Uh oh. Feminists really don’t like it when dads make it obvious they are whiny, joyless, petulant shrews.
13 Responses to “Feminist: Men don’t complain enough when taking over tasks from women.”
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March 3, 2015
[…] Feminist: Men don’t complain enough when taking over tasks from women. […]
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judgybitch 
Women are a lot more public about whatever they’re feeling, and about all aspects of their relationships — including their sex lives, whether they’re great or not, and so on. And yes, we have a double standard and if a man went to work and bragged about what a great fuck his wife was, he’d be seen as quite the un-gentleman. Men are only supposed to brag about the sex they have with women they don’t care about.
When Jessica Valenti’s article about Christmas being a “clusterfuck” came out, it showed the difference between women and men very clearly. Men JUST DON’T DO what they don’t feel it’s important to do — and what they DO care about getting done, they do no matter how hard it is. As a wife, it’s been my experience that they’re okay with griping to their wives (more on that later) but their intimate circle is smaller than women’s (if they have a blog, it’s usually so they can talk about larger matters that are of interest to other people outside their immediate world).
To some extent I’m more like a man, in that I’d prefer to fall short in fulfilling social expectations regarding how much I should be getting done, rather than trying to do it all and then bitching because I’m the only one in my household who cares about certain things, so I’m having to shoulder all that socially-imposed load while everyone else gets to kick back and enjoy every holiday, yada-yada-yada.
As I’ve already shared, I was a stay-at-home wife and mom for the first 10 years of our marriage, and then, five years ago, because of some issues with my husband’s health and related stuff, we transitioned into a life where I’m working from home and supporting the family, while my husband takes care of a good deal of the household and parental duties (they are now turning 10 and 15 so he does a lot of chauffeuring now).
While it’s not our first choice, I actually love my job and in my ideal world, I’d still do it but only part time — and I feel very, very blessed that I get to schedule my work at the times that fit best with my family life, and don’t have to leave the house to go to work and therefore have no commute, and during my breaks throughout the day, I’m right where I want to be and can check in with my younger daughter who’s still homeschooling, take care of the laundry and other household tasks, have conversations with my husband, and so on.
My husband, in contrast, is really unhappy about the contributions he’s making to the family and puts himself down a lot. One day he was getting ready to clean the kitchen and said, “Well, I guess I’ll go do my bitch-work now” — and I asked him, “Does this mean that you used to see me as your bitch?” And he of course said that it didn’t, and I guess I didn’t really need to ask because I knew it wasn’t reflective of how he felt about me when I was a stay at home mom; he just feels so negatively about being a stay at home dad.
He also doesn’t enjoy being one of the very few dads at our local homeschool co-op on Wednesdays, and he feels like people look down on him. He’d started doing the Wednesday thing because I’d changed my schedule to free myself up on Tuesdays for something else I was going to do with our daughter, but then that fell through and we were kind of enjoying all the open-ended time we got on Tuesdays so I’d left the schedule alone, but my daughter recently asked me to change it back because Dad doesn’t enjoy hanging around after class while she plays as much as I do.
So anyhow, I think men and women are equal in terms of how much they complain, but women greatly exceed men in terms of the sheer numbers of people they complain to. It seems like the people who feel very negatively about certain things that they’re doing are either, like Jessica V, striving to fulfill an unrealistic image of what the ideal woman or man is supposed to be able to accomplish, or possibly, like my husband, berating themselves for NOT being able to fulfill that unrealistic image for their gender. Here’s to hoping that more people will embrace the AA serenity prayer:
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Prayers/Protestant/Addiction/Serenity-Prayer.aspx#5BbIlBmATrgFOYXv.99
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Could it be…that being a parent isn’t hell on Earth, and is actually a rewarding experience???
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This isn’t the first time I hear about this tendency moms have to complain about their day. Makes me curious what it is all about. Women’s desire to verbally communicate and receive emotional support (rather than immediate practical support) is probably a part of it.
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There was this woman who pretended to be a man for a year … Norah Vincent. I haven’t read the book but I listened to several interviews. If I remember correctly Norah thought – as a woman and feminist – that men talk bad things about their wives and family when together.
What an absurd idea! Men just don’t do that.
Anyway, Norah ended up in an asylum because, among other things, she felt that she couldn’t express herself enough and didn’t get noticed enough as a “man”.
Somehow I can relate to that – although I’m not an American Italian lesbo but a Finnish white male.
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I often wonder if it’s a taught or an innate sense in men, maybe a bit of both.
But most men figure out early that complaining won’t get them anything. Sympathy isn’t exactly something we men get a whole lot of… and often you complain to get sympathy.
Now don’t get me wrong, we complain as a way to vent, but usually to people we trust. If we made blogs about “how hard it is to be a dad” we would have all the feminist screaming to us about privilege, so we don’t.
But I thing a consequence of being taught not to complain is that we also tend not to go looking for things to complain about.
But feminists love finding places where men are better than women, and instead of telling women to improve, they expect men to get down to their level.
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Let’s distill this: women vent and men fix.
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Except for when women are fixing and men are venting. 🙂
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To be fair to the feminist “OP” Rodman. She wasn’t claiming that men are doing parenting wrong by not complaining. Rather she is worried that society puts pressure on men to not complain about their responsibilities. She even frames this as a concern for her son. I believe her.
So I don’t think this is some feminist rhetoric about how men suck at parenting because they don’t complain.
I think Dalrock, the author you are linking to, is reading to much into Roadman. Assuming hostility where there was none. He goes so far as to interpret Rodman as stating that men are too weak to complain when in fact all she is suggesting is for society to be more accepting of the troubles of fatherhood.
Now if you ask me, Rodman is wrong in her assessment of the problem, if there is a problem at all.
She thinks society places unrealistic demands on fathers. When in fact this is nothing but good all male dispossability at work.
Men don’t complain, because men can only find meaning to their lives by devoting themselves to their family’s well being.
Scary Mommy doesn’t exist because society decided that moms could complain about their problems. It exists because we tell women that they are priceless special treasures deserving of everything by virtue of breathing.
Maybe we should do the same for men. But would society survive that?
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“Let’s distill this: women vent and men fix.”
Yup. (yes I know…exceptions, NAWALT, blah, blah)
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I read the book “Self Made Man” despite being a bit sensationalist in parts Norah was very positive about men. Observing many positive traits and correctly identifying that men are: ” taking care of business” while hiding their emotional hurt and responsibilities. She is critical of the way women see and treat men as their supports and “backdrop” and ends with a call for men to liberate themselves from the heavy expectations placed upon them. I’d suggest it’s worth a read and despite her feminist credentials she is mainly respectful of the men she meets. She has the grace to recognise that as a new York media female she is privileged and powerful in contrast to many of the men she meets in her adventures.
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I suspect that the strong sense of loyalty is at play here. Men demonstrate loyalty to family and friends by not dissing them publicly. Men I know are constantly frustrated by what they regard as disloyalty or disrespect by their female partners willingness to “broadcast” their gripes.
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Men don’t complain because they don’t *dare*. Every daddy whose head isn’t firmly in the sand knows that he is part of the family only on sufferance.
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