One of the stories stuck out for me was a woman who was sick of writing birthday & christmas cards for her husband's relatives. She tried not doing it, but her mother in law got snippy with her for not writing a card. Her husband didn't care at all and refused to help. So she felt stuck doing an unacknowledged and unappreciated job.
I find this story really interesting because there are so many approaches here. To name a few, 1. She could suck it up and keep unhappily writing cards. 2. Her husband could write the cards. 3. She could stop writing the cards, but tell her mother in law to talk to her son if she didn't get a card. 4. She could ask her husband to run interference with the mother in law and back her. 5. She could just stop writing cards and tell everyone to piss off.
I understand the perspective of "I feel like I have to write these cards. People expect me to write these cards. But I hate it and I feel like I don't have an out". But I think its too simple to label it as sexism and call it a day. Her husband is legitimately allowed to ignore the card thing, and so is she. In a sense, the pain comes from caving to a bad expectation - and thats something she does, not something anyone does to her.
But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.
I don't think that's true, it's more that society has different expectations for men and women. Men are expected to make money to prove their worth (hence the wage gap). Women are expected to maintain social connections to prove their worth (hence the friendship gap).
I am not sure what the solution is, but just wanted to point out why it is reductive to just say "why can't the wife just not care like the husband doesn't care?" Maybe the husband would care if he was judged like the wife.
Also, your #3 suggestion won't necessarily solve the issue... sexism is very ingrained, and even if you tell the MIL to talk to the husband, it doesn't mean the MIL will suddenly start holding her son responsible for the cards... she very well might still expect them from the DIL.
If terminally the problem is that these people can't communicate with each other or some people in the equation are unwilling to engage in communication, then the problem is much lower level than gendered expectations about emotional labor.
Good communication can solve hundreds of years of deeply ingrained sexism in society? I mean...maybe. But I don't think this is at all obvious.
"Hey honey. I'm really sick of writing these cards. I know you don't care, but if I don't write them your mum gets snippy with me for not sending her a card"
"Well just don't send them and let her be snippy?"
"I hate that, I feel judged by her for doing that. And I feel frustrated because she's your mom and this is somehow my problem. I'd appreciate some support with this."
"I'm sorry you hear that way. I can tell you're really frustrated about this. I don't like writing cards any more than you do. I definitely don't want you to feel pressured into doing anything you don't want to do. But it sounds like my mom is giving you a hard time about it, and thats not fair because she's my mom, and its clear what she's doing is stressing you out. I'm going to talk to her about it. If she bothers you again after I talk to her, can you just ask her to come talk to me if she has a problem?" (etc discussion)
"Thanks. I really appreciate feeling like we're a team"
"Me too"
Maybe she asked for help and meant that she wanted his support with his mother. But he thought she wanted him to write cards and refused to help on that basis. So now she's really mad at her husband over a simple misunderstanding.
It sounds really silly, but this sort of thing is obnoxiously common in practice. And again, good communication skills really matter in these sort of situations.
In particular, old people are very unlikely to change their ways no matter how much you talk about it. Also, people who dont have same experience are way more likely to not care about issues they never lived through. Also, people for whom not understanding is more comfortable have easier time to not understand.
I agree with you though - plenty of people apparently have no interest in learning to listen and communicate clearly. It’s a self reinforcing belief - if you believe yourself unable to change, you won’t. Still, it seems much more pragmatic to fight for communication skills, rather than hoping we can magic away gender differences and somehow hope that will make our relationships more healthy in turn. Spoilers: Gay couples still have stupid arguments.
I think this is more subtle than it looks. A big part of the reason he's not getting any could be because he ignores any similar judgments. You see this all the time everywhere; people have a good intuitive sense of who will cave to social pressure, and go on to exclusively pressure them.
Is that true? I don't accept the claim at face value.
I would have agreed with you until recently, since we’ve had a number of stories on HN about the effects of sex hormones. Paying particular attention to the experiences of trans women, I’m inclined to believe that sex hormones have a profound effect on the way we see the world and how we interact with other people.
Given that a trans woman was assigned male at birth and raised as a boy, I find it convincing that upbringing might not be the deciding factor in how she could be more empathetic after transitioning.
If a married man is dressed poorly, it's his wife's fault. If a married woman is dressed poorly, who in their right mind would blame her husband?
It's crazy the expectations we put on men and women and how differently-loaded they are...we as a society typically have such low expectations of men, some people don't think men can handle a 9-5 job AND a single load of laundry or changing a diaper, which is totally insulting. We say it's too hard for them to do both...and then we put them in charge of everything.
It's no wonder we're in the messes we're in.
I've always let my girlfriends pick out clothes for me because they care way more about how I dress than I do.
The difference is that husband not writing does not cause other people to be hostile to him, while she not writing them does. Her husband effectively belongs to family whether he writes them or not, she does not.
And the difference between people being hostile or not does actually makes difference in your level of loneliness and happiness and what not.
> But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.
We raise them that way for example by being snippy at them for not writing cards, but by being still friendly with men who dont write them.
And now of course,there is also the part where men are more lonely in united states.