woman: mentions boundary/what she is comfortable with or uncomfortable with

man: sulks for 2 hours

woman: placates terrible man to get on good terms again, probably “making it up” to him somehow

—

bell hooks,

Feminism Is For Everybody

. (via

2nd-wave

Japan’s Working Mothers Shoulder Big Burdens at Home

Men do fewer hours of housework and child care in Japan than in any of the world’s richest nations.

My point is, stop trying to read into the behaviour of someone who is very clearly showing signs that they don’t care about you, and don’t really want you in their life. When you try to second guess and try to peel back layers that don’t exist, it’s mostly just denial. You don’t want to accept that it should be over. There is nothing else under the surface.

One of the things I hear the most from women is a fear that their true authenticity will cause injury to their relationships, this includes relationships with romantic partners, friends, co-workers and family members.   

Women ask themselves…

“Can my marriage survive my real self?”

“Will my honesty crush my partner?”

“If I become who I want to be, will I lose my close friends?”

“If I come out as my real self, will my family disown me?”

“Will I be able to remain in my job if I can no longer tolerate certain things?”

The fear of loss of relationships is a key way in which patriarchy holds us back. 

We stay stuck when we resist the risk of loss inherent in change.

feminists have written for decades how this lie endures and replicates itself. how romance covers the ugliness of actual male-female relations. the violence the power of “romance” and the indoctrination into self-less-ness. it is no wonder so many women have so little sense of self.

the truth is that many of the happiest women not only don’t have children, or get married, or even have a great romance. it is enough to be alive and wild and independent and self-directed. usually, it is better, especially for heterosexual women. and romance itself is better when it doesn’t carry that terrible weight of defining you and your life.

[…]

“The kind of man who spurns routine housework is more likely to couple up. The extra housework such men do comes in the form of DIY or managing the family finances. The economists debunk the idea that women spend fewer hours on paid work—even when they account for differences, the chore inequality persists. It’s not that women have more time; they just do more housework.”

take on weekly or monthly tasks, and think it’s equal to their wives daily tasks (even when wives also have weekly and monthly tasks)

take on tasks that require very little time or hard labor, like mowing the lawn.

take on a “project” that could be fixed by a professional, and work on it little by little but never really finish

create chores for their children, i.e. delegate rather than doing

do housework only in tandem, i.e. never on their own or without help.

volunteer on their own for some disliked task. For example, cleaning the toilets without asking. unfortunately, this tends to be seen as very loving and exceptional. Often it will be used as an excuse not to do anything else

enthusiastically volunteer to do things often, then conveniently “forget”, “make plans”, or have some sort of weird parameter to get started. When wife or child does it instead, claim they were going to do it, really!

pick a jurisdiction they already enjoy, like “take care of dog” or “the yard”

do something really badly, so that someone else has to do it for them anyway afterwards

“tidy up” a mess they made

pick up or organize clutter, however the often stressful, emotional, and time consuming task of de-cluttering is left undone or for someone else

meticulous keep clean a space that is only theirs, i.e. their study, their garage.

create tasks that aren’t needed, like “organize the toolbox” or “rearrange the bookshelf”

do tasks that require prep work that their wives will do for them (i.e. grilling the food, but not planning, purchasing, seasoning or preparing the sides)

take control of “finances” but do very little, perhaps the taxes. this is also used as a way to control their wives often

use their time with their children to play or dole out discipline/lessons, but very little time on feeding/bathing/dressing or organizing their lives. this is also away men can create a “fun parent/mean parent” dynamic

make lists of what needs to get done, discuss what needs to get done with their wives, act very invested in the housework, take on a “manager” role in the housework, but do very little of it

tell wives that what little is done in the house, by either of them, is “enough” and that he “doesn’t care” what the house looks like (this is a l i e). i.e. doing little and then making an emotional appeal that it’s fine, co-opting the emotional labor his wife does for him, but actually it’s very manipulative

getting involved with children’s after school activities, i.e. being a coach, organizing a concert, etc. often a thing he already enjoys. often does very little of the organizing/plan making. often makes little effort to create time for his wife’s personal interests

In March 2007, Spain introduced a national policy granting most new fathers two weeks of fully paid paternity leave. The policy proved exceptionally popular, with 55% of men eligible in the first year opting to take the paid time. The amount of leave covered by the program was doubled in 2017 and expanded to five weeks in 2018, with additional increases expected between now and 2021.

Economists studying the effects of the original 2007 policy examined what happened to families that had children just before and just after the program began, and found differences in the outcomes. While the early cohort of men who were eligible for paternity leave were just as likely to stay in the workforce as the men who weren’t eligible, they remained more engaged with childcare after their return to work, and their partners were more likely to stay in the workforce as well. In that sense, the program seems to have done what policy makers would have hoped.

Unexpectedly, though, the researchers also found that families who were eligible for the paternity leave were less likely to have kids in the future. In a study published in the Journal of Public Economics(paywall), economists Lídia Farré of the University of Barcelona and Libertad González of University of Pompeu Fabra estimate that two years on, parents who had been eligible for the newly introduced program were 7% to 15% less likely to have another kid than parents who just missed the eligibility cutoff. While the difference dissipated further into the future, even after six years, parents who had been eligible for the leave were still less likely to have a child again.

The researchers suggest an intriguing reason why.

After paternity leave was instituted, surveys of Spanish men ages 21 to 40 showed they desired fewer children than before. Farré and González think that spending more time with their children—or the prospect of having to do so—may have made men more acutely aware of the effort and costs associated with childrearing, and, as the researchers put it, “shifted their preferences from child quantity to quality.”