Or even my own wife’s anxious and compulsive behavior (which I can’t really link to obviously).
Now we can debate the causes and extent of this sort of thinking, but I do think there is enough cultural and IRL observed examples to describe a pattern where women tend to overthink, over analyze, and obsess that everything has to be “perfect” or they aren’t doing enough.
It’s not that the men push the unexpected tasks to the woman. It’s just that we don’t have that same sense of urgency that it’s something that has to get done RIGHT NOW to stave off catastrophe. So where the woman experiences feelings that there is SO MUCH TO DO WHY IS HE JUST WATCHING TV?! we experience feelings of “I’m home from a hard day at work, kids are finishing up their homework, I don’t have to mow the lawn until tomorrow, why is she nagging me about whatever bullshit is running through her mind?”
Also, there was at one point a general push for men to do more housework and such, but it foundered due to the problem that women just got angry about the men “not doing it right” and then re-did the task themselves. Probably an example of the “everything has to be perfect” issue you mention.
A LOT of this is you pushing your wife’s individual problems onto generalized womanhood. Which is certainly understandable, but still inaccurate.
My GF is vastly better about all that obsessive crap. Like just doesn’t do it at all. Both my late and ex- wives were the same. No nuttiness, no obsession, just calm competence. And in the ex’s case, not enough willingness to share changing in service of the combined effort.
But at the same time, when somebody calls GF with a problem, she pauses everything on her agenda to fix their problem. Because she is the fixer and they all (friends and family) know they have an inexhaustible resource of free assistance available for the asking.
That’s a hard habit to break, but we’re working on it together.
The discussion about how men are depicted in fiction got me thinking about how women are often depicted as objects to be won or obstacles to overcome by male characters. Alice Kramden had to be the adult in the room to counter the antics of her husband Ralph. Even in dramas, male characters often draw the ire of their significant others even when there’s a serious situation she’s fully aware of.
a few years back, I was genuinely surprised at Disney’s Hawkeye series. Clint gets embroiled in a plot which threatens to take him away from his family during the holidays. Does his wife complain? Yes. But she complains about a situation that sucks for both of them while simultaneously supporting Clint. She’s a source of comfort rather than being an obstacle.
I’ve heard for years that it’s important for our culture to have strong female role models to inspire girls to grow up believing in themselves. Now it sounds like you’re saying that they create unrealistic expectations. Where’s the perfect balance?
It sometimes seems to me that when women face a reality that doesn’t live up to their expectations, we’re meant to respond with sympathy. When men’s lives fall short of what our culture led them to expect, the response is more like “boo hoo, cry me a river”.
What about male characters who aren’t the protagonists of their particular stories? Think of all the redshirts on Star Trek. They didn’t have a choice to beam down and start scouting the area, no back story, they’re lucky to even have a name. Their deaths serve only to demonstrate the danger that the important characters are facing.
On one hand, I fully admit that I worry a lot more than my husband does, and I think you’re right, it’s cultural and it’s ALSO that as a gender we talk to each other and get ourselves hyped up over things. Some of these worries are valid, some are not. I think it is valid (though opinions may vary) to realize that our yard is a mess and the kiddo has a bunch of friends coming over this afternoon and this is the first time some of these parents have seen the house and we actually care about her integrating into this group and the parents liking us and so someone needs to get out there and at least weed a bit. Worrying about the kids’ birthday parties and whether we had a good enough cake and appropriate party favors… invalid. Kiddo’s last birthday we took the kids out to ice cream, no cake at all, and that was the “favor” and everyone loved it, it was totally fine.
On the other hand: sometimes I leave something to my husband and because he doesn’t have that sense of urgency it Does Not Get Done in a reasonable timeframe unless I nag. We went without a dishwasher for a YEAR AND A HALF because he was in charge of buying a new dishwasher. Finally I told him he was in charge of all the dishwashing until we got a new dishwasher. Funny thing, the new dishwasher happened pretty soon after that.
A while back, my wife made the mistake of thanking me for cleaning the house. I said, you’re welcome, but I didn’t clean it for you - I live here too, and I want the house to be clean. Cleaning is my responsibility.
We share the housework pretty evenly. I clean, she does most of the shopping, she cooks, I do the dishes, I do the laundry, she folds the laundry, I clean the kitty litter, she handles bureaucracy… it all more or less works out evenly. We’re a team, and nobody can to accuse either of us of not pulling our weight. To act otherwise would be illogical.
And if we don’t agree on something, we discuss it, and make adjustments. That’s what teams do.
Here’s a nasty little truth. There’s no perfect balance. Cultures are ever evolving and so long as we continue changing whatever is perfect will change with it. This is more of a process rather than a one and done solution.
I’m not the one who brought up fridging. But men are often seen as more disposable, so it’s acceptable for fictional men to die in droves. Fair or not, violence against men is seen in a different light.
Can you provide the source for your statement that there was a push and that it failed because women got mad? I’m curious if this is a documented phenomenon or more of a personal observation.
