Some people argue that we’re living in a post-feminist world. That ceilings have smashed and women now stand among the broken glass, CEO titles gleaming, their right to vote in one hand and frozen eggs in the other. But you and I both know that’s not true. At all.
I could, of course, list the statistics and data, the global rolling back of women’s rights legislation and just how many years it will take to close the gender pay gap, but again, you already know this and today, I want to turn your attention to the small, the every day, the minutiae of women’s lives that slowly grind them into the ground, and what it’s doing to the boys watching those women.
Take me and my brother for example. Both home educated, raised and taught by our mother who is an emphatic, vigilant, unequivocal feminist. We didn’t have a television, and we weren’t allowed to listen to music. Outside the school system, without popular music or television, many of the messages of patriarchy didn’t infiltrate into our subconscious. In short, we had the best chance of growing up free from the shackles of gender inequality, the taint of misogyny, and the overt sexualisation of women and girls.
Fast forward to our adult life and my brother is married with two boys, and his wife does the majority of labour around the house, always does the school run, despite them both having full-time jobs, and she also does the mental load of planning, organising and ensuring their lives run smoothly. I, in just about every relationship of my adult life, have done the majority of household labour, planning and organising.
I am also surrounded by girlfriends who do the majority of household labour, emotional labour, and caregiving. They’re also raising sons. Teaching them about consent and equality. They tell me they’re raising feminists so that the women of tomorrow don’t have to put up with any of the bullshit we went through. Which is great, but when my girlfriends are carrying out a disproportionate amount of labour, what kind of men are they actually raising?
My friends run circles around their men. Complain to me about all the work they do that their partners don’t. Wish he would help out around the house more. Cry in rage about it. And don’t get me wrong, they’re all doing spectacular jobs and they’re incredible women, but their sons watch them make dinner every night, do the school run, organise the holidays, pack the bags, scrub the fridge draws, wrap the presents, change the bedsheets, do the grocery shop, wash the skirting boards, hoover the sofa cushions, make costumes for the school play, bake for the school fundraiser and a thousand other chores that women disproportionally carry out. They grow up watching a woman do it all, and they believe that is the way life is and should be.
My dad, a wonderful man who always provided for us, did not clean, cook, organise, or plan, much to my mother’s despair. She did it all. And we grew up watching.
It’s little wonder then that I carry out more household labour in my relationships, and that my brother lets his wife carry out more household labour. When his two sons grow up, after being raised by such a capable mother, watching their capable aunty, and capable grandmother, all women who sort everything out, will they too wait for a woman in their life to sort out all the tasks and errands that need to be done around the home? Probably.
So, although we’re sitting boys down and telling them about consent and feminism, our patterns of behaviour haven’t changed and after all, we’re products of our environment. Boys grow up watching women go to work, earn money, handle their business, build businesses, and then come home and cook dinner, hoover the house, order the groceries, and scrub the toilets. All we’ve really taught them is that women can do more.
One of the reasons I didn’t want kids was that I knew, without a doubt, I would do more childrearing and caring than my partner would. I know the world we live in. I also know that I want to be the best at everything I do, so I would stay up all hours of the night to make a costume for the school play or Halloween, just so my kid has an amazing costume. That’s just the kind of woman I am. I’ll go above and beyond every time. I do it for my friends, imagine what I’d be like with my child? But it made me think about what I would be teaching that child. What if all I was doing was perpetuating a cycle of patriarchy and learned behaviour that would one day plague the life of another woman who fought with my son about the things he didn’t do around the house. Or wore my daughter down because she was doing everything, just like her mother.
I look at my friends raising sons and I watch them, in all their brilliant, shining competence, handle everything, and I don’t believe we’re changing anything. When men ask what they can do to help I always want to tell them that the best thing they could ever do is clean more around the house. Break the cycle of women doing everything. Be the partner that is the primary caregiver. Let your sons see you scrubbing the skirting boards and dusting the shelves while your wife sits on the sofa with a cup of tea. Cook dinner every night, just so your kids can see you in the kitchen more than their mum. Do the little jobs around the house that need doing, like descaling the kettle, or the washing machine, just so your partner has more time back to work on her career or herself, or just rest. Be the one that is always active around the house. Always cleaning something up, picking up after someone, organising something. Be that guy. Let your kids and the men and boys around you see you doing the labour. Let it sink in. Start to change the tide by your everyday actions. That would be more useful to the women in your life rather than writing a caption on International Women’s Day about how great women are and how you respect your mother.
Because the truth is all these little things, the inordinate amount of labour that women are doing is holding them back. It’s like a foot on their neck keeping them down. It is taking their energy, headspace and most importantly, their time. It is robbing them of ease and space and joy. It is slowly eroding them. Grinding them to dust. Taking the very life from them. Robbing them of their sparkle.
Men often roll their eyes when I talk like this, trying to dismiss these small tasks as inconsequential or as if I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but just about every woman I know or meet, will have a conversation with me about the labour they perform and how they wish the men in their life – husbands, brothers, fathers – would do more of it. The hundreds of tasks we perform have become the mountain, and it’s on our backs.
There is an assumption, that if you are a man who doesn’t carry out horrendous acts of violence towards women, then somehow you have cleared the bar. You are a good guy. But I believe the majority of men, the men we know and love, the good guys, are holding women back every day, and their sons are watching them do it.
The best is yet to come. On days like today I have to believe it. I have to keep saying it out loud. The best is yet to come. Say it with me, the best is yet to come.
It took years (and almost breaking up) to get my partner to do something approaching his share of household labour. I simply refused to be the housemaid. But we don't have kids to be good role models for! (He's vacuuming as l lie on the bed typing this!)
As a girl growing up in the 70s I watched in wonder as a woman became prime minister, I proudly thought of myself as a feminist fighting for equal rights and demanding respect from men. I also live with a man who does all the cleaning as did my dad. I have brought my son up to share house duties with his partner but I watch and listen to young women and wonder where everything about feminism went wrong. I despair at young women changing their appearance, sexualised, beauty routines that exhaust me thinking about them, academic achievement, good job, full time, the car the holidays, the dog , the children squeezed in between, a woman for everyone and all seasons. This is not the freedom I imagined as a 70s feminist. Why has women’s rights and expectations gone back so far? Why has patriarchy risen again