I’m not sure why it became a peeing match over which partner is more or less appreciated in a relationship.
In today’s world there is more than enough stress to go around.
And my saying the one that works experiences a different type of stress did not mean I don’t think the other partner experiences stress.
Like I said this shouldn’t be a peeing match. Life is hard for everyone involved and a successful marriage or partnership requires a crap ton of work by both people to make it work.
It’s not. The role that women play has never been considered “real” work and has always been seen as “lesser” than work outside the home. It still is not considered “real” work, when it very much is. Again, we ALL know that having a full time job is stressful since most of us have full time jobs and there is so much popular culture that reinforces that. Duh. But women who raise kids and keep house are still assumed to be “getting out of the rat race” which ignores just how much actual labor and stress is involved. Everyone thinks that women who do that are “getting out of something” when they are very much not.
It’s very much like responding to BLM with All lives Matter.
Both my parents worked. My mom was the breadwinner and the homemaker. She had two paying jobs for most of my life and one unpaid job. I see a lot of wasted potential in those memories
And THAT is the most common reality in today’s world. And even so, women who DO stay home are STILL working stressful jobs that is not remunerated at all. Shouting that it’s also stressful to work full time and “support” a family is just diminishing that. 
It really is about what we value in our society, and the labor that women do as women is not valued.
Real talk.
That this thread is even still going is fucking disheartening.
Especially since this has been a topic of cultural discussion for decades now from the start of the second wave (further back if you look into the works of more radical feminists of the first wave). But we keep having to reintroduce it, because nearly every bit of progress women make in our modern society comes with a couple of steps back. It’s especially disheartening right now, as our basic rights of bodily autonomy is directly under threat right now.
I saw this exact thing manifest itself (again) in a novel I wad listening to the other day. One of the women characters, “came from money and so didn’t have to work, but chose to anyway.” One of the male characters “came from a wealthy family that went back generations,” then it went on to describe his business dealings.
Subtle sexism still is, and that kind of characterization happens all the time.
That’s a perfect example!
I wonder if there’s a Bechdel Test for this sort of thing (women who “choose to work” alongside men in identical circumstances who simply “work”), in novels.
Yes.
And baked into that premise is that women somehow find all their innate value in caregiving and housekeeping, and it’s the outliers that would seek such meaning and fulfillment elsewhere or in addition to that role, like through a career. And for men, the opposite assumption plays out. How could he be truly fulfilled as a man if he didn’t strive to be a captain of industry?
I have my eyes on the prize.
Can’t speak for them, but for me: Partly. Another part was outright hostility and shunning for being a man in an otherwise children/women only environment. Also quite a bit on condescension, because “as a man I couldn’t possibly think of everything” (M’am, please, I was the Burt Gummer, handing out spare clothing, band aids, bags like candy.)
My wife was just telling me her best friend’s husband doesn’t cook at all. In contrast, I was preparing dinner when I heard this.
I just don’t get it because I learned how cook in my early teens. Even my friends know how to cook to some degree.
We all grew up with 2 parents working. The one friend of mine whose mother stayed at home was working the family business. It was just a survival skill. You want to eat well, you learn how to do it yourself. (Except baking, I totally can’t do it.)
There may be a good reason. He may be a terrible cook. But he better damn do the dishes!
This reminded me of a friend I had in college. He wasn’t in college, but kind of college adjacent, and lived off campus and we’d hang out there and do our homework and (you know, some people) smoke pot or whatever.
One time he had a pretty bad cold so I got stuff and went over to make him some soup. He didn’t even know if he had a pot to cook in! And he lived solo!
I did find one way back in a cupboard and found some utensils somewhere, but I just couldn’t imagine living in a house, but without the means to prepare food. Blew my mind.
Funny. When we married, Ms. Pane didn’t know how to cook much of anything, despite coming from a family where her mother cooked everything, had a meat-and-two-veg meal on the table every night, etc etc., and had a sexist father who saw any non-outdoor cooking at “woman’s work.” I did almost all the cooking, which I learned working in restaurants as a line cook and then head cook. I still probably account for 80% of it in the household. She’s learned a lot, and has a half-dozen dishes we all love, but it’s just not her thing. And that’s fine. She does the money, and likes that. I cook, do laundry (not hers, but mine and the kids’), and fix stuff. It’s an eminently fair trade, in my opinion. I love to cook, and there’s something meditative about folding laundry. And it’s been an interesting model for my boys, who think my F-I-L is weird for not knowing how to cook and not being able to do his own laundry (as well as for all his other assholery).
And still if someone asks who’s the cook in the house, it makes my Ms. Pane very uncomfortable when the kids say it’s me. Parental misogyny is a long-acting poison.
That’s too bad. I’ve learned to embrace the fact my husband cooks. So much misogyny is internalized and even enforced by other women. My cook husband and I were discussing that woman-enforced misogyny in regards to vulva and vagina appearances and perceptions (embarrassing, ick, not to be discussed). I was explaining my efforts to help our daughter establish a healthy understanding of her body before other people, including so many women, start trying to police her.
I should have been more clear. It makes her uncomfortable when it comes up in front of other people. Like, we’ve had a couple times where the subject of cooking comes up and the kids will say “dad does most of the cooking.” They say it innocently, because that’s just how the house works so it’s normal. But when it’s said in front of others, she definitely is uncomfortable because of the cultural BS that goes with “women cook.”
That’s exactly what I meant. It would be nice if she could spare herself that discomfort. I’ve felt it too 
