“Women are just better at that stuff.” This is a phrase often used to wash one’s hands of an unpleasant task. It reminds me of something I hear sometimes from customers: “Hispanics just clean houses better than other people.” If so, why is that? Not because there’s a house cleaning gene that they are passing on to one another. Rather it’s because there are more house cleaners who are Hispanic for economic reasons related to immigration and opportunity. When we claim a group of people are inherently better at a task that is unpleasant, something we are glad we don’t have to do, that merely points to our underlying feelings about this type of work. Within a marriage, an attitude that some work is outside the purview of either spouse without an explicit agreement to divide duties in this manner leads to resentment and feeling taken for granted.
47% of couples argue over house cleaning. Part of what they are arguing about goes beyond cleaning, though, to the division of family responsibilities. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2014, 47.7% of married couples both work. In 19.9% of families, only the husband works. In 7.5% of families, only the wife works. When both spouses work roughly equal amounts, there is no justification for an unequal distribution of labor at home. Dividing tasks should be a discussion, not an assumption.
What is Emotional Labor?
Let’s talk about a hidden task that has come to the forefront of feminist debate: emotional labor. It’s the thought and planning that goes into everyday life. For example:
Hanging stuff on the walls, putting photographs in picture frames, thinking about whether we should buy new sheets because the old ones are getting old, thinking about the time that we are going to have dinner, thinking about what we are going to have for dinner.
Other things might include scheduling doctor and dentist visits for family members, tracking children’s schoolwork or parent-teacher schedules, making grocery lists or buying food. Tasks like remembering birthdays,
Emotional labor can take place in the bedroom, too, apparently. A study done in 2011 revealed that 79% of heterosexual women faked orgasm over 50% of the time, and that they did it to benefit their partner, to make the experience more enjoyable for him. Additonally, some men rely entirely on their wives to practice birth control and to research the choices associated with birth control.
Invisible vs. Derided
Although most emotional labor is lamented as being invisible to the less invested spouse, it has often occurred to me that a lot of what constitutes emotional labor is openly derided in our culture. One that comes to mind is gossip. Gossip is defined as
casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.
Now, certainly if someone is making disparaging remarks, particularly if those remarks are untrue, that’s acting in bad faith and tears people down as well as eroding relationships. Slander and falsehoods, as well as tattling, should be discouraged for the anti-social behavior they are. [1] To malign someone’s character unjustly only to look better by comparison or win allies against them is a true evil.
But not all gossip is like this. Gossip can be somewhat innocuous information sharing. Deriding it without qualification, particularly when done by men who generally aren’t shouldering the burden of social contact equally, seems an overreach. Without “gossip” there would be no interventions, no assistance to those suffering abuses, no Ward Council. So there is a place for tale-bearing, provided that gossip is confined to (dare I quote Pres. Packer on this one?) what is true and what is useful. Gossip that mostly benefits the tale-bearer or that is slanderous or that attempts to paint the motives of the subject in an unflattering light–certainly this is what’s dangerous to a harmonious society.
Gossip is social currency and the news of our social network. Sometimes . . . but certainly not always . . . gossip means you care. [2]
Equal Partnerships
But don’t spouses share the burdens of emotional labor? Apparently some do more than others. The approach her husband takes to things in the home, from finding things to taking care of the scheduling and planning of their lives has one woman saying:
It suggests to me that there is a detachment to home that I do not have the luxury of having. Because if I did, then our everyday life would be a nightmare.
Studies show that the tragic event of losing one’s spouse often leads to an earlier death for the surviving spouse. Statistically speaking, surviving the death of a spouse curtails the wife’s life by 2 years, but the husband’s life by 7 years. The main reason for this difference is that wives have traditionally been the ones who maintain the couple’s social contacts. The wives are doing a disproportionate amount of emotional labor: they maintain the social network that provides support to them as a couple. And like the Little Red Hen, they are the ones to reap the benefits. While it may boost their longevity, it is exhausting and generally taken for granted in the meantime.
And yet, I find that I don’t have a dog in this fight. While I can feel sympathetic for those caught in this situation, who feel their efforts are taken for granted or that their spouse is detached from the arrangement of family life in a way they envy as they deal with all the daily drudgery, I am not a woman who has on the disproportionate burden of emotional labor.
Given my career and formerly heavy travel schedule, it has nearly always been my husband who has handled the lion’s share of these types of routine activities: scheduling appointments and maintaining medical records, creating our family newsletter, scheduling parent teacher conferences, picking up sick kids from school, volunteering as a parent, coordinating carpools, and so on. Other areas I have taken the lead on such as reminding the kids to eat, go to bed or brush their teeth. I have also taken the lead on reminding them to buy new clothes or to put their clothes in the hamper. The nagging more than the scheduling. The thing we all hate to do, but apparently if we don’t chaos reigns. When it comes to things like remembering family birthdays or gift obligations, we divide these evenly–his family is his, my family is mine. That’s the only thing that ever really made sense to me.
You can read more about emotional labor here, here, and for those who REALLY want to see what’s under the covers on this stuff, here. It is very illuminating. (Quotes above are from the Guardian article).
What Do You Think?
On the whole, I feel as though we have a fairly equitable arrangement in my marriage, although it’s had to change as our circumstances have. Talking with my friends who also have careers, most of them also feel they’ve been pretty equitable. How about you?
- Do you shoulder more of the burden for emotional labor or leave it to your significant other?
- Does awareness of emotional labor give you more appreciation for the necessity of maintaining social relationships and managing the family schedule?
- Does this ever cause friction for you or others in your family?
Given how women feel about this issue, and the fact that we preach family, family, family, it’s telling that this is not a topic I have ever heard seriously discussed as important to maintaining a healthy marriage. Hopefully many are figuring it out on their own, but my guess is that many Mormon couples expect the wife to bear this burden with little to no support or awareness from the husband. [3]
Discuss.
[1] Unless you are the Honor Code Office in which case they are mother’s milk to you.
[2] xoxo
[3] After drafting this, I was surprised by two things that coincidentally came up. The first was that the video the church put out that showed a woman who sacrifices her whole day for other people, including several who don’t really seem to need her, and has zero support from a husband throughout the day, and finally collapses into tears at the end was shown in Relief Society which prompted a lively discussion, mostly about the need for self-care and boundary setting. Thank goodness most women see that this is not an ideal way to live your life. I blogged about it when the video was first released here. The second thing was that a friend shared a question on Facebook (apparently in all seriousness) whether a wife should expect a husband to chip in on housework–at all. I’m still a bit shocked by that one.
Wheat & Tares 
My wife travels from time to time and when she is gone for a week+ when we had lots of kids in the house, I got some of the “emotional labor” you describe. That was when I realized how much of that she carried.
I don’t feel it is as balanced as I would like, but my wife works part time. I have tried to take more on, but it was causing fights. She wants to do it (or doesn’t trust me to do it right???)
You mentioned “decorating” the home. We have agreed that she leads this (although I do most of the work – my honey-do list is always very long). That is because I have zero skill/talent or desire in this area. If she left it 100% to me we would still have 100% flat white walls without many pictures. I try to support her and when she wants to change something, I go along with it.
But I look at my marriage (I am in my early 50’s) and compare it with my in-laws and parents. The difference is shocking. My FIL said he almost never had changed diapers – only when he “had to” (ie – when he was “babysitting”).
I think the emotional labor in our house is split mostly evenly, but I do feel like I do more than my husband in that department. He is in charge of decorating the house (because if it were up to me we would literally have zero decorations because I don’t understand spending money on something that has no function), he is in charge of making sure we have maintenance done on cars and everything in the house, he makes sure that things are repaired as needed (he isn’t handy, so mostly he schedules appointments for repairmen to come and then he takes off work time to be at the house). He is in charge of remembering birthdays and getting presents for everyone (again, I really struggle to buy things that aren’t practical, which makes me horrible at buying gifts).
I’m in charge of everything medical. I make sure the kids all go to their doctor and dentist visits and I take off work to bring them to every appointment (part of this is because if I didn’t, he just wouldn’t take them to the doctor. He doesn’t think it’s as important as I do. Part of this is because my mom is a doctor). I am usually the one to plan out what we’re having for dinner (even though he does half the cooking), and the one to make sure we have all the proper groceries. I’m the one who makes sure that enough laundry gets done that the kids have clean clothes to wear, and I’m the one who deals with the daycare on everything. I’m the one makes sure we have all of the things the kids need (clothes, food, toys, all the baby necessities). While it seems evenly split, most of the things I am in charge of are daily tasks, while his are not quite as often.
I think a large part of the disparity comes from the fact that I stayed home with our first child for 18 months. It made sense at that point for me to be in charge of a lot of that stuff. Now that I work full time, I still do a lot of that stuff because if I didn’t, no one would. On the flip side, most of the emotional labor he takes on is due to the fact that if he didn’t, no one would.
This puts a name to something I’ve tried and mostly failed to describe, and for which I have a lot of appreciation. My wife carries the load when it comes to emotional labor. I clean house as much, I do many more dishes, I claim I’ve matched her diaper for diaper (though she disputes this!), so it’s been hard for me to describe to people the load she carries that I just don’t share. After work, I just don’t have the mental and emotional energy to devote to running people’s schedules, keeping track and nagging them about their responsibilities, and planning their birthdays. It’s exhausting. It’s also essential for a successful and happy home, and for raising children. I’m so glad she’s good at it. It’s not that I entirely check out, but it’s a whole lot easier to brainlessly fold laundry and do dishes.
I’ll also point out that she and a lot of other women in our ward and community put in a lot of emotional labor outside the home that others benefit from, especially our kids. And yes, the women put in more than the men, and most of it seems to be provided by stay-at-home moms.
I think the salient point of HG’s observations are that these things need to be negotiated rather than assumed.
My DH comes from a fifties household in which Father went to work and that was the end of his responsibility. Consequently my in-laws though it dreadful that their son should have to change nappies, let alone pitch in with housework.
Fortunately, having discussed during our courtship how we felt about this stuff, we were able to do differently, but it has meant constant negotiation and re-negotiation. Some stuff still devolves along gender splits-I have no auto education but I do care for gardens and decor-I work part-time and he’s full time. I try not to resent anything and if I do we talk it out, sometimes angrily.
There is so much idealisation in the church. Of course it’s good to have aspirations, but these ideal fathers who provide generously for family, work unfailingly in church responsibilities and are connected with all aspects of both spouse’s and children’s lives don’t exist, and I’ve found it important to forgive and modify my expectations, as I’m sure my husband has. I’ve known marriages fail due to these expectations being apparently frustrated.
On the plus side, I remember a FMH conversation some years ago where it became apparent that many women found it part of their wifely duty to pack for their husbands when they go on vacation. I was aghast. Who knew? I missed that home-making lesson.
Like Hawkgrrrl, I’m lucky when it comes to division of emotional labor. I’m a stay-at-home mom, so I have more time to take care of the household. When my husband was in training and working crazy long hours, I took care of the lion’s share of the emotional labor (probably why I get PTSD symptoms watching that stupid video…). Luckily his hours now are much better. My husband is naturally good with kids (much better than me), so when he’s home he takes the helm on childcare. He also does most of the cooking. During the day childcare is my job, so of course I schedule doctor’s visits and such (since I’m the transportation). I do the other stereotypical stuff: cleaning, laundry, finances, decorating, shopping, etc. There’s no way either of us would feel comfortable with me packing his luggage, though. That seems very odd to me.
Both of us came from more traditional households where dads were much more hands off (even though my mom worked full-time and his mom worked part-time), so I think there’s a generational aspect.
“It suggests to me that there is a detachment to home that I do not have the luxury of having. Because if I did, then our everyday life would be a nightmare.”
This quote says it all. Because a man is emotionally detached, having a “nightmare” home life is not really an incentive for him to get involved. He doesn’t see it as a nightmare, because he is not really as tuned in. He won’t recognise it until his wife makes HIS life a nightmare, hence the importance of nagging.
Men are more detached from the home than women. Women have a built-in biological incentive to raise and nurture the children that is stronger than it is biologically for men. I know there are lots of commenters on this blog who will object that this is not biological, but cultural. But whether cultural or biological, in order to surmount this natural male detachment, steps need to be taken to bring men more fully into the circle of family responsibilities, otherwise, it won’t happen on its own. Wives and cultures must first demand it.
I first read tattling as tatting …
Then read it right. Then thought some more.
A wonderfully urbane high school German teacher taught the class the word “tatting” way back in the mists of time. After all these years I’ve never forgotten the word, the teacher, nor my German. 🙂
And for you young ‘uns tatting has nothing to do with getting a tat.
@EBK: “because if it were up to me we would literally have zero decorations because I don’t understand spending money on something that has no function.” Haha – me too! Any decoration to our home is up to my husband. I literally don’t want to spend time, energy, or money on something that has no function. The furthest I go is plants because I know they clean the air in our home.
I do the majority of the emotional labor. Even when I was in grad school and my husband stayed home with our daughter, he did dishes and laundry, but I was still doing most of the shopping, meal planning, etc. It seems that he just doesn’t really have a dog in the fight – he doesn’t care that much to really be on top of those kinds of emotional and administrative things. He’s willing, but maybe just doesn’t have the knack for it that I do? Our daughter has many food allergies, and so my emotional labor becomes even greater with grocery shopping, meal planning, school communications and medical stuff. I currently stay home, but am planning to return to work shortly, and I honestly don’t see it changing much. It has me worried and not wanting to take on a full time career situation because I don’t want to work a full time job, plus do the majority of the emotional labor at home. He says he’ll step up, which I appreciate, but I’ve seen that he’s just not super invested in it. Also, as another poster said, because I’ve already been the one taking care of everything, it seems like it will naturally stay with me.
@KT
It might mean letting him step up and take care of things in his own way, accepting that it might not be your way or even the best way. He might even choose to omit tasks that you think are critical. But, you know, as long as nobody’s hair catches fire…
I like how you tell it like it is. 🙂
Around our house, my wife wanted me to take on more responsibilities, but…. I handle everything like an engineer–speed, practicality, efficiency. She handles everything like a dentist–slow, methodical, thorough. We quickly came to an agreement that if she wants me to clean the house, do the dishes, do the laundry, etc. then I use my own methods. Maybe the house isn’t exactly the way she wants it, but once she quit micro-managing, I became a lot more invested in the tasks she gave me to do. My advice? If you want your hubby to help you out, make a list of what needs doing, how often you need it done, and then trust him to do it–his way. Learn to let go.
I think a lot of wives don’t really understand how much their husbands adore them and would do anything to please them. I’d say that if you make it clear what you want done–for example writing on a calendar on the fridge–your husband will be more than happy to do it. I think some of the tension around sharing the load comes from not “trusting the love” for want of a better expression.
Elder Anderson: that sounds a lot like a rule we came up with early on in our marriage. The person DOING the task gets 90% of the say in how it is done. That allows for input and influence, but really, it’s up to the doer.
I would love to hear from you about the possibility of doing a guest post if you want to contact me.
I think my husband and I divide things according to strengths and what bothers us more. We both empty bins as and when, though he will do it every Saturday evening as well. He polishes all the shoes every week. I do the ironing. As an SAHM, the grocery shopping, laundry and meals are mostly mine, though some Saturdays he will take over lunch and make Japanese cold noodles, especially in summer. I also get most of the cleaning, but mine is more keeping the dust down, vacuuming, wiping surfaces and tidying cleaning. He’ll scrub the draining board until it gleams. I cut the grass and prune the shrubs and try to keep the weeds down, he attacks the bushes with a hedge trimmer, and chops wood. I make the dentist, optician and Dr appts. I also liaise with school – this has been huge emotional work over the years ensuring our ASD son gets the appropriate support: attending meetings, writing reports.. which now he’s coming up to 18 has me thoroughly drained by this point, and my husband has been great at taking over some of this now we’re sorting out university for him from September. I get to keep the kids on track for their public examinations over the next two months.
I do the planning for decorating: colours, paper etc; but we both do it. But I have sympathy with EBKs view on decorating. I have very fixed ideas about what I like and want, and tend to take the view that if what I want isn’t available then things may as well stay as they are, because why spend all that money and effort just to get something I don’t particularly like. So while we’ve been in our current house 9 years, we only replaced the front and back doors last year once doors in a style and colour I liked were available – and even then the poor salesman had to get a bespoke back door – one particular style of door, but with a window size from another style… We both do the accounts, but I’m responsible for paying most of the bills.
But I gathering from comments above that I’m totally weird in that I do in fact do the packing for trips, including for my husband… That’s because I’m just so good at it, a skill inherited from my Dad.
Oh, and I am not the one who does the nagging in our household! Yup, that’s him.
Husband let me know from the beginning that he would be comfortable living in a studio apartment surrounded by books. If I wanted more than that, it was going to be my responsibility to deal with it. I took him at his word. I have gutted 2 houses and renovated 3. Decorating, investments, home repairs, car repairs, scheduling .. I do all of that. He is excellent about helping with daily chores of dishes, laundry, and pool care. We take turns with cooking — comparing our work schedules lets us decide who is doing what each day.
Housecleaning and yard work are hired out. If I ask for help with anything, he is willing to help because he love me, but housing and the add-ons of a financially successful life are still not priorities in his life.
@CityChicken
“Hired out”
An often overlooked solution.
The church seems to agree that household tasks should be negotiated rather than making assumptions. I loved this Ensign article
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1995/01/work-enough-for-two?lang=eng
Although I appreciate that there is a body of literature and research around emotional work, that automatically paints it with a pink brush. I wish it was called “mental work,” which is perhaps more accurate.
Of course it should be assigned by talent, interest, availability, etc. rather than chromosomes.
But I hate it when men AND women dismiss that kind of effort as “not working.” That becomes an issue when folks who do it fulltime are trying to return to the workplace or even get respectful treatment in other venues. Years at home doing that kind of work should be counted as working in another field for a while.
In reality, depending on the paid job to which one will return, it may be a source of learning great organizational skills, time management, triage, self-discipline, etc. Skills that translate directly into positions like being a project manager.
When I returned to the workplace after a stint at home, I thought they hired me for my graduate degree. No, it turned out that it was the managerial skills of running a large complex household that stood out in their minds. (Although the graduate degree was required and I would not have been interviewed without it.)
Outside of the church, couples also struggle. Sadly I know a lot of women who would love to either cut back their employment hours or have a second child. But their spouse refuses to respect work that does not bring in income.
That link to “under the covers” — such amazing stuff. I don’t have many issues with EL distribution in my relationship (woman married to a woman), but I totally recognize these patterns in some of my work relationships, past and present. I also recognize the “The backbone of relationships, not the entry fee” thing, that is, that I’ve seen many men perform EL during the initial “wooing” stage of a relationship and then drop it like a hot potato after marriage.
Elder Anderson: “I’d say that if you make it clear what you want done–for example writing on a calendar on the fridge–your husband will be more than happy to do it.”
From the “under the covers” document: “This has been on my mind because my boyfriend used to do a lot of the quotidian, repetitive chores around the house, and this was so because I told him that if I was going to be the manager, I wasn’t going to be out there on the floor with all the other workers (him). Either he could do the executive functions or he could do the labor functions, or we could split them evenly, but I wasn’t going to split the labor evenly and quietly take on all the executive functions too.”
Yes, lots of folks are willing to do the labor, but the “if you make it clear what you want” still means the partner (wife usually?) has to do the EL of executive functions/planning and often that work is not accounted for when dividing up the work.
@AuntM
“the labor, but the “if you make it clear what you want” still means the partner (wife usually?) has to do the EL of executive functions/planning and often that work is not accounted for”
Fair enough. I should have been more specific. The whole “write it down” thing is a personal obsession of mine. It tends to reduce conflict if my wife writes things down, because I tended to forget about them or sometimes didn’t hear her ask me or thought she was just thinking out loud… rather than asking me to do something.
Also, I didn’t mean my wife has to plan all the cleaning activities. I take part in that. I mean if she wants something extra done or wants to change things. I don’t think the wife needs to be in the role of a factory manager or anything like that.
Personally, I think writing things down can clarify communication and cut down on minor squabbles and hurt feelings.
I’ll admit it might not work for every couple. Maybe it’s because I’m ADD and afraid of forgetting stuff. 🙂
@AuntM
“men perform EL during the initial “wooing” stage of a relationship and then drop it like a hot potato after marriage.”
Boy! Ain’t that the truth. I was so guilty of that, but my wife set me straight pretty quick. I also learned pretty fast that helping out without being asked and being kind and thoughtful was an effortless way to ensure that my wife was mostly happy rather than resentful. That makes life better all around.
@Elder Anderson: I too like things written down. I just wanted to point out that the person writing down the list is often performing unrecognized EL.
I’ll also note that not all folks remember to look at the written list. 😉
The executive function role is an important call out. Living in Singapore we had (like most expats) a live in domestic helper. She did all the cleaning, laundry, dishes, cooking, mending, etc. DH and I continued to do the grocery shopping (I’m not trusting someone else with my snack purchases). She was used to doing all the cleaning, laundry & dishes and even mending clothes in the wash without any real instruction or oversight, but she wasn’t very familiar with western cooking. I am pretty sure I spent more managing the weekly menu as well as writing out simplified cooking instructions than I ever spent on cooking in the past. (Especially since before living in Asia we probably ate out half the time). Even so we managed to have quite a few cultural mishaps (apparently “pepper to taste” is way too subjective).
@AuntM
I chuckled remembering how, early on….
Wife, Wednesday evening during a TV show: “We should clean out the garage”.
Me, Saturday morning: “What do you mean you told me to clean out the garage today?!”
Interesting topic- thanks for such a thoughtful blog entry.
I think roles are changing with the times and each couple is different. I see men coming to the table on these emotional labors but still falling behind. Part of this is likely due to it feeling weird for dads to be calling other men’s wives even to communicate about children’s activities or social plans. I understand the growing benefit of it, but it’s still weird to me a bit at age 43. Many mothers working outside the home take pride in being the contact as its a ritual previously defined in motherhood. I see this with a friend who is a coast guard commander who’s husband is the homemaker.
In my marriage my husband avoids it like the plague and considers it my role. I do too because I’m the homemaker, not because I’m femail. I’d love to see him reach out socially but preferable, along gender lines to other dads. It’s not gonna happen though unless I die early.
I’ll admit something though- I perceive my husband as essentially disabled in that realm. Had he been raised in the church with home teaching visits and a built in sense if community and assignments from the church, it would have helped him greatly. Alas, he didn’t. In fact, he was raised by very antisocial people who constantly moved and he was an only child. It’s no wonder he doesn’t function as more of a social connector in our family. I’m quite social, on the other hand. To his credit, he’s an awesome dad and husband who’s gone far far beyond the parenting his own dad did.
@Jenonator
“communicating about social plans”
I wonder how much of this is an introvert vs. extrovert thing? I, for one, would rather chew broken bottles than talk to anybody besides my wife on the phone. My wife, on the other hand, is an extrovert and talks on the phone for hours. If I ever did have to coordinate stuff it would have to be via email or text.
I think there’s truth in it all- there are extroverts and introverts- often attracted together in marriage. Marriages are better when the couple honors each other’s strength and allows flexibility. The marital challenges come when people shirk effort and shove more work onto a spouse knowingly. I think the original post is trying to get at that- a new age where we consciously think about these gendered roles and do not limit ourselves nor judge ourselves based on how we fit them- where we love our spouses better by seeing where we can plug in and help each other and our families. I think many women (not me much) are feeling like men are behind in the work and group think of this. I also think many people- men and women do believe and observe, in their view, that women are generally better at emotional labor and/or men are not. That view angers some too.
My view is that men were designed by God to protect. Because they are physically more powerful, men are expected not to involve women in that. We have become very flexible and complacent in modern society because it’s not as brutal and lawless as it was thousands of years ago. I believe many people take this for granted. Men have the same testosterone, so to speak, but not the same need for it. That protector role also required a hyper vigilance in the same line that women have needed to be hypervigilant of relationship statuses and scheduling requirements of the whole family. Women have had a slower change in those tasks- just introductions of tech lime phones and Internet and cars in their traditional roles. Those things are things men use too so they see more reason for men to be involved.
Men, on the other hand,have had a relatively abrupt change in the hypvigilance needed for protection. The same threats of wild animals don’t exist, the male hierarchies aren’t generally as spontaneously violent and unpredictable as they were only a few decades ago. I see traditional male roles being denigrated and made fun of and society requiring them to sort if evolve relatively quickly into new less gendered roles. I just wish society could accomplish that with less humor and denigration of traditional male roles. Especially when I see the violence humans are still capable of and that men may be required to rise up violently again against groups like ISIS- while women may participate in that, it is traditionally males who need to coordinate such defenses.
By far, the area related to all this that concerns me mist is politics. I see the compassionate values women have, under the guise if “modern values” being adopted by nasses- both male and femail in many first world nations. Germany is the prime example of political “correctness” gone crazy. Men and their protective vigilance have taken a backseat to these compassionate voting and social efforts that women lead them into. Its all part of God’s plan for us to grow in compassion, but it’s getting out of balance due to political correctness and the general neutering of men while men from other cultures are hundreds of years behind come to first world nations and have boundary issues with women in a new culture they aren’t accepting. I am further concerned that terrorists have promised to hide in their midst and done so already, yet we are still prioritising immigration with no true background checks so we can view ourselves as compassionate.
In a nutshell, we (women and men and society) are taking collective credit for what men have brought us to and what men can generally provide—— civilised society. I think it’s a dangerous mistake to take collective credit and it leads us away from a healthy respect for male leadership in those times and male participation needs in such times in the future.