181–190 of 449 posts
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Maybe he's never going to give a shit because her expectations are just too high. American women have sky high expectations.
> American women have sky high expectations This is as sexist as the article itself.
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I think it comes down to communication. If my wife said "put your clothes in the hamper because I want you to, and that's where they belong", I might fail to put them there. If she said "put your clothes in the hamper because leaving them on the floor makes my life a lot harder, and also I might get sick", I would never fail to put them there. By framing the issue as something I care about (my wife's health and happi…
And the author of the article states that communication is not happening effectively in her marriage in part due to gender norms influencing mental models and expectations. And I am telling you that effective communication in my marriage on that one detail took 16 years to finally achieve. Most of the comments here are pretty dismissive and attacking of the article and its author, while acting like she is just an unr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it comes down to communication. If my wife said "put your clothes in the hamper because I want you to, and that's where they belong", I might fail to put them there. If she said "put your clothes in the hamper because leaving them on the floor makes my life a lot harder, and also I might get sick", I would never fail to put them there. By framing the issue as something I care about (my wife's health and happi…
And the author of the article states that communication is not happening effectively in her marriage in part due to gender norms influencing mental models and expectations. And I am telling you that effective communication in my marriage on that one detail took 16 years to finally achieve. Most of the comments here are pretty dismissive and attacking of the article and its author, while acting like she is just an unr…
Altering behavior's rarely worked for me. My own, sometimes, my spouse's... well, pretty much never. So if it's the effect you want gone, it's often possible to make it go away really fast and with little fuss (often praise!) through a change in your environment. I'm sure lots of people of both sexes put this into practice, but I can say with certainty that it just never, ever occurs to some, and they'll put up with and complain about the issue indefinitely if someone else doesn't spend a few bucks and a few minutes making it permanently disappear.
[1] just taking your example, not implying that the solution was appropriate in your case or that it wasn't attempted and failed—to be clear, this approach definitely can't solve every problem.
"If I were to point out random emotional labor duties I carry out—reminding him of his family’s birthdays, carrying in my head the entire school handbook and dietary guidelines for lunches, updating the calendar to include everyone’s schedules, asking his mother to babysit the kids when we go out, keeping track of what food and household items we are running low on, tidying everyone’s strewn about belongings, the une…
Yes. It's the wrong term. She objects to having to manage some of the household tasks. She doesn't want to manage the housecleaning or manage child care. Fine. Managing is work. No need for the different nomenclature.
When I was a manager, kicking the micromanagement habit required months of conscious effort. It wasn't easier at first. A problem with most bad habits is that overcoming them involves things getting worse before they get better.
It took a while for people to believe that they could make their own decisions. Most of them had already been doing so, but keeping their managers out of the loop. Giving up control meant that I was actually allowed to know what was going on.
If someone complains to me that people aren't taking initiative, I ask them if the people are really allowed to take initiative.
> It was obvious that the box was in the way, that it needed to be put back. It would have been easy for him to just reach up and put it away, but instead he had stepped around it, willfully ignoring it for two days. It was up to me to tell him that he should put away something he got out in the first place. > “That’s the point,” I said, now in tears, “I don’t want to have to ask.” This kind of irrational thinking en…
Are you really arguing that most adults don’t realize that taking down a box which has a specific home then not putting it away for a few days is mildly annoying and irresponsible? That someone would magnify mild irritation into a source of tears does sound like a communication break down, but... this was a pretty good example of a reasonable expectation from any housemate. Having to be the nagging asshole is, in fac…
Also breaking out in tears over such an innocuous thing is textbook emotional manipulation.
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I think you're arbitrarily privileging "giving a fuck" over "not giving a fuck". Try this: Alice wants Task X to be done. Bob does not care whether Task X is done. Let us stipulate that, if Task X is not done, nobody will be materially, objectively harmed. Alice says: because I want Task X, you will do Task X. Alice does not ask Bob's opinion on Task X, but rather assumes that Task X is inherently necessary, and ther…
It’s usually because not doing the task has very real negative consequences and due to the sexist nature of modern society the consequences fall most heavily on Alice, not on Bob. Don’t buy the nephews birthday cards? The relatives think badly of Alice, not Bob. Take your son out in mismatched or slightly too small clothes? People pass judgement on Alice, not Bob. When Bob doesn’t think something is necessary and Ali…
And no one cares what kids wear.
Maybe this article is necessary for some upper crust WASP readers who would feel the way you indicate (since I agree that is sexist and unreasonable), but it's totally foreign to me and my social circle.
Now, I suppose if the wife isn't working, then maybe those sorts of things are her "job", so I can see where it comes from. But among the younger generation I think it's more common for women to work and so people more intuitively understand household things can't just be the women's responsibility anymore.
I love working 10+ hours a day to pay for 100% of me and my fiancé's expenses, coming home, cooking dinner, and cleaning up everything while she studies for med school; going to bed early so I can do some shopping before work; and then being told I'm a useless man by some nobody with a shitty marriage on a website that's supposed to be about technology.
I dislike this term, and I'm dismayed by its recent leakage into the mainstream. I have yet to see an explanation for what it means, that is distinguishable from "being a person." The people who use the term usually seem exceptionally entitled and self-centered. The assumption that women do more of whatever it's supposed to entail is sexist, and I see little evidence for it. It seems like an academic-sounding way to…
Taking upon herself all kinds of unasked for shit, and then whingeing about having to do it. Lady, you do not need to endlessly brush and braid your daughters hair - in fact, it's shitty parenting not letting the girl take care of that herself.
Hire the goddamn bathroom cleaner. Or don't. And get on with life. I'm all with the husband: If that box on the floor really bothers you so terribly, then put it away, or ask someone to do it. Don't moan and write ridiculous magazine articles about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the author of the article states that communication is not happening effectively in her marriage in part due to gender norms influencing mental models and expectations. And I am telling you that effective communication in my marriage on that one detail took 16 years to finally achieve. Most of the comments here are pretty dismissive and attacking of the article and its author, while acting like she is just an unr…
If that was the point of the article, I think it was spectacularly ineffective at communicating it. Your points here (and above) are a far better and more succinct presentation of the argument than the article itself was.
But, from the article:
“That’s the point,” I said, now in tears, “I don’t want to have to ask.”
The word considerate means to consider how your actions or inactions will impact other people. The vast majority of the ongoing internet discussion of so called emotional labor hinges on the detail that the societal expectation is that women are required to do this. Men are not. And when a man's failure to think before he acts negatively impacts a woman and she complains about it, she gets told she just is failing to communicate, etc.
No matter how much effort a woman puts into effectively communicating what she wants, it will never put a stop to the fact that someone else's consistently inconsiderate behavior will consistently negatively impact you. That is the crux of the issue: Women as a group are asking men as a group to think before they act and are being told by men as a group "How dare you! That is an unreasonable expectation!" (In essence.)