I fix my own damn computer and car. Stop applying your specific relationship circumstances to others’ and stop discounting a problem many women are describing just because you haven’t personally experienced it. If you want to mansplain in peace I suggest you do it somewhere other than jezebel.

Well for clothes shopping he is a pretty stereotypical man, in that he loathes it and will not do it if at all possible. So yes, if he needs boxer shorts or a dress shirt or something, I will probably be the one picking out whatever it is. Simply because he won’t be in the store at all if he can avoid it. Several of…

YES. I love how men think not caring is a legit excuse for not engaging. No, that is the exact problem we hate.

What’s been so hard for me to explain is the mental effort involved in 1: stopping what I am doing to answer him, 2: running down my mental checklist of tasks to find one to give him, and 3: directing him when he invariably comes back with a question.

See? Men. You have to explain what sheets getting old means.

BUT asking is the problem! Why should she HAVE to ask in the first place? He should recognize that the fucking kitchen needs cleaning too! I mean if me and my boyfriend could look at each other and simultaneously say ‘huh, the kitchen needs cleaning.’ and then both resume eating cereal, THAT WOULD BE FINE. It’s not…

I’m not ignoring that “emotional labor factors into systemic sexism.” And, I’m not wishing any of that away.

Sheets get too old for various reasons:

Agree 100%. “The fixing of things affords accolades whereas providing support does not” is indicative of the very issue, because we teach men to fix and women to support and then only reward one skill set, thereby reinforcing the existing structure that values men’s work over women’s work.

Why didn’t we just ask? How could we not think of that! The problem is that the asking and asking again, and again, and getting frustrated because you’ve asked 15 times and nothing has changed is part of the very same emotional labour we’re trying to dispense with. If asking worked we wouldn’t be having this…

Sounds like you have a reasonably good division of labor that works for your relationship. You’re very lucky!

When i got married my husband scrawled (it was virtually illegible) thank you notes to his family members. I assumed that he mailed them. Around a year later, while doing serious cleaning, I found them crammed under the couch. That was his level of responsibility. We aren't married anymore.

I’ve asked my partner (male) to help all the time, and with the best intentions in the world, he will forget the next day. Because he has the luxury of being able to forget. And I’m exhausted for reminding him because it always means a “big” conversation about labour division in our relationship and feminism and blah…

I have a sneaking suspicion that post-marriage, my guy won’t lift a finger to do Thank You cards either. The good news is, he flat out doesn’t care if other people think it’s rude. But that’s kind of a double-edged sword in itself, because it means I’m running around doing the emotional work of making sure we’re still…

How many hours per day do you spend cleaning your furnace filters, buddy?

Honest bomb: I refused to do Thank You notes for our wedding unless my husband sat down and helped. I would have settled for an uneven split of the labor. A year later and only a handful of Thank You notes have gone out because I realized he had no intention of lifting a single finger even though he would often bemoan…

If you can suggest a way to say “No, you need to find a birthday present for your own sister.” without it sounding like “I don’t care about your stupid sister.”, well, I’m all ears.

To do that, you would have to serve that it needs to be done, and figure out how to say it—>just the kind of thing you are saying you won't do. It's a catch-22

But part of the problem is that asking is part of the emotional work. Recognizing that it needs to be done, planning it, delegating tasks, all of that goes unseen.

Emotional expectations for men are created by men. Emotional expectations for women are also created by men. Feminists are working on this, but if you want to see change, women aren’t the people you need to snark at.