I edited the title because I had to, because it said “reasonable” instead of “unreasonable”… lol…
I’m a dude, but this one pisses me off more than anything. I work across several technical and scientific fields and the thing that pisses me off more than anything is how women aren’t given the space and opportunity to take big risks and fail. Men can basically spin a bunch of bullshit about what they can do or what they think is possible, and some one will gamble on them if they are convincing enough, even if they don’t have the track record. Women seem to have to hit such a higher bar in terms of getting their projects/ ideas funded/ supported, and seem to be much more conservative in terms of stepping out on limbs. There also seems to be an institutional tendency to give them the ‘clean up’ or maintenance projects, rather than the headline grabbing glory work. It pisses me off because I’ve had the opportunity to mentor several women in my areas of expertise at this point, and they are highly capable and competent, and tend to be much harder working. But they still get passed up for less competent, more braggadocios, less productive male counter parts. At the same time I want to urge them to take big risks, I get that from their lived experience, the costs of failure are much higher. So I get it, but it still pisses me off.
Yeah, that’s something I’ve never been able to understand, even in principle. Misogyny, by definition, necessitates the willingness to sacrifice maximally ruthless efficiency under completely ideal circumstances and for objectively no reason. So does overy other description of prejudice, while we’re at it.
Edit:
Okay.
I realize this may have come off somewhat ostentatious, or at the very least, hilariously overly worded. I should explain that coherently, or something approaching that, I guess.
To put it plainly, and to keep using misogyny as an example: if the most efficient person for the job is a woman, the job should be given to her, and that’s it. Not that I wish to imply my brain’s normally wired, obviously, but that’s honestly something I don’t “get” about the entire concept of misogyny, or, like I said, about any kind of prejudice named individually. I, personally, care about the objective outcome and nothing else, at least within reason. If the goal is realistically attainable without anyone’s feelings getting hurt, then under any normal circumstances, that is exactly what should happen. If the goal is unattainable barring the direct violation of basic human decency and/or the law, then that’s what we’re not gonna do because clearly some bigger issue exists, and clearly whatever that is needs to get dealt with immediately. That’s about the extent of it, though, frankly. As far as I’m concerned, whoever has the best idea should say whatever that is out loud, and then whoever is the most highly capable of implementing said idea properly should do so; as long those things happen in that order, as long as no one wastes anyone’s time, and as long as nothing else that doesn’t need to happen does, it really doesn’t affect me personally one way or another, and who gets credit for what is precisely none of my business nor should it be.
It’s simply a technical matter that no one properly interacts, conducive towards getting from point A to point B in a straight line as fast as is humanly possible while doing so correctly, as a misogynist, or as a racist, or what have you, if only because that’s not logically possible. To maintain one’s own prejudice is to know, to understand, and to acknowledge the mindset that makes people objectively good at getting things done, and to deliberately act contrary to that mindset by demonstration. If I were prejudice against women, I would functionally sabotage any and all women I may work with, either consciously or subconsciously, or both, and to some extent that actually would matter at the end of the day, I would make any and all women I may work with less effective at their jobs in so doing. Same thing if I happened to be prejudice against anyone whose skin doesn’t look like mine, and I happened to work with someone whose skin doesn’t. Et cetera.
I feel like I just wrote an entire essay about effectively nothing; sorry. This is just something that’s always driven me up the wall, in case somehow that’s not obvious. I just don’t understand—again, within reason, of course—why anyone in their official capacity would ever care about anything other than the job, or why almost everyone I’ve ever worked with has made the whole thing totally personal or tried to.
If somebody puts a file into your 3D printer without your permission, then society says you have to properly continue the print for 9 months, paying for electric & materials yourself, straight to jail if you interfere or alter quality of print, then its your property afterwards and shame on you for leaving it in a donation bin.
Of course the asshole gets to say “just a prank bro”, the cops ask why you weren’t home when your house was broken into, society says you should have subscribed to the print company “enhanced security” subscription for a printer you didn’t even ask for.
This is a fascinating analogy, and I couldn’t agree more.
I’m a lady, and think that the expectation that men ought not be too emotional is absolutely damaging and unreasonable and am not sure how it still persists.
The second shift - get yourself a single dad, ladies! And a cleaning service for the biweekly bigger cleaning. I don’t have that problem. We do each have half a second shift because that stuff doesn’t go away, but it’s shared, and I didn’t need to explain that it exists.
I’m a lady, and think that the expectation that men ought not be too emotional is absolutely damaging and unreasonable and am not sure how it still persists.
Thank you.
What does “second shift” mean here? Is it related to emotional baggage?
Housework and mental load, a lot of times guys come home and relax, and don’t realize (or don’t care) that the reason they can do that is because their female partners are handling so much more of the other work.
It’s not true in every M/F relationship, thankfully. But is very prevalent still, the expectation that women take care of getting the kids to appointments, getting supper arranged, knowing when the toothpaste is going to run out, staying home when someone is sick, remembering to call the absent line at school when kids are out, the work outside of work is not usually evenly distributed and when trying to get it evened out guys often have to be reminded which they then interpret as nagging.
Again - this is not every relationship, even my lunatic ex was aware and handled about half of the kid and other stuff, he had a single mom and saw what she did, and I am an indifferent housekeeper at best, which probably has something to do with it. (I saw a joke somewhere about how you could have a girlfriend good in bed or one good at keeping house but not both, so I joke with the husband that he made his choice.)
Thank you for your detailed answer and letting me know of this second shift. It sounds like, the job to take care of things at home, after people get back home from their work outside of home. I read once somewhere that being a good roommate helps long term relationships succeed.
not sure if this is a bit taboo, but I noticed it first hand recently in my friend group so I’m just gonna put it out there. man cheats == dude is a complete douchebag, can’t trust him for even the simplest thing anymore because he a cheater. woman cheats == the dude must’ve did something to deserve it, dude must’ve been neglecting her or abusive in some way.
are there any expectations based on sex, opposite or otherwise, that aren’t unreasonable?
Yes. That’s exactly why it’s always pissed me off when women I’ve worked with have had a kid one day and immediately returned to work the next. I expect all women who have the option of taking maternity leave to use it, and I find that expectation perfectly reasonable. “Society” agrees with me about that, at least to a certain extent, clearly; were that not the case, no such thing as maternity leave would even exist.
I guess a counter to your example would be that paternity leave should be just as available and expected as maternity leave should be, so ideally it wouldn’t even be something specific to one sex. (Of course moms do have the painful and difficult part, but it’s also about getting the kid a good start and full attention at first)
I mean, yeah. Ideally, it should just be that and not what I said, which I also find sad.
As a man who agrees that dads should be allowed, supported and encouraged to take a long paternity leave, I must say that the idea of a woman working the day after giving birth is much more horrifying than the man working the day after his wife gave birth.
Definitely true.
Yeah partners of whatever sex should get paid parental leave, I think the problem here was that it got structured as medical leave, short term disability. Not “we just had a baby and that is taking every minute of our day, and it’s important to society to give families a good start.” It is getting better just started at below zero, less than the absolute minimum a society ought do if there was some pressing reason they needed everyone working as much as possible.
Well, it didn’t, in the US, when I was having kids. Society did not agree, it had to be fought for by moms. I did get the FMLA unpaid leave with my second set and could use accrued PTO, with the first two it was work or starve.
Sorry. It’s embarrassing that it was ever that way, in the U.S. or anywhere, I think.
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The second shift.
We’re certainly not perfect, at it as my fiancée is more a planner and I’m more knock down obstacles as I get to 'em. Which shakes out as if we want things done well they’re assigned to my fiancée, and if we want things done at all they’re assigned to me. So even though we try, my better half is house manager and I’m house minion.
I can see this being a useful strategy. A lot often falls on my wife. But it’s like fighting an uphill battle to help. She asks for it, but if I take the initiative, often she just gets annoyed with how I did it. If I ask her she gives me a list of way too detailed processes for menial tasks. It just makes me feel like an employee. Like, girl, I love you, but I know how to mop my house. What is this transforming cleaning tool you’re using and why are you handing me a page with 12 steps of instructions? Just let me mop the damn floor how I know to do it.
I think it’s unreasonable that women are somehow expected, as a general heteronormative baseline, to be gentle and not use violence, whereas for men violence is just “part of male culture.” Fuck that. Violence is terrible, but it’s also the birthright of any animal trying to defend itself. Nobody should feel in any way ashamed or shy about using as much violence as they need, if they have no other options. No human should ever feel safe hurting another human without fearing for their own safety, and the fact that some boys are raised to be men who feel that way is appalling.
This is precisely why I use certain words deliberately or not at all. No one ever calls anything “peace” that doesn’t describe the monopolization of violence by those with whom they already find themselves in agreement.
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