Since I saw the French original propagate on social networks, I have been ill at ease with that cartoon. I'd like to discuss that thoughtfully, to determine where I am, let’s say, at fault and where there might be something troublesome in that comic.
Reading it I have a kneejerk reaction akin to the infuriating “not all men”. But it’s not that. While the diagnostic is rather accurate, I find the tone rather passive-aggressive which is rude and inefficient (probably much more effective for venting than for going forward), the way it covertly lays the blame troublesome, both things aggravated by the smallish place left to contextualization and practical solutions (the last few panels).
My kneejerk reaction goes “Why do you choose to live with an asshole? If you tolerate this, it’s your fault”. Knee-jerk, yes, with side dishes of “you complain to your friend but do nothing to fix it with your partner?”. Knee-jerk and aggressively formulated as these stand, I still believe these to be crudely true.
This kind of oppression, in my eyes, rests as much on the shoulders of women as it does on men’s. Anyone who doesn’t fight it is responsible.
I believe the cartoon misses its point. What is shown isn’t having an organizer and a subordinate, certainly not a loyal, involved, efficient one. It is having someone who is accountable for stuff and someone who plain doesn’t care, and obviously doesn’t care much about their partner’s wellbeing either. Ie; an asshole. Mental load is only a small, incidental, part of the problem shown.
Now I’ll go into side notes territory.
- It is more difficult to organize things together, to coordinate, than to have a leader and a led. The archetypal division where the woman does the house’s chores and the man does the technical or heavy work, unfair as it is, is efficient. Like dictatorships are more efficient than democracy. Depending on the house organization, there might be an equivalent mental load for the man, but I believe it is rarer and rarer.
- I viscerally hate this man/woman’s task division. If one likes a task the other despise, let them do it.
- The way men suffer from this is that they are seen as unreliable, lazy child. Gosh how I hate that.
- In my couple I have to struggle to take charge of some tasks, like the laundry. Not struggle against myself or societal pressure, but struggle against my partner who wants to remain in control of them. She knows she hasn’t to bear this alone, she knows we can share the load, but she has to struggle against her education, and It is difficult, it is hard.
What do you think? Am I being a stupid dick?
Originally shared by Sally “Jin Shei” W
https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
I think you are wrong. I am this guy. I am a feminist and I want to do more at the home. But i struggle heavily with seeing problems. I rely on my wife to point me at things. I am happy to do the tasks she gives me but I rely on her pointing it out to me. I am working on that but still, this comic did put a lot of stuff into perspective for me and helps me understand her frustration.
RépondreSupprimerSure some things are simplistic here but I agree with the main point.
T. Franzke I have those exact feeling. I rely so much (too much) on my wife at home (she only needs ask) and I really need to have something like this (or her telling me, and she does) to realize it.
RépondreSupprimerI didn't know that comic, it's really nice way to see things. All is a question of point of view...
RépondreSupprimerI mainly agree with that mental load view, but I think we should take into account the one from work (on both sides). I have tried to get the mental load from our household but my wife refuses to let me organize things yet she expects me to pitch in randomly when needed.
I try to do my best but her lack of organization push me to the comportement stated in the comic.
I really think it's a matter of organisations, sex is irrelevant, what every couple (struggling) should do is sit down, get everything on the table and organize. Get the mental load away, and put some solid rules to prevent anyone in the household from burning out.
I agree with you. Partners should be working together. And if one half isn't helping and then blaming the other when they do it wrong -- that's being a dick.
RépondreSupprimerAnd if you happen to be the guy who actually does the most housework in the house for various reasons, this comic makes you feel shit, like it implies it's impossible, as a guy, to do enough.
(Yea, I do do most of the house work as my wife has a bad back and regularly works late, not that I need a reason - I care more about the house being clean then my wife and want to be present with my kids - I also do all the traditional male house work too, like gardening, etc.)
My wife works a few jobs, as a freelancer, and she is absolutely the "organizer" of household stuff. She just is, she's always been that way. But, it was clearly way too much stuff, and I pitched in wherever I could, and we decided the easiest solution was to just keep a weekly chore schedule on the blackboard. These are the recurring things, and they're specifically the things I need to do as the one with more free time around the house. So, this helps lessen her work load, knowing that these chores have transitioned into my hands, and all it took was a conversation, and she's now happier than before.
RépondreSupprimerOn top of that, I'm an active petitioner for help. On my feet when she's doing something, asking if there's something I can do. There's usually some small thing, and my wife will pass that off to me -- it took us a while to get here though, and it took me explaining my feelings about wanting to help, wanting her to trust that I know what I'm doing, etc.
Heres the thing: expecting the women in our lives to hand over parts of their workload, just because we ask, and getting frustrated when they don't, is just more mental load from them. Why? Because when you just say "I can help with that" and they say "no" and you start considering it a struggle or whatever, there's a chance you are expecting them to understand why it's a big deal to you. There's a chance you're expecting them to know that you're feeling infantilized. So many expectations!
Why so many expectations thrust onto our partners when they don't intuitively know this is important to us? Why so much shrugging and saying "she won't let me?" I wager that an honest conversation with our partners, saying "I want to help, this is important to me, I want to feel like a proper equal partner, to feel trusted and respected" or whatever would get work out into our hands soon enough.
/sub
RépondreSupprimerMy husband is homebound with PTSD induced depression, anxiety and agoraphobia. I have had to take on all of the mental load and most of the physical as he can't leave the house on his own or remember more than one or two tasks a day without difficulty.
RépondreSupprimerI've found that the comic greatly explains the weight of the constant state of mental tasks that one has to go through every day keeping everything straight that a lot of people (including my husband before he got sick) take for granted.
When I shared this comic on FB I wasn't trying to criticize anyone for "not doing enough around the house" for cripes sake. I was just trying to open people's minds to understanding how difficult that mental load can be.... whomever carries it.
If you're a guy who does most of that in your household, by all means kudos to you. But getting into an argument about "Not all men" and all that just belittles the point and turns what should be the jumping off point to a great discussion into just another argument about gender. (sigh)
I had another approach to this comic: I thought (of course!) that it didn't apply to me. I asked my spouse. She laughed. I saw it applied to me, too (of course!).
RépondreSupprimerDiscussing the point with women, then with men, whether they were in the same relationship or not, has been illuminating. To put it succinctly: before you formulate any reaction to this comic, talk about it with a woman.
I think I would have a much more positive reaction to the comic if it was framed as relationship advice or martial advice, I'd say.
RépondreSupprimerHmmm, given how often it uses words like partner, husband, wife, father, and family, I was already reading it as relationship advice. You didn't take that away from it?
RépondreSupprimerT. Franzke, Pierre M, obviously I underestimate the necessity to open people’s eye to the problem. However, if the trouble is that one won’t believe it, or at least seriously exanimate their own behavior when their partner tells (and probably repeats) them that, the trouble is both deeper and wider than what the comics says. It is one of given trust and given credibility. Which may indeed be sexist. It might also be opening the eyes and giving vocabulary to everyone, to each member of the couple. At least it exists. I suppose it does good. I don’t object to the concept of the comic, I’d just like the execution to be better.
RépondreSupprimerLuke Wayland True, true. Sex/genre presentation is relevant because we have these societal models which tell us what we should do depending on our genre presentation. However, on the mental load /responsibility front, society exceptionally isn’t punitive when we go out of these roles.
But education, ah, how deeply it affects our behaviors and feelings.
Mark Cunningham Yep. This comic arrived at a time when I was doing most (not all) of the house and kids chores and organizing, my wife being quite busy for long days, long weeks at work. That’s the dreaded not-all-men part of my reaction.
Alfred Rudzki Yes, asking one’s partner to organize the mental load sharing is putting more mental load on their shoulders :/
Shared lists and some coordination are really helping us to share the load fairly too. Lists help much with my wife’s need to be assured that things are organized.
The most difficult thing right now is pauses. How do we feel entitled to rest when our partner is still working their ass off, simply because different chores ask for different times?
Something I do that works quite well is coming to her saying “ok, there is X, Y and Z that need to be done now, which one(s) do you prefer?”
On the whole, it isn’t easy to solve. At home, we’ve been struggling with this for years. Simply being conscious of the problem is so far from enough…
Emily Vitori I am sorry to hear about your husband. I hope and wish he’ll get better soon.
Yeah, not-all-men is a bitch. That’s one of the reason I don’t like this comic very much, because it quite steps on it.
Côme Martin I did. She was (and is) far more pissed off by the comic than I am. Or rather, not exactly by the comics, but by what people saw in it and how they reacted, as far as she could tell from her Facebook account. That is utter silence from guys and a mixture of "t'is the way it is, it won't change / there is nothing I can do to improve my situation / all the guys fault / they're totally unable to organize, it would be a disaster / they're so messy, so dirty" (with a few intermixed "and I like it that way"). This is the context of my reaction.
Alfred Rudzki bis. I am not really sure if I took the relationship advice away or not.
When you criticize like that you're basically saying "How dare you just create something from your viewpoint!" and that is fucking ridiculous.
RépondreSupprimerBe confident enough in yourself to know that doesn't apply to you and just give it a rest already.
When I see people post things about female behaviors I don't raise a stink and say "Not all women! How dare you post that! HRUMPH!"
So I really have no sympathy.
Emily Vitori of course it's not what I want to say. I won't say I know it doesn't apply to me, because that would be pretentious and if I learned one thing about sexism and other discriminations, it is how often we are blind to our own behavior, to how what we consider normality is utterly and disgustingly unfair.
RépondreSupprimerYou can count on me to do the not-all-women stuff. I quite enjoy it.
Alfred Rudzki Nope. Generally I ignore a lot of these things anyway.
RépondreSupprimerI only commented here because of Gherhartd Sildoenfein thoughts before it, not because the comic exists.
I understand your point of view Gherhartd Sildoenfein, I really do, but sentences like "I don’t object to the concept of the comic, I’d just like the execution to be better" really do you disservice. Yes, it's flawed, yes, you can poke holes in it, yes, some men won't like it and some women as well, but I'd rather acknowledge the tremendous wave of positivity it created among my female friends and the relief some of them had to finally be able to name the problem they had subconsciously known about for years, as well as the constructive discussion it created, than nitpick its content. Heck, as a comics scholar I could go on and on about its graphic content, but I don't, because I know what it says is much more important than how it says it.
RépondreSupprimerYup. THAT. ^^^^^
RépondreSupprimerAh,thank you Côme Martin, you just gave me the key I needed. Don't forget that this thread is foremost about how much of a jerk I am for thinking all this, and why, that's why I unpack. Not to destroy the comic.
RépondreSupprimerThe key is that, from what I could observe on the French propagation, I mostly saw a wave of negativity.
Nonetheless the enrichment of people's conceptual arsenal is real, and so is the acknowledgement of otherwise invisible unfairness and suffering.
Gherhartd Sildoenfein I haven't observed this wave, so I really can't argue, here :/
RépondreSupprimerBTW, Côme Martin, isn't it really important to be able, allowed, to talk about defects or weaknesses in good things (and strengths in bad things)? I find the alternative quite terrifying.
RépondreSupprimerPierre M I only saw what was available through my SO's facebook account. That's a pretty narrow view, but it's the only one I had.
Of course it is, but there's a time and place (and speaker) for that, and I'm not sure now, here and you is it ;)
RépondreSupprimero_O you're trying to mess with me, right?
RépondreSupprimerI really shouldn't answer, but I will: no, I'm not.
RépondreSupprimerof course we should criticise everything, question stuff, ask tough questions.
Should you do it in a public way, based on a very subjective opinion, talking about something which was received overwhelmingly positively? Probably not. Or, to be more accurate: if you do, don't be surprised when people call you out and/or think you're a dick.
I think I kinda get what you're saying, and we obviously do not perceive this thread the same way. I wasn't delivering a sentence. What I aim for is a thoughtful discussion, with smart people who will honestly exchange. To help me understand what I am missing or contextualize my feelings. I believe that's what we got here, and I'd like to thanks everyone for that. I am not afraid of some backlash. In fact "do you think I am being a duck for thinking this" is the question I was asking. And I got some "yes", and I am glad I got them, because these were delivered with explanation. That makes me think, reevaluate my position.
RépondreSupprimerOK! Got it :)
RépondreSupprimerYanni Cooper I use that clip to explain "yak shaving" to my co-workers
RépondreSupprimer"This kind of oppression, in my eyes, rests as much on the shoulders of women as it does on men’s. Anyone who doesn’t fight it is responsible."
RépondreSupprimerI take issue with this sentence, even though context matters (I believe I would take issue with it in any context though). No oppression rests on the shoulders of the oppressed. There are well documented coping mechanisms that can look like acceptance, yet aren't, far from it. Maybe the person just doesn't know alternatives exist, or just can't bring themselves to fight back.
Now it looks like I'm nitpicking your nitpicking. Ah well!
(Also, you calling out the passive agressiveness and rudeness of the comic sounds a lot like tone policing to me, but we're reaaaaally getting into nitpicking/subjective territory now).
I'm going to read the answers to see if you explained the context of this thead because I'm obviously missing something.
You're totally right JC Nau, the "as much" is totally, totally, unfair. I was asking for nitpicking, but this isn't a nitpick. It's huge. Blaming victims. However, it would be unfair also to say this is only men's fault. The reality is complex to pin down, and so are my feelings on this.
RépondreSupprimerI am still thinking about this. I had the impression I saw a number of women who were in a almost perfect position to fight this (good education, good job, no kids or loan or property, said their partner is really respectful, family to fall back on) who just discreetly complained while saying and repeating there was nothing, absolutely nothing, they could do about it. My thoughts were: either your partner is respectful, and you should talk about this or at least directly show them the comic, or you're with an asshole, you choose them, you choose them everyday, you can leave them anytime you want (remember: good education, job, no hard commitment, family to fall back). Then I thoughts: maybe they're in a kind of abusive relationship? I sure do hope there aren't so many abusive relationship.
I did not see one person saying "we're talking about this" or "I'll bring the subject".
What I think now is that maybe they hadn't the necessary mental tools / concepts to think their problem, to identify that there even was a problem. That I am asking too much too soon and that this comic is indeed a important first step, necessary for most to be even able to think to fight it in one's couple. And that time is needed to let things sink.
I also saw some women who shared the comic and complained about this situation but otherwise fight to keep the traditional gender-based roles, refusing to mow the lawn, to let their partner do the laundry, go shopping or plan meals, forbidding their boys to play with dolls or saying to them that only girls cry, laying out their boys clothes and telling them to play outside but asking of their daughters to choose their own clothes, help them to keep the house in order and telling them off if their clothes were ever in disarray, muddy in the slightest or had a grass mark. (And, in one case, mocking my boy when he asked for a toy vacuum cleaner.) Those hold a responsibility. They're keeping society this way. And they don't seem to notice that the comics calls on this.
Of course power dynamics are unfair and it is easier for men to fight this. But this doesn't mean women are powerless.
So, to passive aggressiveness, accusation of. I don't think I am tone policing. I sure hope I ain't. I am all for getting the uncomfortable truths out, and one way of doing that is to be more aggressive. To call out asshole behaviour for what it is. "Poor men, they have been raised that way they don't know better", yuck! They're grown-ups, they can think by themselves, act by themselves, educate themselves, evaluate what they do and change their behavior. At least try. Pointing to the problem can of course speed things, but this isn't a valid excuse. Laziness and egoism are nothing else than laziness and egoism and need to be called out clearly.
Another way to do that is to be less passionate, to educate, to explain, to soothe, to win over.
It's the balance, I believe to be less efficient than it could have been.
(Also, there are too many abusive generalisations, for women as well as men, which might have been taken care of with a tad more carefully phrased sentences, and would have neutralised some of the not-all-x reactions.)
Also the "whatever you do, it's wrong" loop directed to men. Look:
1. if you think you're doing your share, you're wrong ;
2. even if you really do your share, it's statistically meaningless, that changes nothing ;
3. however the only way to change this is if you, men, start to do your share.
However, what it lack most, and which is for me the prime factor for that impression of passive aggression and inefficiency, is the lack of a clear call to communicate, to speak about this in one's couple, to address the mental load issue as a team.
RépondreSupprimerI would disagree with your #2 in the "wrong loop." In the comic, she says if you're doing your share great, just check with your partner to make sure it's true. This is like those studies of college classes where men think they're being drowned out if women speak nearly as much as they do... different perceptions! Important to check in! And it even calls out talking to your partner as the solution.
RépondreSupprimerIt says both.
RépondreSupprimerIn-deed. Twice.
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