Really gets me so so mad. When I gave up work I earned more than DH. Now I’m with a new company I’m having to rise through the ranks again.

Fuck it all. Makes me so mad.

One of the things that really irritates me is when women say"Oh, we divide everything 50:50 in our house. I do all the cooking because I love to cook and he burns water, I do all the housework because he doesn't do it as well as I do, I do most of the childcare because I work shorter hours than he does, and anyway he doesn't know their routines. And he puts the bins out, mows the lawn, puts oil in the car and puts up shelves. Oh, and empties the dishwasher. We play to our strengths"

The system isn’t going to change until individual men start giving up a little bit of their privilege to facilitate individual women.
YES.
Why is it our fault for "letting it happen?"
Men have to give a bit too, and they don't want to, or see why they should on the whole.
I have 2 sets of couple friends who are both in the same industry and work freelance. Both agreed that when the baby came, she would take the first year off, then he would take the next. (It's film industry, so impossible to work part time-you're either working or you're not).
The idea in both cases was to take it in turns to take jobs.
However. .after that first year the phone kept ringing for the man. Even producers who knew that the woman was now available again were still trying to hire the man, maybe withthe assumption that as the baby was still young the women wouldn't give 100% to the job.
And so both mens careers rose. .bigger and better jobs, more opportunities. And both women got stuck. And extremely frustrated. Careers that had been carefully nurtured and worked on fell by the wayside.
All that needed to happen was that John would say to the producer " no, I can't, but Jane (whose services you used on such and such a project) is available. But they didn't.
Because deep down, they wanted what they wanted, and their wive's careers were always going to be 2nd to theirs in their mind.
This is why the film industry is such a sausage fest by the way, which incidentally impacts on women in other ways.
Yes, some men get it (weirdly I had a convo with dp yesterday where I said I needed to grow my business and he suggested changing his crazy long hours and moving into a different role, specifically to facilitate me by just being around when I can't be, but that's one man. In general, men don't offer that. Which is partly why I love him!)
Facilitated men are running the fucking world, and yy about the smug 50 something fat cat who thinks he did it all on his own.

"In one way I think women have it worse now in that society still subconsciously expects men to be facilitated while utterly denying the value of that facilitation."

Absolutely a hundred percent this.

I don't see this as a male/female problem though, more of an individual.

Maybe on some individual levels it isn't male/female but as long as the majority of the ones facilitated are men and the majority of the facilitators are women then it is a male/female level. As someone said it is a societal issue.

If you have dc and both want to work then of course neither of you can reach the dizzy heights of super career.

I disagree with this too. Yes you can and I know several people who do - both high powered lawyers/doctors etc. Nearly all of the women I was friends with in law school are now parents and partners of similar if not greater status to their husbands. You just have to utterly focus on work and children, and throw a ton of money at the issue - drivers/nannies/cleaners/tutors/ etc. Or team up with other parents.
I am in a car pool with 8 parents (run by a dad). Nearly all of them are in 2-couple, high powered career relationships. We go out of our way to facilitate each other, emailing pick up times, waiting 15 minutes so another parent doesn't have to come out, etc.

What you can't do is have 2 high powered careers and have children whose lives are run primarily by one parent - you need significant help from someone. Having seen all sorts of combinations, including children whose parents sub out a lot of the driving/collecting/after school stuff, I'm not sure it makes a blind bit of difference to the child's happiness and success - the children I know are now all age 15-20. And I say this as someone who did pull back a bit so I would be the one in the car with my kids.

This thread is brilliant. I particularly love the way several posters have framed the "team" concept as one which is fine as long as it works but highly risky for the facilitator if the relationship doesn't last. So true.

@Anatidae My DH reckons there’s now a Daddy-track at his work and that the real high flyers are people (male and female) without children - partly because they’re prepared to be on call 24 hours a day but also because things like no private school fees and smaller rent allowances for international postings mean they’re cheaper to employ.

”In one way I think women have it worse now in that society still subconsciously expects men to be facilitated while utterly denying the value of that facilitation."

Absolutely a hundred percent this. X2

I think what you describe is starting to change but it will happen still as it can be beneficial for one parent to focus on their career and the other take time out. It's also a fact that women often don't want to settle for a man who is likely to earn a lot less than her. Numerous studies have shown this, yet men are happy to marry women who earn less. Therefore you are more likely to get the husband focusing on work and the money from that shared as a family with the wife who is helping too sharing im the monetary success of the arrangement. As for those in very high up roles, yes more are men and I'd welcome more equality there, but whoever is in that role, you need assistant/s. Being a CEO or CFO for example is a BIG job.

Everything from food, clothes, trips, finances, getting a boiler quote, hair bobbles, activities (carting kids to and from) on top of this I work part-time

Me too, but it's a bloody walk in the park compared to what dh does. My life is unquestionably easier and more relaxed than his. I don't mean that in a handmaidenly 'we must bow down to the needs of the hard-working menz' way. I mean it in an 'I worked in the same sector as him and Iwouldn't swap my life for his for all the tea in China' way. I have not the teeniest desire to go back and rise through the ranks.

pallisers

In these instances I agree with you.
If it's managed by staff and 100% focus on work, but I was referring to the couples who don't outsource everything, or can't afford to chuck money into it.
If your role determines a facilitator, as in you need to be seen outside your normal working hours, then it's up to the couple to sort out, not the employer.
There is no way I'd have married dh if I wanted to continue in my career with kids. Childcare was not an option for me as I saw it as my job, if I hadn't I would have married a facilitator.
I wouldn't have expected an employer to make allowances because I didn't have one.
Obviously with promotion and larger salary a company/boss will want more pounds of flesh from you.
Take it if you have a facilitator, don't if you haven't.
Have the conversation before dc, continue your work until close to birth, take min maternity and find a dh who supports your career.

Well written OP & 100% true! My DH is one of those few men who are not facilitated as we support each other to further or careers while balancing kids & home equally. My DH feels very disadvantaged at his work as all the other men are hugely facilitated & have no constraints of time & place in their work choices. He understands why but finds it unfair! Most women probably find it much more unfair.

I think if everyone had to prove themselves at work on equal ground with equal support, hours, constraints..women would be far ahead in the corporate race due to their sheer ability to work efficiently in limited time!

Of course you can have a top rung career and have children! Most CEOS etc have children. But they have a wife too. And an army of women who organise them at work. Which is the point.

IfNot

A CEO obviously needs a facilitator, so if a woman wants to be a CEO she should find one, not partner somebody who also wants a high powered career. Or in pallisers example outsource everything, hence, being facilitated by staff.

I have not the teeniest desire to go back and rise through the ranks

But does that mean that you can't imagine other women do want to?

This is a great thread, OP.
I have learnt that Gloria Steinem was correct:

"Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it."

I thought I'd married one of the good guys. And he is. But I have to do all the mental/ emotional labour and it is exhausting on top of a very demanding professional life. At midnight, when you have had a 3 hour round commute, a busy 10 hour job and then you're putting the washing out onto the drier, and loading the dishwasher because no one else has, and answering the school emails re: costumes for school play etc, but you know you need to get up again at 6am and do it all over again, I have often thought- "This? Is this feminism? Is this what I thought my life would be like in my 40s? Trying to squeeze two big roles into one short week and doing it all and being beyond tired? Am I being a mug?"

And yes, I called him out on the disparity. Had to give him instructions again and again. Felt like a headmistress/ shrew and that I was married to an overgrown teenager. Wished I was gay as I was convinced a female partner would just "get it". Would not need nagging to put down their iphone and just tidy up the kitchen a bit without being asked.

So I recently stopped work. It seemed preferable to a stressed and fraught marriage. The kids are really happy and thriving. And so is the husband. I still do everything at home. But at least I have something very precious again- time. Time whilst they are at school, to look after myself, to think, to go to the gym- exercise!- and look after my health etc, to read uninterruptedly, to sleep solidly etc. And the joy of hanging out with my small humans without having to ssssssh them to take a work call etc. So there are real benefits to me too, for now.

But yes, when I see distinctly average/ mediocre male peers with a whole support network rise to the top, it is galling, when you were previously flying, pre-kids...

And yes, I do feel like a handmaiden to my family. I haven't worked out the next chapter yet. But lordy, this motherhood/ career lark is a tough gig without a wife.

I'm a SAHM by choice and on the whole I love it. But my DH acknowledges that his work life is easier because I'm home, and he takes over childcare when he gets home so I have a break. He has also had colleagues tell him he's lucky to have me at home, and he completely agrees with them.

Being a SAHM has allowed me to develop skills I didn't have the time or energy to do when I was working, and I'm enjoying the gardening, sewing, bread making I have learned over the past few years. And it also means that we'll be able to foster children, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Despite DH's level of understanding, I still do all the thinking about gifts, food, cleaning, etc, unless I push back and make it his job. (He takes care of all the utilities work, though, because I hate it and making phone calls etc is difficult with three small ones around all the time.)

I think the reason he doesn't do the thinking and planning is because his parents never taught him how to run a household. When we got together I had to teach him how to clean, how to cook, how to mow lawns, all of that stuff. His mother, despite being a medical Consultant, still considered it her role to take care of the household, even though FIL was perfectly able to deal with domestic issues as he'd taken care of himself for years before they got married.

It was a constant frustration for me early on in our marriage because he just didn't see the things that need to be done. He's a bit better now - will deal with the dishwasher & rubbish without being asked to do it - but still needs direction.

Society as a whole still views childcare and running a household as women's roles. I don't know what will change this; I suspect it's more than just parents training up their children in a better way.

I think it is easier to get everything done and have everything without a husband.

I have a good career. I have 2 kids.

I don't have the wifework to do on top of everything else (aprtox 8 hours a week just on the man?). And somehow people including dc recognise that everything in terms of housework is gonna be slightly below par and never ever judge

And at work I have total respect for being a committed employee despite having 2 kids etc.

So in some ways I benefit from the stereotypes because I'm probs appearing more 'Manly'
Don't give a shit about housework, committed to career (cos have to be!) and still manage to raise 2 fine dcs

But does that mean that you can't imagine other women do want to?

No, of course not. It's just that although I am a feminist and entirely in favour of equality of opportunity in the workplace, I think it's a bit disingenuous to imply that it is only men who can possibly gain or be facilitated by a family set-up where the woman steps back from her career. Many men and women don't enjoy their jobs and would gladly do less paid work if it were financially viable and socially acceptable and if they had a useful unpaid role to fulfil to benefit their family. What matters is having the choice.

More fantastic points. I don’t think there’s anywhere else I can discuss this - MN the last bastion of feminist thought. Sigh.

The teamwork thing is risky- it just is. Because if it falls apart ONLY the woman is disadvantaged. Time and again I’m seeing women who had thought it was working for them discarded- man skips off with a new partner and they are left with a broken world and minimal earning capacity. I’ve also sadly experienced the deaths of more than one male friend in their 30s already, and again, their partner has been left with diminished earning capacity. Women are not protected by This model. I find myself thinking ‘for The good of the family’ and when I examine it it’s always in response to an action or event that is disadvantaging me.

yes! thats so true Tibpot

Women do it and men are either content with it or oblivious. How does it change? By challenging male expectations and their world view, from the outset.

How about women not doing it?