Yes, with the caveat that I don’t think this imbalance is in any way an innate “moral failing” on the part of men. There have definitely been (some) subcultures throughout history where men were the ones expected to do a disproportionate share of the work in a relationship (not just by being the breadwinner, but by providing maturity and constant emotional support to a “helpless butterfly”/“fragile flower” type, for example), and many men could/can do that.
There have also been (fewer) subcultures where men and women have been expected to do equal work in relationships, and many men could/can do that too.
But what’s going on nowadays, ISTM, is the lingering effects of longstanding cultural indoctrination in which taking domestic and/or relationship skills seriously was perceived as “unmanly”. “Real men” were expected to provide material resources but not to put more than minimal effort into direct maintenance of a household or partnership. Domestic tasks were “women’s work”, and understanding or discussing emotional issues was just part of the “irrational” “female brain” that men were supposed to find mysterious and incomprehensible.
Nowadays, a lot of men who have normalized and welcomed the notion of women’s being able and expected to do what was traditionally considered “men’s work”, and to participate in “men’s activities”, still feel uneasy and resistant about the idea that they themselves should be doing “women’s work” and “women’s activities”, due to that legacy of “manliness” indoctrination.
And tbf, it is tough for men to get constantly bombarded with all those persistent under-the-radar cultural cues about its being “unmanly” to do domestic or emotional labor, and then be rejected as relationship prospects because they’re resistant to doing domestic or emotional labor. That resistance is a moral failing for sure, but IMHO it’s one being unfairly inculcated into men rather than naturally occurring in them.
That’s kind of my point. Women care more about some of these things.
Also, I think what we have gone to is that, in general, women care more about these things. They have a longer list. But that list varies from woman to woman. And a woman isn’t a bad woman for not having something on her list, even if most other women have it on their list.
You’re not going to be considered a bad woman for not making your bed. But the consequence of there being no limits to what a particular woman has or doesn’t have on her list, we can’t hardly say that men or whoever the partner is of a woman from having a different, shorter list, not caring, opting out, etc. If it’s all individual choice, I think the concept of moral failings goes by the board. We can’t coerce people, but we can’t say anything if they don’t want to opt in. Or even opt in for a time, then opt out.
And I routinely get into some disagreement with my husband who tends to blame women for rewarding those kind of men with relationships in the first place. I don’t know what I think as far as women’s part in this socialization because to a certain extent women still do rely on men for security, especially poor women. But I’ve also seen women co-sign these ideas that men just don’t understand X as if there’s an innate way that men are that is not at least partly the product of social expectations. I don’t truck well with misandrists either.
What I do know is that the family men I have in my life have gone all-in. We are seeing married dudes play with their kids and do more of the childrearing than previous generations. My husband is one of these. I see engaged fatherhood everywhere these days. It’s a different paradigm for masculinity than when I was growing up. It’s beautiful.
I suspect that it may be more like a common problem with housework: men in this society are more likely than women to not even realize that there’s work there to be done. The idea that, for instance, before heading out for a romantic dinner it’s necessary to be aware of the schedules of everyone in the house, have a babysitter lined up, have somebody lined up to pick up the older child from practice, decide on the restaurant, make the reservations – I could go on – and that all of that is an ongoing task that required dealing with 17 things last week or last month as well as another dozen on the day: a lot of the time the concept isn’t even there. The (usually) man may be perfectly willing to do any one of those things, or even half of them, if asked – but the idea that it’s work to know which of them has to be done when and how to get it all to function together is missing.
I don’t think that’s innate. I think it’s cultural. Many of those men do the equivalent in business organization terms all the time. But they’ve grown up thinking that the social things just happen.
If “realizing there’s work to be done” means hiring a cleaning service then congrats to modern women I guess.
My ex was a professional woman. Like a lot of professional women, her refrigerator was empty, and she hired a cleaning service. I am guessing somehow I was at fault for her not taking home ec, I don’t know.
But it seems like women still “get credit” for domestic duties that they don’t actually physically perform. They get to be a part of the woman team, all women get credit for domestics whether they actually do them or not.
I have seen those surveys of housework. By far, the one most slanted towards women is decorating. Which, you know, is the fun, expensive one. Not really sure how decorating gets counted as a chore, but it is. My ex loves to decorate. Gets bored with houses.
I love that women have the opportunities to obtain advanced degrees and important work. But maybe we should stop the assumption that all of these same women are still doing the work their mothers and grandmothers were doing, just because they are women. Or that if they aren’t doing them, it’s a man’s fault.
It’s unclear to me whether the “work in the relationship” folks are discussing is about logistical work like housekeeping, childrearing, administrivia like bill-paying, household maintenance, etc., or is about emotional work like being supportive and flexible rather than demanding and inflexible. Or emotional “work” as in behaving differently than your nature because that makes your spouse happier when you do [whatever] their way.
I would really need to see this defined to agree to any sort of moral failing on anyone’s part.
Suppose it’s the woman who just wants something casual, something less. Is she morally failing her partner? I certainly don’t hear it described that way.
Suppose a man wants his partner to sit there and watch TV with him while he binges on a show. Is this a moral failing? Are his living quarters falling down around him? It’s how he wants to spend his time. Just because it’s not to his partner’s taste, does that make him a bad person?
What are the objective, societal criteria that we are willing to establish are moral failings of a relationship? Or is it just that women can demand certain behaviors for sexual access? They are certainly allowed to do that. But it doesn’t have anything to do with morality.
One one hand (the point I assume your husband is taking), if a woman lives with a guy for two years before marriage she assumes responsibility for marrying someone who’s housework, emotional connection, employability, fidelity, etc. she’s had ample opportunity to assess.
But so easily that gets taken to its nauseating extreme. A few years ago I attended a conference where they brought in a policeman as a guest speaker (why I don’t know. We were at a workplace safety seminar). He trotted out the same old crap about “after we pull husbands off their wives, we get stabbed in the back by the wives.” (Most victims of domestic abuse I’ve known, myself included, really want the cops to haul the abuser away, and for the system to follow up from there). That attitude “Ho-ho, we’re so wise to the perversity of human nature. Why expect us to help people who get themselves into these situations?” Eventually they’re zipping up her body bag and consoling themselves that a policeman’s lot is not an easy one.
I’m not talking about moral failing. I’m talking about practical failing. I don’t know why you’re fixated on this as some sort of attack on moral grounds.
If his living quarters are falling down around him, it makes him a person who most other people won’t want to marry. Does that make them bad people?
If all he wants to do when not at work is sit there and watch TV, then what he needs is a partner who also only wants to sit there and watch TV. Such people of all genders do exist. They should partner with each other. – I also hope they make or have inherited enough money to hire a housekeeper, and do so; and that they don’t have any kids. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard on the kids; and that is a moral issue. Sitting on one’s butt and watching TV is not – unless you lied and said you’d behave otherwise.
My opinion is that it would be much more interesting and useful discussion if people stopped talking about their exes, and about the moral failings of the gender they aren’t, since those are at best tangential to the OP.
I don’t think most young singles are relationship-averse, but the time when young men had a clear set of enculturated behaviors – moral and otherwise – that regularly led to marriage and family life, is past. It has not been replaced with anything healthy, as far as I can see. Young women may be in some ways healthier in general (at least they are not holed up in their childhood bedrooms playing video games and watching porn) but I can’t think this is a sustainable state of affairs.
You implictly assume that “marriage and family life” as you put it is desirable for everyone, or even just the majority of people of either gender. I’m very much unclear that that is necessarily true.
Our need for new baby humans is such that 1 in 5 of each gender could marry and make 10 babies and the other 4 people of each gender could actually have a self-actualized life worth living.
The requirement that everyone do monogamy and baby-making is Dark Ages thinking.
I agree with you that it’s not necessarily true. But I think the crucial issue is that society hasn’t yet evolved cultural acceptance and institutional support structures for alternatives to the conventional idea of “marriage and family life”.
Sure, but (though I’m not Ulfreida and don’t speak for her) ISTM that Ulfreida’s point is that our society at present doesn’t have the “clear set[s] of enculturated behaviors” that would adequately support those other people in developing “a self-actualized life worth living” that wasn’t centered on “marriage and family life”.
Yes, maybe we are on a path to universal or at least widespread acceptance of a much richer diversity of individual lifestyles and familial structures, and I for one am all for it. But that doesn’t change the fact that where we currently seem to be is in a cultural transition period that is difficult and unhappy for a lot of people. Obstacles to a workable marriage and family life have been increasing, and societal support for ways to live that are not a conventional marriage and family life have not kept up.
Many people who have children feel that the children are part of having a self-actualized life worth living.
And many people who have and want to have children don’t want to have ten of them.
It’s entirely possible to have a life worth living without having any children; and it suits some people better. And since a few people really do want to have ten kids, and somewhat more people want to have three or four, the species is absolutely not endangered by those who either don’t want to have any or for some other reason don’t have any. But that doesn’t mean that having children makes their lives not worth living.
I am. I am vastly happier in my current separated state and will be happier yet once the legalities are finalized in the next couple of months, tops.
When my dear wife of 33 years died I got together with an old friend from grad school I’d stayed in touch with all those years and rather too quickly we got married. She is a fine person and I wish her well. But we did not really meld as a couple and pretty soon we were barely cordial roommates perpetually irked at the other’s habits and limitations. I ran out of patience first and about 2 years after getting married I announced my departure. She was somewhat disappointed, but mostly unsurprised. I should have done that 18 months sooner, but I’m a slow learner.
I regret my hasty decision to get married. I’d rather still have her as an old friend untainted by our failed closer relationship. I also regret adding the “Divorce” campaign ribbon to my biography.
But overall I am a new man and over-friggin-joyed to be moving on.
I gained a lot of knowledge from the experience; some good, some bad. I think I’m better for it, but would have been better yet had it worked well. I harbor no bitterness to her, nor to the institution of marriage, nor to womanhood in general. It was just a disastrously bad fit between two people of inherent good will.
Yes, and I kind of agree with that point. And I have seen it taken to the opposite extreme. There’s a middle ground.
To be clear, I don’t think it’s a moral failing to not want to do the work of a relationship and therefore not have a relationship. I think it’s a moral failing to be in a relationship and not do the work of a relationship, and be perfectly content to let the person you supposedly love struggle because you don’t agree that being in a relationship entails making the bed or changing a diaper sometimes even if you don’t particularly want to do it.
Adult life means doing things you don’t particularly want to do and if you want the benefits of a relationship you should be willing to share in the responsibility that comes with that.
Now I know nobody’s perfect. When it comes to this stuff, housework and child care, I would call my husband exemplary, but he still leaves the dishes in the sink.
I’ve been thinking about this thread and I think there’s just a natural tenancy in society to avoid doing hard things, particularly when those hard things involve getting on with other people. People seem more quick than ever to give up on relationships with friends, family members and lovers because they don’t want to deal with the conflict. Everyone is toxic and should be cut out and if they disagree with you they are a gaslighting narcissist. Nobody should ever have to tolerate things that make them uncomfortable or stressed. That’s the way of things right now for many people. It’s been a disaster for mental health and probably relationships.
So no, nobody is ever going to 100% fulfill your needs and expectations and as long as we expect that we are going to be dissatisfied with any relationship. Even the very idea of a relationship.
I should add I don’t think everyone needs to be in a relationship. I don’t care one way or another. Some people are happier alone. So I’m not saying this mentality applies to everyone and if only people matured everyone would or should be partnered up. I’m just talking about possible reasons for the downward trend.
I have a cousin who never found a guy she deemed worthy of her attention, so in her thirties she had IVF and became a single mother. She’s a great Mom. I don’t think she had unreasonable standards for men, but she didn’t find the one. When people ask her when she’s going to start dating, she laughs and laughs. “Do you understand anything about my life?”
In my experience, what you describe “more aspirational” is what I’d qualify as grossly hypocritical, bordering on the delusional.
At 49, I’ve been single for almost 2 years. In that time, I’ve had dates with about 20 women. Most of them had endless lists of criteria that the man they would perhaps deign to pay some attention to had to fulfil 100%. When asked what they brought to the table, they seemed genuinely upset. And I won’t even go into the constant stream of transparent lies, all the while oozing bitterness and scorn. Frankly, their “relationship skills” seemed close to zero. Needless to say, almost none of those dates went anywhere and the couple that did where very ephemeral flings.
Middle-aged women are also retreating into fantasies, different ones, but fantasies all the same. I have no reason to think that younger ones are better in that respect.
I wasn’t implicitly assuming anything of the kind. If young people are unhappy and mentally unhealthy that is a societal problem. If there are significantly larger numbers of people now than there previously were, who would like to have sexual relationships but don’t find it is possible, that is a societal problem.
People being fulfilled and happy because they have the freedom to make choices other than man + woman + children is not a problem, not in my book.
Ecologically speaking, we would be better off if humans were barely reproducing at all. From what I can tell we’re about seven billion too many.