The Modern Relationship

 

I saw a quote the other day:

“The past few decades have taught women to empower themselves, but have not taught men how to live with those empowered women”

This made a lot of sense to me.  

Over the past one hundred years, women’s rights have improved in many ways.  As a result, our way of thinking, what we believe that we can achieve and what we are prepared to put up with, has changed.

We now have our own bank accounts, can own property, can vote, have rights to our own bodies (excluding the US in that one for obvious reasons) and have our own money.   We can have careers in fields we choose, we can have a life outside of the home; we can be stay at home mothers (but only if we wish to be).  We no longer need rely on a man for our existence through life.  We can fund ourselves.  Educate ourselves.  Be a whole person outside of the "wife and mother".

In short, we now have the freedom to choose, for ourselves, what kind of life we want.

This is not a “but what about the men post”.  But it is worth pointing out that whilst women have moved forward, evolved; (some) men have not.

Some of these men still see women as the mother, the person who takes care of the chores.  The person in charge of the home.   They see the 1950s as “the perfect time in history”.

What these men fail to realise that women have always worked.  Whether it be in factories, as nurses, secretaries, teachers, cooks etc.   However.  In addition to these jobs, women were also expected to fully take care of the home and take care of the children.  They were in fact doing two jobs.  The “second shift”.  Their weekends were not time off work, they spent them taking care of the home and the children while their partners, well, didn’t.

This “perfect” time of the 1950s was when the stay at home mother was a prevalent thing.  But was it perfect for women?  Some.  Of course.  But was it a life that many wanted?  No money of their own, no freedoms and a life that was 24/7.  They were always on call.

But was this “perfect time” even accurate?  Because studies show us that around 45% of working age women were in fact working in the UK.   In the US, that figure was around 32%, or 18.4 million women.  Not a small amount.

The men that see this as a perfect time in history do so because they see women as lesser than themselves.  They want a bang maid who they can control through money and power.  I do find it amusing however that many of these men who claim they want a “traditional woman” now also expect them to pay their own way, pay half the bills.  They want it all.

But let us put aside the misogynists.  We know of them.  But they do not make up all men.

Countless studies, as well as what we hear from women day to day, is that the split of work/home/chores/children is in no way balanced.  Despite women also doing a full time job, they are also doing the majority of household cleaning, cooking and childcare.  This includes being the default parent when it comes to the child falling ill and a parent needing to take time off to be with them.

Women now contribute financially to the home.  They have their own money.  They are no longer the default homemakers.  What they want, what they deserve; is an equal or percentage based contribution to the home.    

No home life is ever going to be perfectly 50/50.  Life does not work that way.  But if you both work the same kind of hours, you should be splitting cleaning, cooking, children equally.  Obviously if one parent is working more hours, you adjust accordingly.

But why have things not changed?  Why are women still doing more?

I would say that the first men to realise that there had been a change were millennial men.  But even then, I see husbands who think that changing the odd nappy, mowing the lawn in summer and taking out the rubbish every week is equal.  Is fair.  Yet these men seem to want recognition for doing what is the bare minimum.

Worse, some of them do a household chore with the expectation of getting something in return.  Like they are doing their partners a favour.

It seems to me that there is something innate in men, in their makeup, that sees women as the homemakers and men as the providers.  Regardless of how times have changed.  Because if you follow the trend that millennial men started to realise that they needed to contribute more than simply working, coming home and putting their feet up, then each generation of men should be doing more.  But that isn’t the case.

I used to work with a girl who thought that she had the perfect boyfriend (she is 25 and so they are Gen Z).  His mother had raised him to contribute to the chores in the home so she presumed that he would contribute to their own home equally.  But that was not the case.

After contributing well enough initially, things then started to go downhill.  He started to do less and less, even to the extent that he was leaving his clothes on the floor and his plates left on tables for her to clean up.  She could not understand why, having been raised how he was.

It is a story that I have read 100s of times, from women who are Gen X, right through to Gen Z.  Women are still doing more/the majority of chores, cooking and childcare, despite having full time jobs.  There is nothing less attractive than having to take care of a man like he is a child/one of your children.

Some of these women either face an outright refusal to do more, weaponised incompetence by doing a chore/simply task so badly that you will never ask again or them stating that they are happy to live in filth.

Not all men are like this.  Stay at home dads are a thing and more men are doing their fair share.  So it is possible.

But with so many men not contributing equally, this is turning women away from relationships and can also be a reason for divorce.  A woman does not want to have sex with a man who cannot fill out a form or make an appointment without his partner’s help and who cannot understand how a washing machine works.  She is not attracted to a man who thinks that doing the washing means putting the clothes in the washing machine and calling the job done or who cannot make himself a meal if she is not there to hand hold his every step.

I think that applied weaponised incompetence is worse than the excuse of “I don’t notice what needs to be done” or an outright refusal to contribute.  Because at least you know where you stand.  An outright expectation that you will do more because you are a woman.  You know where you stand.  How you choose to move forward with that is another thing.

When weaponised incompetence is applied, this is pure manipulation.  The dishes that don’t get put away because “I don’t know where they go”.  The laundry that gets ruined because “I didn’t know what setting”.  The children who don’t get fed breakfast because “I don’t know what they eat”.  These men know exactly what they are doing.  Manipulation until you give up and do the job yourself.

Another thing that I see some men say is that “I wasn’t taught how to do x, y and z and you do it better.  You were taught”.

Frankly, this is bullshit.  I was not raised to do much in the way of chores, laundry or cooking.  I taught myself when I moved out.  In an age where Google and Youtube is at your fingertips, anything can be learned.  I myself used Google, Youtube and TikTok (yes, Tiktok!) to teach myself how to cook.

In my own relationship, we work on percentages.  We do the things we like more and if we both don’t like a task, we split it equally.  I do not feel taken advantage of.    When I get home from work, I do not have to clean up from his day and when I come home to a job done that I was expecting to do, it is wonderful.

I heard someone say once that while women want a relationship, men need a relationship.  I believe this to be true.

Because we can look after ourselves financially.  We can entertain ourselves.  Our homes are cleaner when men who (not all…) do not contribute and make a mess, are not there.  If the woman feels like she is having to be the mother of her partner, she no longer has to stay because she has no means of supporting herself.

So back to my original quote about men having not learned to live with empowered women.  This appears to be true.  Because the reality is, the men that do not contribute, no longer get relationships or marriage.  They often find themselves divorced.

But the fact of the matter is that men do not need to learn how to live with empowered women.  What they need to do is move away from thinking that the women’s sole purpose is to be the homemaker.  The mother.  The house manager.  Their second mother.

They can do it, and do when they have to.  When no women is around men are able to feed and clothe themselves and look after children if they become a single father or share joint custody.  Because they have to.

So the answer, simply, maybe is to think of a woman like they do a man.  Their equal, not their lesser and not their home help.