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In my experience communication happens again and again and again over a period of years until the woman gives up in exasperation and just seethes silently. It's

In my experience communication happens again and again and again over a period of years until the woman gives up in exasperation and just seethes silently. It's hard to get someone to engage in emotional labor (or as I like to call it, 'giving a fuck') when they simply don't give a fuck, no matter how much you communicate. Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almost always a male problem in our society, I'm also gobsmacked that you'd call it sexist. It's about as sexist as calling gun violence or any other widely gendered thing a male problem - there's exceptions out there, but it's not worth being pedantic about.

oijoinoifsnf 9y ago
It's weird that the Internet is the first place to say things like: "Maybe women don't WANT to be in tech", "there are biological differences", etc. but also turn around and complain that it's sexist to imply men (on average) have difficulties with emotional communication.
- dleslie 9y ago
  It's almost like the internet is a platform where many different voices are heard.
  - sblom 9y ago
    Or at least where many different voices are published. :)
- turc1656 9y ago
  The word "want" describes desire, willingness, and a level of interest. Saying someone or a group of people are not interested in doing something is entirely different than saying they are less capable. The proper equivalent to "men (on average) have difficulties with emotional communication" for the example you gave would be "women are not as naturally capable as men when it comes to tech jobs."
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Perhaps you're undervaluing the degree to which desire promotes skill. Maybe it's that men have difficulties with emotional communication because they don't have a desire to communicate emotionally and, thus, have not built up the skill set.
mmjaa 9y ago
>almost always a male problem That is sexist.
- acc1558 9y ago
  You have wholly failed to grasp the concept of sexism. "Women are bad at tech" is a sexist statement, while "men are bad at emotional labor" is not. This is no more a double standard than saying 0/1 is 0, while 1/0 is undefined. The asymmetry exists a priori, and so the balance of those statements is descriptive of sexism, not causal.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    Nonsense. Associating behaviour with sex, is sexism, pure and simple. The fact that he is a man has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't have the same agency - nor the 'right' to complain about it - as his wife does. Making that association a part of the discussion is sexism.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - acc1558 9y ago
      With all due respect, you are mistaken. Simply associating behaviors with sex is no more sexism than associating adjectives with nouns is English. It's whether those constructions have meaning that makes the difference. In a world with a perfectly even balance of social power, it would be equally & symmetrically sexist to say "all men are X" or "all women are X." We do not live in such a world! The outcomes from those two statements are not evenly distributed, and we may find it useful to describe the factors contributing to that disparity of outcomes predominately driven by sex as "sexist." Let's look at this another way. Some how, we have managed to collectively convince ourselves that "sexism" is bad without accurately identifying what sexism is. This causes an interesting cognitive dissonance wherein the beneficiaries of sexism, who categorically do not think of themselves as bad people, must find a way to justify how they are not sexist. One particularly facile way to do so is to simply redefine the term "sexism" to something vacuous that implies no particular weight to the underlying distribution, ergo no individual bears any particular responsibility for the ongoing structural inequity. Unfortunately, while this neatly resolves the mental tension, it reinforces the cycle of "sexism is bad, but we don't actually know what sexism is -> we redefine the term to have no descriptive or predictive power".
alexssung 9y ago
"Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almost always a male problem in our society," That's some hilarious hypocrisy.
greedo 9y ago
In my experience, you're wrong. See how that works? My wife simply doesn't care as strongly about the house as I do; nor about maintaining her car. Or family finances, grocery shopping, laundry, etc etc. For the first few years of our marriage, this was an issue. Then I learned that it was "my" issue to deal with. I had communicated as much as I could, and she didn't have the same expectations. So we compromised; she doesn't get mad when I stress about something, and I don't feel like it's her job to make me happy and cater to every feeling I have. So that's my anecdote. Your comment is basically sexist blather.
RUG3Y 9y ago
Maybe he's never going to give a shit because her expectations are just too high. American women have sky high expectations.
- mijoharas 9y ago
  > American women have sky high expectations. Can we tone it down a little, I'm here for the discussion, not the sexism.
- brighteyes 9y ago
  > American women have sky high expectations This is as sexist as the article itself.
  - RUG3Y 9y ago
    It really has nothing to do with biological sex. It has to do with our culture and society.
brighteyes 9y ago
We have hard data on gun violence, proving it's mostly a male problem. But "emotional labor" is both poorly defined and supported anecdotally, so the discussion around it is often driven by sexist stereotypes, as in this article. Partners in a marriage - or a business, too - often disagree about who should do what. It's not one-sided as the article presents. Now, there might be some common patterns like, say, women reminding men of their families' birthdays (an example from the article) but there are many opposite-gendered patterns, like remembering to check the oil or air pressure in her car, etc. Note how just mentioning such stereotypes is already kind of sexist - it's saying something bad about a whole gender ("men don't care about details of family life", "women don't care about details of car maintenance"). Stereotypically, women get frustrated by some things their partners don't care as much about, and likewise men get frustrated by other things their partners don't care about. Focusing on the stereotypes isn't productive, though, and not just because they are often wrong.
didgeoridoo 9y ago
I think you're arbitrarily privileging "giving a fuck" over "not giving a fuck". Try this: Alice wants Task X to be done. Bob does not care whether Task X is done. Let us stipulate that, if Task X is not done, nobody will be materially, objectively harmed. Alice says: because I want Task X, you will do Task X. Alice does not ask Bob's opinion on Task X, but rather assumes that Task X is inherently necessary, and therefore Bob's opinion is not worth considering. In fact, Alice is annoyed that Bob hasn't taken the initiative to recognize the inherent necessity of Task X, and complete it on his own without being asked. Bob does not believe Task X to be inherently necessary. Option 1: Bob may complete Task X because it makes Alice happy. That's nice of Bob. Unfortunately, Alice is seething that she had to ask Bob in the first place. That's kind of mean of Alice. Option 2: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. That's kind of thoughtless of Bob, but Bob is a human and sometimes we let low-priority items drop off our radar. Alice will do Task X herself, furious that Bob did not do it. Option 3: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. Alice lets go of Task X, leaving it undone, because it's just Task X, and her relationship with Bob matters more to her than Task X. That's nice of Alice. In a "fair" scenario, Option 3 should be on the table at least half the time. But it never is. Why can Alice not let go of Task X? Why MUST it be done? Why is Alice's perspective on the necessity of Task X to be privileged over that of Bob?
- philbarr 9y ago
  A game theoretical approach to household chores. Nice!
- gyardley 9y ago
  It’s usually because not doing the task has very real negative consequences and due to the sexist nature of modern society the consequences fall most heavily on Alice, not on Bob. Don’t buy the nephews birthday cards? The relatives think badly of Alice, not Bob. Take your son out in mismatched or slightly too small clothes? People pass judgement on Alice, not Bob. When Bob doesn’t think something is necessary and Alice does, Bob needs to step back and think about why she does, because there’s generally a good reason. Going immediately to game theory isn’t helpful when you’ve got imperfect information due to your own lack of introspection.
flachsechs 9y ago
> is almost always a male problem in our society no it's not. maybe i can counter your sexist statement with another one: women just complain louder about it.
- tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
  Exactly. The lack of self awareness in her comment was astounding. But those are the types of comments we should expect when we think of some people's testimony as "anecdotes" and other's as "Lived Experiences".
tpallarino 9y ago
So what bad things are women problems? Or is it just men...

oijoinoifsnf 9y ago

It's weird that the Internet is the first place to say things like: "Maybe women don't WANT to be in tech", "there are biological differences", etc. but also turn around and complain that it's sexist to imply men (on average) have difficulties with emotional communication.

dleslie 9y ago
It's almost like the internet is a platform where many different voices are heard.
- sblom 9y ago
  Or at least where many different voices are published. :)
turc1656 9y ago
The word "want" describes desire, willingness, and a level of interest. Saying someone or a group of people are not interested in doing something is entirely different than saying they are less capable. The proper equivalent to "men (on average) have difficulties with emotional communication" for the example you gave would be "women are not as naturally capable as men when it comes to tech jobs."
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Perhaps you're undervaluing the degree to which desire promotes skill. Maybe it's that men have difficulties with emotional communication because they don't have a desire to communicate emotionally and, thus, have not built up the skill set.

mmjaa 9y ago

>almost always a male problem That is sexist.

acc1558 9y ago
You have wholly failed to grasp the concept of sexism. "Women are bad at tech" is a sexist statement, while "men are bad at emotional labor" is not. This is no more a double standard than saying 0/1 is 0, while 1/0 is undefined. The asymmetry exists a priori, and so the balance of those statements is descriptive of sexism, not causal.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Nonsense. Associating behaviour with sex, is sexism, pure and simple. The fact that he is a man has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't have the same agency - nor the 'right' to complain about it - as his wife does. Making that association a part of the discussion is sexism.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - acc1558 9y ago
    With all due respect, you are mistaken. Simply associating behaviors with sex is no more sexism than associating adjectives with nouns is English. It's whether those constructions have meaning that makes the difference. In a world with a perfectly even balance of social power, it would be equally & symmetrically sexist to say "all men are X" or "all women are X." We do not live in such a world! The outcomes from those two statements are not evenly distributed, and we may find it useful to describe the factors contributing to that disparity of outcomes predominately driven by sex as "sexist." Let's look at this another way. Some how, we have managed to collectively convince ourselves that "sexism" is bad without accurately identifying what sexism is. This causes an interesting cognitive dissonance wherein the beneficiaries of sexism, who categorically do not think of themselves as bad people, must find a way to justify how they are not sexist. One particularly facile way to do so is to simply redefine the term "sexism" to something vacuous that implies no particular weight to the underlying distribution, ergo no individual bears any particular responsibility for the ongoing structural inequity. Unfortunately, while this neatly resolves the mental tension, it reinforces the cycle of "sexism is bad, but we don't actually know what sexism is -> we redefine the term to have no descriptive or predictive power".

alexssung 9y ago

"Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almost always a male problem in our society," That's some hilarious hypocrisy.

greedo 9y ago

In my experience, you're wrong. See how that works? My wife simply doesn't care as strongly about the house as I do; nor about maintaining her car. Or family finances, grocery shopping, laundry, etc etc. For the first few years of our marriage, this was an issue. Then I learned that it was "my" issue to deal with. I had communicated as much as I could, and she didn't have the same expectations. So we compromised; she doesn't get mad when I stress about something, and I don't feel like it's her job to make me happy and cater to every feeling I have. So that's my anecdote. Your comment is basically sexist blather.

RUG3Y 9y ago

Maybe he's never going to give a shit because her expectations are just too high. American women have sky high expectations.

mijoharas 9y ago
> American women have sky high expectations. Can we tone it down a little, I'm here for the discussion, not the sexism.
brighteyes 9y ago
> American women have sky high expectations This is as sexist as the article itself.
- RUG3Y 9y ago
  It really has nothing to do with biological sex. It has to do with our culture and society.

brighteyes 9y ago

We have hard data on gun violence, proving it's mostly a male problem. But "emotional labor" is both poorly defined and supported anecdotally, so the discussion around it is often driven by sexist stereotypes, as in this article. Partners in a marriage - or a business, too - often disagree about who should do what. It's not one-sided as the article presents. Now, there might be some common patterns like, say, women reminding men of their families' birthdays (an example from the article) but there are many opposite-gendered patterns, like remembering to check the oil or air pressure in her car, etc. Note how just mentioning such stereotypes is already kind of sexist - it's saying something bad about a whole gender ("men don't care about details of family life", "women don't care about details of car maintenance"). Stereotypically, women get frustrated by some things their partners don't care as much about, and likewise men get frustrated by other things their partners don't care about. Focusing on the stereotypes isn't productive, though, and not just because they are often wrong.

didgeoridoo 9y ago

I think you're arbitrarily privileging "giving a fuck" over "not giving a fuck". Try this: Alice wants Task X to be done. Bob does not care whether Task X is done. Let us stipulate that, if Task X is not done, nobody will be materially, objectively harmed. Alice says: because I want Task X, you will do Task X. Alice does not ask Bob's opinion on Task X, but rather assumes that Task X is inherently necessary, and therefore Bob's opinion is not worth considering. In fact, Alice is annoyed that Bob hasn't taken the initiative to recognize the inherent necessity of Task X, and complete it on his own without being asked. Bob does not believe Task X to be inherently necessary. Option 1: Bob may complete Task X because it makes Alice happy. That's nice of Bob. Unfortunately, Alice is seething that she had to ask Bob in the first place. That's kind of mean of Alice. Option 2: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. That's kind of thoughtless of Bob, but Bob is a human and sometimes we let low-priority items drop off our radar. Alice will do Task X herself, furious that Bob did not do it. Option 3: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. Alice lets go of Task X, leaving it undone, because it's just Task X, and her relationship with Bob matters more to her than Task X. That's nice of Alice. In a "fair" scenario, Option 3 should be on the table at least half the time. But it never is. Why can Alice not let go of Task X? Why MUST it be done? Why is Alice's perspective on the necessity of Task X to be privileged over that of Bob?

philbarr 9y ago
A game theoretical approach to household chores. Nice!
gyardley 9y ago
It’s usually because not doing the task has very real negative consequences and due to the sexist nature of modern society the consequences fall most heavily on Alice, not on Bob. Don’t buy the nephews birthday cards? The relatives think badly of Alice, not Bob. Take your son out in mismatched or slightly too small clothes? People pass judgement on Alice, not Bob. When Bob doesn’t think something is necessary and Alice does, Bob needs to step back and think about why she does, because there’s generally a good reason. Going immediately to game theory isn’t helpful when you’ve got imperfect information due to your own lack of introspection.

flachsechs 9y ago

> is almost always a male problem in our society no it's not. maybe i can counter your sexist statement with another one: women just complain louder about it.

tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
Exactly. The lack of self awareness in her comment was astounding. But those are the types of comments we should expect when we think of some people's testimony as "anecdotes" and other's as "Lived Experiences".

tpallarino 9y ago

So what bad things are women problems? Or is it just men...