Telepathy Not A Thing, Women Hardest Hit
For Mother’s Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service.
In the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Gemma Hartley bemoans the chore of getting her multiple bathrooms cleaned by someone else. Actually, the clean bathrooms are, it turns out, a secondary concern:
The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labour of a single task that had been nagging at the back of my mind. The clean house would simply be a bonus.
It’s been said, here at least, that when someone uses the term “emotional labour” unironically, the person doing the mouthing is most likely a bit of a nightmare. Say, the kind of woman who complains about the “emotional labour” of hiring a domestic cleaner. Or the kind who bitches about her husband and his shortcomings in the pages of a national magazine, where friends and colleagues of said husband, and perhaps his own children, can read on with amusement.
My husband waited for me to change my mind to an “easier” gift than housecleaning, something he could one-click order on Amazon. Disappointed by my unwavering desire, the day before Mother’s Day he called a single service, decided they were too expensive, and vowed to clean the bathrooms himself. He still gave me the choice, of course. He told me the high dollar amount of completing the cleaning services I requested (since I control the budget) and asked incredulously if I still wanted him to book it.
Details ensue.
What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the emotional labour I would have done if the job had fallen to me.
Many details.
I had wanted to hire out deep cleaning for a while, especially since my freelance work had picked up considerably. The reason I hadn’t done it yet was part guilt over not doing my housework, and an even larger part of not wanting to deal with the work of hiring a service. I knew exactly how exhausting it was going to be. That’s why I asked my husband to do it as a gift.
This, it seems, was unknown to said husband and so, alas, ‘twas not to be.
I was gifted a necklace for Mother’s Day while my husband stole away to deep clean the bathrooms, leaving me to care for our children as the rest of the house fell into total disarray.
She ain’t happy.
In his mind, he was doing the thing I had most wanted—giving me sparkling bathrooms without having to do it myself.
Again, the psychological intricacies of Ms Hartley’s preferences regarding bathroom cleaning do not appear to have been expressed directly to Her Loving Other, who, we’re told, “willingly complies to any task I decide to assign to him.” Perhaps he, or one of his friends, will read Harper’s Bazaar, at which point the full scale of her discontent will become apparent. Why Ms Hartley chose not to convey this issue directly is not entirely clear. Though it seems she’s been quite busy publicly cataloguing her husband’s faults – which extend from telepathic inadequacy to a failure to return gift wrap to its usual storage location:
I stumbled over the box of gift wrap he had pulled off a high shelf two days earlier and left in the centre of our closet. In order to put it back, I had to get a kitchen chair and drag it into our closet so I could reach the shelf where it belonged.
This goes on for some time. It’s not just gift wrap disarray, you know. Shoes are also left untidily. Sorrows accumulate.
“All you have to do is ask me to put it back,” he said, watching me struggle… “That’s the point,” I said, now in tears, “I don’t want to have to ask.” The crying, the snapping at him — it all required damage control. I had to tell him how much I appreciated the bathroom cleaning,
Ah, a breakthrough. Direct communication – gratitude, even – and without the nagging.
but perhaps he could do it another time (like when our kids were in bed).
Damn. So close.
Then I tried to gingerly explain the concept of emotional labour… Delegating work to other people, i.e. telling him to do something he should instinctively know to do, is exhausting. I tried to tell him that I noticed the box [of gift wrap] at least 20 times over the past two days. He had noticed it only when I was heaving it onto the top shelf instead of asking for help. The whole explanation took a lot of restraint.
Hubby’s restraint, and his own possible causes of exhaustion, are left to the imagination. We are, however, treated to the inevitable feminist boilerplate. We learn, for instance, that,
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.
This, too, it seems, is exhausting. Though readers may have doubts regarding Ms Hartley’s professed reluctance to complain.
After describing her husband’s puzzled reactions to criticism as “patriarchal,” and by implication despicable, Ms Hartley resumes her listing of his faults, and her own seemingly endless woes:
Reminding him of his family’s birthdays, carrying in my head the entire school handbook and dietary guidelines for lunches, updating the calendar to include everyone’s schedules, asking his mother to babysit the kids when we go out, keeping track of what food and household items we are running low on, tidying everyone’s strewn about belongings, the unending hell that is laundry…
While hubby merely works full-time to keep a roof above their heads, then cleans the bathrooms, prepares dinner and “does dishes every night habitually.” All “without complaint.” The selfish bastard.
Possibly sensing that her case is not quite as sound as she might wish, Ms Hartley, a freelance writer and poet, then turns to her peers for reinforcement:
“What bothers me the most about having any conversation around emotional labour is being seen as a nag,” says Kelly Burch, a freelance journalist who works primarily from home.
Again, we’re invited to weep at the “emotional and mental energy” expended while remembering birthdays and writing shopping lists. Even brushing a daughter’s hair. Truly, feminists are heroic, undaunted and indestructible. Goddesses walking among us. And in the face of such crushing odds:
Even having a conversation about the imbalance of emotional labour becomes emotional labour.
But of course.
It gets to a point where I have to weigh the benefits of getting my husband to understand my frustration against the compounded emotional labour of doing so in a way that won’t end in us fighting. Usually I let it slide,
I’m sure you do, madam.
It feels greedy, at times, to want more from him.
Ah. Now there’s a thought worth pondering, perhaps at length. Instead of, say, rushing to doctrinaire posturing and self-flattering excuses.
Yet I find myself worrying about how the mental load bore almost exclusively by women translates into a deep gender inequality.
Never mind.
I know it’s not going to be easy for either of us to tackle the splitting of emotional labour, nor do I ever expect it to be completely equitable. (I’ll admit that I probably enjoy certain types of emotional labour far more than my husband, like planning our meals and vacations.)
Planning holidays. Will the oppression never end?
But if we’re lucky, he’s got a whole lot of life left to hone his emotional labour skills, and to change the course of our children’s future.
Yes, a lifetime of scolding, until one of them dies.
At this point, I’m wondering what the compliant and accommodating husband will make of Ms Hartley’s article, should he have time to read it in between his chores and full-time job. And what of their children? Will they too be impressed by their mother and her feminist credentials? A woman who insists that “women aren’t nags,” while complaining about the “emotional labour” of hiring servants to clean her bathrooms, and how “exhausting” it is.
Answers on a postcard, please.
Via Christina Hoff Sommers, via Darleen. 
That.
That.
I suppose you have to marvel at the level of self-indulgence required for a person to publicly declare, in a national magazine, how oppressed they are by booking holidays and hiring cleaners. And how exhausted and mentally put-upon they are by writing shopping lists and remembering birthdays. All while waiting for applause. As if such griping made them a sympathetic figure.
Though, of course, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“What bothers me the most about having any conversation around emotional labour is being seen as a nag,” says Kelly Burch, a freelance journalist who works primarily from home.
But you are, Blanche, you are a nag!
[/Bette Davis voice]
One also wonders what the writer gets her husband for Father’s Day.
Again, we’re invited to weep at the “emotional and mental energy” expended while remembering birthdays and writing shopping lists. Even brushing a daughter’s hair.
He chose poorly.
He chose poorly.
I’m assuming this is the husband, so you may want to hold off on declaring too much sympathy.
I stumbled over the box of gift wrap he had pulled off a high shelf two days earlier and left in the centre of our closet. In order to put it back, I had to get a kitchen chair and drag it into our closet so I could reach the shelf where it belonged.
Is this the wrapping paper he used for the necklace he bought her? 🙂
As I’ve said here before; ‘ emotional labour’ seems simply to consist of not being a c**t 24/7.
As I’ve said here before; ‘emotional labour’ seems simply to consist of not being a c**t 24/7.
And which, as you can imagine, poses certain, rather obvious problems for a great many feminists.
Perhaps he may put in more effort when it comes to hiring a divorce attorney.
The only surprise, given the tone of the article, is why he hasn’t already availed himself of such a service already.
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.
I’m not a woman, but I know dozens and dozens of them. Not one of the women I know was “taught” to accept such an arrangement as “their duty”. Not one. And not one of them behaves as though she were.
Perhaps this is just a thing among very privileged women.
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…doesn’t sound like any woman I’ve ever dated or married.
“What bothers me the most about having any conversation around emotional labour is being seen as a nag,” says Kelly Burch, a freelance journalist who works primarily from home.
So close to self-awareness here. Take away two words in that quote and it’s spot-on. Maybe there’s hope for this one.
So close to self-awareness here.
And yet, inevitably, she veers away. Because every sound and exemplary marriage is based on very publicly cataloguing the errors and inadequacies of your partner.
Hmm, I don’t think this has anything to do with house cleaning or emotional labour ( whatever that is), it is about her desire to emasculate her beloved. Her resentment and frustration lie with his refusal to buy into it. Barstard, f@#$ the patriarchy.
I once opined to a friend that I was tired of being the person who knows where everything is and where everyone is supposed to be. A mother of three young children herself, she pointed out that it is this that makes you the ‘mother’. We shared another bottle of wine and I was ok again.
Hmm, I don’t think this has anything to do with house cleaning or emotional labour (whatever that is), it is about her desire to emasculate her beloved.
There is, I think, an odd dynamic. One Twitter reply used the term abusive.
These people have absolutely no self-awareness, have they? How can anyone write this, presumably proofread this, publish this, and not for one moment think ‘Maybe this is a bit too much..’?
These people have absolutely no self-awareness, have they?
Again, to write this with the belief that you’re the sympathetic party, the one deserving of affirmation and applause. For being so terribly feminist.
And so, she moans about “gender roles” and “gender inequality,” while unwittingly confirming a major stereotype about the differences between men and women, the premise of endless jokes and comedy sketches.
Not one of the women I know was “taught” to accept such an arrangement as “their duty”. Not one. And not one of them behaves as though she were.
No, indeed. As I read that line, I pictured my sisters-in-law, none of whom would describe themselves as feminists, then started laughing.
when someone uses the term “emotional labour” unironically, the person doing the mouthing is most likely a bit of a nightmare.
Time for some Social Justice Kittens?
Pity eh? To think that all that angst and suppressed anger springs from her childhood jealousy of not being able to experience the joy of writing her name in the snow.
“Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.”
*snort*
“Hmm, I don’t think this has anything to do with house cleaning or emotional labour ( whatever that is), it is about her desire to emasculate her beloved.”
I wouldn’t put it quite in those terms. I think it’s more about control, not of her husband per se, but of the household as a whole. Since my father died, my brother and I have been living with my mum, since she can’t cope on her own. He can be very but-I-shouldn’t-have-to-ask at times.
Let’s face it, the best representation of this situation in fiction isn’t a husband and wife; it’s The Odd Couple.
In order to put it back, I had to get a kitchen chair and drag it into our closet so I could reach the shelf where it belonged.
She had to move a chair!!! #stunningandbrave
He told me the high dollar amount of completing the cleaning services I requested (since I control the budget) and asked incredulously if I still wanted him to book it.
Patriarchy in action folks. Feel that raw masculine power. Today’s key phrase is ‘effective delegation’.
It is just so emotionally draining to keep a house with this husband doing his part all wrong while I manage to keep writing about it endlessly, under deadline I might add, and doing the million and one things I do such as turning on and off lights, moving from chair to desk and back, finding the tv remote misplaced on the coffee table (infuriating, but I smile and gently remind him to please, please for once in your life do something I ask instead of waiting to be corrected like a schoolboy) instead of being properly wedged between the sofa cushions…
such as turning on and off lights,
Actual guffaw.
In order to put it back, I had to get a kitchen chair and drag it into our closet so I could reach the shelf where it belonged.
And drag it into our closet!!! Drag it my friends! Why it must have weighed a pound (or less). Maybe it was one of those huge jumbo rolls that you can buy? In which case maybe it should stay at ground level?
Oh, and BTW, although only working freelance from home I still control the entire household budget. Husband goes ahead and makes decision without my approval – patriarchy. Husband defers decision to me – emotional labour. Feminism features not bugs.
such as turning on and off lights,
If you poke through madam’s Twitter feed, you’ll see that this isn’t the first time she’s written about “emotional labour,” which, rather conveniently, seems to be a catch-all excuse for the self-absorbed, the neurotic, and tiresome cows generally.
How can anyone write this, presumably proofread this, publish this, and not for one moment think ‘Maybe this is a bit too much..’?
Makes you wonder how the article looked before editing
What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the emotional labour I would have done…
I do not see these labors as having any emotional burden, unless viewed from the perspective of someone with an anxiety disorder and possibly a large side of depression.
But we know the Woke aren’t like that at all.
I do not see these labors as having any emotional burden, unless viewed from the perspective of someone with an anxiety disorder and possibly a large side of depression.
Well, quite. Like much of the world’s population, I have to keep track of birthdays and grocery shopping, social gatherings, deliveries, etc., but I’ve yet to find it so unbearable that I’ve felt a need to write sorrowful articles in Harper’s, let alone burst into tears. But then contemporary feminism compounds vanity and resentment and exacerbates neurosis. Psychologically, it seems quite poisonous. The kind of thing youngsters should be warned about – not inculcated into, as Ms Hartley suggests.
…exacerbates neurosis.
It’s what a properly run cult does.
Doesn’t she realise if she gets an Echo and some Hues, she can bark orders and never have to touch a light switch again?
And, like her husband, I suspect, Alexa never answers back…
He told me the high dollar amount of completing the cleaning services I requested (since I control the budget) and asked incredulously if I still wanted him to book it.
Talk about Kafka-trapping.
Men are told all the time they have to learn to control their nature, but “feminist” women are allowed to indulge theirs? Being an overly emotional, manipulating, unempathetic bitch isn’t anyway to go through life.
Her husband sounds like a selfish prick. Doesn’t he know that doing these things isn’t enough. They must be done precisely when and how She-who-must-be-obeyed wants them done.
Being an overly emotional, manipulating, unempathetic bitch isn’t anyway to go through life.
[ Large and gaudy cocktail slides down bar towards Darleen. ]
[ Followed by a sausage roll that looks suspiciously familiar. ]
Clickhate or Feminist Cuntnip? Likely both I’m sure.
Normally one could squint and see a silver lining in such drivel. Namely that we are so unbelievably rich and safe that this sort of twattery can thrive. However recent events prove that it’s indeed Karen’s world, and we’re just simping through it.
tiresome cows
Band name.
It’s no nevermind to me, dear host, but hopefully this is the first and last time someone must gently ask you to stop pushing the sausage.
Heh.
She can spend three hours with her girlfriends drinking wine and bitching about husbands, but it never occurs to her to ask if they have any recommendations for a good cleaning service. Too much emotional heavy lifting, that.
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something men are taught to cope with by stopping off at the pub for a pint with their mates. It seems odd that women don’t have an equivalent coping mechanism. One might think that the three-hour, wine-fueled bitch sessions would serve, but evidently this is not so.
Being an overly emotional, manipulating, unempathetic bitch isn’t anyway to go through life.
One supposes it’s no picnic being married to one, either.
She should accept this as the white woman’s burden, the noblesse oblige of existing on a higher moral plain than the dumb apes we call men.
I find it a tad ironic that an article bewailing “emotional” labor, is full of old ads touting stuff designed to reduce women’s actual physical labor and which set the conditions for lots of free time for those so inclined to make up problems like “emotional” labor.
Being an overly emotional, manipulating, unempathetic bitch isn’t anyway to go through life.
The older I get – and the more I have to deal with recent graduates – the more I realize that Dean Wormer was right about everything.
spicy mountains
Band name.
Also, this kind of fatuousness isn’t reserved to woke feminists; it’s increasingly a characteristic of middle-class women in general. I’m part of several recipe groups on Facebook dedicated to the bewildering array of kitchen appliances I own, and by a brobdingnagian margin the most common post there is some form of “my husband did something dumb with the appliance, what should I do” followed by a deafening chorus of replies advising divorce and/or physical abuse.
But, but.. Life is so HARD! We Queen Bees should be treated like, well, queen bees, with worker bees and feeder bees and nursery bees and not have to think (Emotional Labour) or even move.
So let me see if I have this right. This top-of-the-food-chain, empowered, independent, self-confident, decision-making feminist has decided it is too tiresome and wishes somebody else, preferably husband, would usurp her authority and simply tell HER what to do?
wishes somebody else, preferably husband, would usurp her authority and simply tell HER what to do?
Nature will not be denied.
EDIT – would usurp her authority, TAKE CONTROL and simply tell HER what to do, thereby relieving her of all this emotional labour?
[she] wishes somebody else, preferably husband, would usurp her authority and simply tell HER what to do?
Very much so, actually. The very act of writing the piece, as David has noted many times, is part of her grand humiliating sh!t test her husband – and society at large – keeps failing. It’s a desperate cry for help in the same way a junkie crashes their car into the police station. Only if the police quietly cleaned up the mess and replaced the car.
hopefully this is the first and last time someone must gently ask you to stop pushing the sausage.
There is a lot of emotional labor in making such a request. 😀
Also, this kind of fatuousness isn’t reserved to woke feminists; it’s increasingly a characteristic of middle-class women in general.
Well, it’s status-signalling. What Instapundit might refer to as “luxury beliefs.” Oppression, even contrived or transparently delusional oppression, is very in right now. And offhand I can’t think of much that’s more tiresome than listening to pretentious pinheads signalling their status to other pretentious pinheads.
If I were the husband I would spend my emotional labor by devising a plan to squirrel away assets and find a vicious female lawyer and use the published article as evidence of emotional abuse and instability to divorce the witch! Life is too short to put up with that s#1t show.
You’d think that more of the wider public might have cottoned-on by now. Feminism, as practised largely by middle-class women in developed societies, tends to attract a very high concentration of obnoxious, neurotic women, before making them more obnoxious and neurotic.
Bad medicine.
There’s an old joke about this:
Statistics gathered over a long period of time indicate, with a high degree of reliability, that husbands die, on average, seven years earlier than their wives. Which prompts the question, why?
Because they want to.
[1000 word rant about housework deleted.]
Instead I’m going to hijack the thread, because I saw Paul Krugman on the telly last night, on Jake Tapper’s CNN show.
It started off stupidly enough, with Tapper asking Krugman his opinion about health milestones necessary before “rebooting” the economy. But soon Krugman was off pontificating about “total lockdown” and how very long it should be necessary. (This is the show that ended with Tapper’s long lecture to Trump, which deserves a Fisking of its own, but…)
I woke up very early this morning still aggravated about Krugman’s remarks. “Total shutdown”, what could that mean, exactly? I mean, presumably he thinks essentials like electricity, gas, water, and sewer service should keep working. So all the operations folks and lots of maintenance folks should stay on their jobs. Sewage treatment plants. Water treatment plants. Garbage haulers and solid waste dump operations.
Wait. What about food? OK, we need grocery stores, so stockers and clerks. Oh, and trucks to deliver stuff, so drivers and dispatchers. And truck stops for gasoline and road food. And refineries to keep making gasoline and motor oil and feedstock chemicals so the injection molded plastic parts of those vital ventilators can be made. And at least some airports and airplanes, so airport operations staffs, and air traffic controllers and their support staffs. Oops, I forgot doctors and nurses and hospital operations staffs. And fire departments (California wildfire season starts in a couple months.) Maybe police departments? And they all have vehicles, so a variety of truck and car maintenance shops and workers.
Whoa, back to food. I forgot something, might be important. Farmers and ranchers and dairies. And the folks who run the NYC and DC subways. Oh sh*t. Pharmaceutical manufacturers. HCQ and Z-Packs and Remdesivir don’t grow on trees in my universe. And 3M’s mask factories. More trucks and cars and buses (do they drive themselves?)
So what Krugman really means by “total lockdown” is, folks like Paul and Jake should isolate, protect themselves and their families and associates. But meanwhile, a truly vast army of unmentioned folks get to keep up their daily routine, putting their lives at risk.
But shh… It would queer the pitch to mention them, don’t you know. Pr*ck.
Hey David!
If you aren’t all fisked out yet, here’s one you can have fun with.
https://www.twofatprofessors.com/post/the-resistance-is-real
My experience has often been that there are two conversations going on with women; one with the outside world and one that’s happening in their heads. Gemma has crossed the line where it’s all head talk all the time.
With my wife it’s about 50/50. For example, today, she walked over to me and said, “I ran the dishwasher. I just haven’t unloaded it.” In her head, the conversation went like this: “Why haven’t you unloaded the dishwasher? I’m telling you to unload the dishwasher. I’ll bet he doesn’t unload the dishwasher.”
Similarly, today, she was standing by the kitchen sink looking out the window. We have a thermometer outside by the window. I asked my wife what the temperature was. She said, “You’ll have to wear a jacket.” I said, “okay, but what’s the temperature?” She said, “Well I guess you could wear a sweater or a hoodie.” At which point I gave up. I have no intention of going outside. But in her head she believes that she’s answered my question and wants to know why I’m not taking her advice.
I’m lucky she’s not a feminist writer. I’d be in more trouble than I normally am.
If you aren’t all fisked out yet, here’s one you can have fun with.
Thanks. Another time maybe. There’s only so much woke contortion a chap can sift through in one day without himself coming unhinged.
If I were the husband I would spend my emotional labor by devising a plan to squirrel away assets and find a vicious female lawyer and use the published article as evidence of emotional abuse and instability to divorce the witch!
Maybe not divorce her right out of the gate. Maybe just introduce her to the ruthless divorce lawyer and acquaint her with the case against her, and then suggest that perhaps a little more appreciation and humility would not go amiss.
Because unless Ms. Hartley has a pile of old family money to fall back on, she will utterly collapse at the thought of maintaining herself in the style in which she’s accustomed on nothing more than the paltry payments she brings in with her freelancing. Suddenly, the process of choosing a household servant won’t seem like such an existential nightmare.
In ten weeks’ time, she’ll be writing features about how liberating it is to play the role of Stepford Wife, recommending it to all her trendy friends…
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.
Is there a course I can take to teach my daughter how to do that? Because she’s 22, living at home, and a raging bitch to live with at times.
Because she’s 22, living at home, and a raging bitch to live with at times.
Your house, you set the rules. Let her know she can rage all she want as long as it is out of your hearing range or she can pack up and leave.
#2 inherited her dad’s short-fuse, Irish temper. I didn’t put up with at age ten and she knew when she lived with us when she went back to college in her late 20s she’d have to curb her nature or get out.
Worked out very well. Her and her twin sons lived with us for 6 years and, while there were some bumps, we came out of it all the better.
Similarly, today, she was standing by the kitchen sink looking out the window. We have a thermometer outside by the window. I asked my wife what the temperature was. She said, “You’ll have to wear a jacket.” I said, “okay, but what’s the temperature?” She said, “Well I guess you could wear a sweater or a hoodie.”
You bugged my house, didn’t you? Admit it.
In general, I agree with the tenor of the comments, although I also understand her irritation at her husband over the gift box. Is it really that difficult to put your shit away when you’re done using it?
Unless he’s doing it deliberately to irritate her.
I suppose this is why it’s important to see eye-to-eye with your beloved on certain important issues. I’ve learned that when the wife says, “You decide,” she really wants me to decide, and that she won’t pull my decision back like Lucy and the football in Peanuts.
I still have to learn not to “help” her hang laundry on the clothesline, because it has to be done the right way and that is according to her lights. Instead, I can snap out the clothes so they’ll dry faster, and remark on how well the [plants] are growing [or fading] this season, depending on the time of year.
It also helps that I was married to someone with whom I definitely had little in common, to be grateful how well I get along with the current Mrs. Feet.
Can’t recall where I found this.
But feel free to discuss.
Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something men are taught to cope with by stopping off at the pub for a pint with their mates. It seems odd that women don’t have an equivalent coping mechanism. One might think that the three-hour, wine-fueled bitch sessions would serve, but evidently this is not so.
On the contrary, the three-hour, wine-fueled bitch sessions are intended — and usually with great success — to bring forward and highlight new things to be upset about and to bring to the attention of the erring spouse. The emotional labour never, ever ends.
To recap:
1. Cleaning bathrooms is hard.
2. Asking someone else to clean bathrooms is hard.
3. Hiring someone to clean bathrooms is hard.
4. Asking someone else to hire someone to clean bathrooms is hard.
5. Not asking someone else to clean bathrooms is hard.
6. Not asking someone else to hire someone to clean bathrooms is hard.
7. Talking about all this is hard.
And…
8. Not talking about all this, and letting it slide, is hard.
Now. About that wrapping paper…
To recap:
Heh. Pretty much.
8. Not talking about all this, and letting it slide, is hard.
I believe you misspelled “impossible and unthinkable” as “hard”.
Apologies if this isn’t a path you care to wander down (and for my rambling), but quotes like this:
“All you have to do is ask me to put it back,” he said, watching me struggle… “That’s the point,” I said, now in tears, “I don’t want to have to ask.”
They remind me of the writings of http://therationalmale.com/ She wants someone who just gets it, like most women. But the bible says, “The aged women… That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Instead feminism has become a cultural force encouraging women to feel minimized, envious, and put upon, but most of all to complain about it. It is to her credit that she seems to behave at least somewhat decently at home, though she completely wrecks it by writing this for the public.
A related writer, with a Christian perspective, put it this way. Dalrock’s Law of Feminism: Feminism is the assertion that men are evil and naturally want to harm women, followed by pleas to men to solve all of women’s problems.
mental load bore
Typo, or Freudian slip?
folks like Paul and Jake should isolate, protect themselves and their families and associates. But meanwhile, a truly vast army of unmentioned folks get to keep up their daily routine, putting their lives at risk.
As I said to a former co-worker on FB, AIUI the philosophers and sociologists and such at our colleges and universities have yet to miss a paycheck. Perhaps we can get tax their asses and employ some real essential workers to complete Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B. God knows the P & S wouldn’t know how to build it themselves.
It’s absurd that these journalists and other do-nothing types are free to roam about, reporting on lone paddleboarders being arrested, clamoring for beach closings, tut-tutting about rule breakers, etc. while productive people are locked up in their homes. WTF do they contribute to this crisis except spreading fear and panic? But hey, First Amendment. But of course if other journalists, or even the White House, present information other than fear and panic, they want those journalists shut up for being “irresponsible” and they want to blackout WH press briefings because TRUMP!!!!11!!!. Now TBF, I am only aware of journalists’ doings because of what other people post on blogs and FB and send in emails and IM’s, so I’m curious…Are these news teams actually going into studios to sit in front of cameras? Were Tapper and Krugman in a studio or the same room? Are makeup people attending to them whilst the barbers and hairdressers of the masses are put out of work?
As the main housekeeper, I have to agree a tiny bit with the authoress. It is aggravating to have to frequently remind (not NAG, that would be BAD) other adults in the house to do stuff that regularly needs to be done.
However, I have plenty of experience with women who are perfectionists, instead of “satisficers”. I’ve learned to just stand back and let them indulge their need to find the best deal or the perfect hotel. Me? I usually just want to get a decision made. I keep peace by indulging their process and by being vocally grateful for the quality of the final results.
That said, the authoress really needs to get a real job, preferably one involving manual labor ( the real kind of labor) and get over herself.
David, when you are ready to start fisking again, I think you will find twofatprofessors.com an embarrassment of riches. The one I sent you seems to be about the funniest. Save it for when the urge comes on you again.
I asked my wife what the temperature was. She said, “You’ll have to wear a jacket.” I said, “okay, but what’s the temperature?” She said, “Well I guess you could wear a sweater or a hoodie.” At which point I gave up. I have no intention of going outside.
My wife does this a lot, though it’s an off-and-on thing. I’ve noticed her doing it quite a bit lately and I’m beginning to believe it is stress-induced. Sometimes (before recently) it’s not easy to pick up on when or what is stressing her so I hadn’t thought about stress being a factor until this thing broke out. I think it’s a general rush to get information out of her head. I get very aggravated when I ask as specific question, like as you say, and get a somewhat in context answer but not specific to what I asked. As an engineer this is quite annoying, especially when she’s asked me to fix something and I need to know specifics of the problem, not her other observations about the problem. Usually it’s a problem that (often needlessly) she’s very worried about.
Quite often this rush to get information out also manifests itself via context switching. This has happened when she’s telling me about people with common names, like a “Chris” or “Bill”. She uses first names a lot without context and if it comes out of the blue, I think she’s talking in the context of one group of people we somewhat recently talked about. Half way through the discussion and a few exasperations and I’m hit with the realization that we’re talking about “Bill” down the street and not “Bill” who worked with her at the bank. I’m now beginning to think this is only happening during (her) stress outs. Not 100% convinced of this yet but I will try to remember to note it next time it happens.
Can’t recall where I found this.
The Women’s board is missing the monthly potentiometer.
Wtp,
We recently discovered a new news source called Cheddar. A bit amateurish but the information:ego ratio is orders better than any “major” source. I get them on one of my second tier video channels, but they also stream from cheddar.com i think. They appear to be streaming from their homes. Check it out.
Oh almost forgot. Their between-segment fillers are worth the price of admission all by themselves.
While hubby merely works full-time to keep a roof above their heads, then cleans the bathrooms, prepares dinner and “does dishes every night habitually.” All “without complaint.”
Don’t forget the necklace!
But if we’re lucky, he’s got a whole lot of life left to hone his emotional labour skills, and to change the course of our children’s future.
Please God, change the course of their poor children’s future. Looks terribly bleak right now. Someone stuff this overwrought young biddy with xanax.
Nature will not be denied.
One of my happily married friends worked out a system years ago. Whenever his wife insists she wants to handle the planning for something, he makes the necessary arrangements in secret. Only when the family vacation or what have you is two-three days away, and his beloved reveals that she is upset that she hasn’t decided on anything yet, does he inform her that it is all already taken care of.
Gemma is further evidence that the human race is long overdue for a culling.
“For example, today, she walked over to me and said, “I ran the dishwasher. I just haven’t unloaded it.” In her head, the conversation went like this: “Why haven’t you unloaded the dishwasher? I’m telling you to unload the dishwasher. I’ll bet he doesn’t unload the dishwasher.””
“I’m not asking who let the dogs out. All I’m saying is that the dogs are out, and somebody’s going to have to put them back.”
“Can’t recall where I found this.”
Sometimes I envy you homosexualists.
Don’t forget the necklace!
“It was fresh water pearls. He knows I hate fresh water pearls. I told him ocean pearls. He never listens to me. It’s like he doesn’t know me at all. As for the bathroom, he made it sparkling. He knows I hate shiny. I only want to see matte surfaces. And these bon bons aren’t going to jump into my mouth by themselves.”
So, question: when Herself undertakes to giftwrap, does the stuff levitate off the shelf and then levitate back? If so, I am in awe of her physics-defying gift at materials management, but if not, wouldn’t this involve the same excruciating efforts she so lovingly described? And, come to that, who decided it HAD to live on the shelf anyway? Me, I’d go with Best Practices and just jam the roll into the darkest corner of the closet on the floor and call it good, but we must not be cut from the same bolt of cloth.
If you are complaining about the ’emotional labour’ of calling a couple of cleaning services because you don’t want to clean up your own mess, then your life must be extremely comfortable. You truly are the 1% that I’m sure you griped about in 2012. You have nothing to teach us.
Also, if you are so worried about your children are taking away from your dynamic, then either get a proper job and contribute properly to the household income, so you and your husband then should share all burdens equally (‘freelance’ anything – especially poet – rarely secures a reliable income, especially if you don’t need to do it to live) OR become a full-time mum, take responsibility for the ’emotional labour,’ knowing that your living needs are already met, and be competent enough so that you can be alone with your children without the house falling into ‘disarray.’
Can’t recall where I found this.
the writings of http://therationalmale.com
Juxtaposition. In S2 of Westworld, one of the software engineers opines that their difficulty replicating human behaviour at first was that they over-thought the problem. “A human being”, he says, “is only ten thousand lines of code.”[1]
Hence why, if you read and pay attention to people like Rollo Tomassi, you’ll realize very quickly that women as just as simple as men are. Ultimately all this noise is just another form of sh*t test, a way of seeing whether her husband is alpha enough to tell her to sit down, stop being such a whiny bint, and quit writing about the family in public.
[1] This is a very small program by any modern standards
One sentence summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g9_wfkYjfo
From Two Fat Professors:
The resistance to fat people loving themselves is real, y’all.
Sad. It seems if you get really fat, you can’t even knock one out…
It seems Ms Hartley has had a belated breakthrough of sorts, some personal growth:
I wonder if this has changed her attitude towards her husband and routine chores, or whether the feminism will flare up again, with all that self-flattering drama, all those tempting excuses.
Posted by: Tony | April 06, 2020 at 20:22
I want to upvote this. 🙂
She found a way to spin the situation as negatively as possible. It was like I was looking in a goddamn mirror, and I didn’t like what I saw.
Are you sure that wasn’t written by Mr. Hartley, hijacking his wife’s account?
… especially since my freelance work had picked up considerably …
Feminism, as practised largely by middle-class women in developed societies, tends to attract a very high concentration of obnoxious, neurotic women, before making them more obnoxious and neurotic.
So you mean to say a political ideology whose central ideals have been produced almost entirely by childless, unmarried women, not a small number of whom are lesbian or othersexual, quite a few of whom (e.g. Kate Millet, Shulamith Firestone) struggle with severe mental health issues, turn out to be almost wholly incompatible with the lifestyle of a married woman with young children who is financially supported by a full-time working husband ?
Boy! Who could have seen that one coming?
Eventually, I learned to keep my complaints offline (after being confronted by a male friend at a baby shower who told me my social media made it seem like I hated being a mother, yikes!)…
… It seemed like the only reason this mom was so unhappy was her decision to make a big deal out of every little thing. She found a way to spin the situation as negatively as possible. It was like I was looking in a goddamn mirror, and I didn’t like what I saw.
Fate, having a particularly ironic character, will almost guarantee that this epiphany of hers will be immediately followed by the shock discovery that her husband’s been having an affair.
At which point, the sacrifice her particular brand of feminism will have made of her joy in life will be complete.
And like many victims trapped in a cycle of abuse, she will probably then turn back to that brand of feminism for solace.
If you are not familiar with the Britcom “Mum” you need to watch it. The character “Pauline” is very close to the archetype discussed here. Her beau, Derek, epitomizes the ‘whipped’ male whom she simultaneously depends on and disparages.
Heh. Well, shockingly, yes.
But it’s one of the things that struck me when, as a teenager, I first started encountering people who called themselves feminists. The concentration of, shall we say, issues, of neuroticism and obnoxiousness, and acts of petty spite, was hard to miss. It sort of leapt out as unusual and noteworthy, even then. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what it implied about the ideology itself, of which I was fairly ignorant, but it did seem to attract a remarkable number of people who were probably best avoided.
Time and further experience have not changed that impression.
So you mean to say a political ideology whose central ideals have been produced almost entirely by childless, unmarried women…
Don’t forget the communist women of various marital statuses.
Imagine, an ideology that denigrates mothers and their “emotional labor” of supporting their family to ensure they have clean clothes, food on the table, and emotional support in times of crisis, discovers that they don’t get emotional support when they’re shrieking harridans who contribute nothing to others’ lives.
Why, it’s almost as if they were taught that “being themselves” was deserving of love and respect, and not for their wit, charm, beauty, graciousness, intelligence, developed talent, or competence.
Who could imagine that?
Oh, and to add that these same women hire poor women from other countries to supply all that.
Does that peg the irony meter?
Fred the Fourth wrote:
So what Krugman really means by “total lockdown” is, folks like Paul and Jake should isolate, protect themselves and their families and associates. But meanwhile, a truly vast army of unmentioned folks get to keep up their daily routine, putting their lives at risk.
But shh… It would queer the pitch to mention them, don’t you know. Pr*ck.
This pretty well describes our disgraceful PM Trudeau, now on day 26 of his “two-week self-isolation”, with n end in sight. The brilliant Kate at Small Dead Animals refers to this as Groundhog Day. The cowardly wanker pops out once a day (and usually late – from what?!) to ooze out some pretentious pap or with a promise to give away more money we don’t have. By coincidence, our equally disgraceful press is there with cameras humming to lap it all up and spray it out over our government-paid media (which these days is ALL of it — except Rebel Media and True North, but don’t worry, they are banned from these proceedings.)
Fred, your great summary inspired this rant.
–Bad News
Trump-hating nurse shows her deep humanity:
https://twitter.com/NaplesAlleycat/status/1247025504034656257
Trump-hating nurse shows her deep humanity:
It’s a strange thing to announce, a strange thing to take pride in.
It’s understandably difficult to accept, given the amount of trust one must put into doctors and nurses, that they are human beings subject to typical human faults. Recent events have certainly shown the stress points of our societies, not least that medical personnel, while being by and large brave and skilled professionals, are populated with a not-insignificant minority of truly horrible people.
The medical systems and arrangements of the West, from the decrepit NHS to the slimy bloated behemoth of the US systems, did not achieve their costly ineptitude purely from politicians after all.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878651/Letter_from_Secretary_of_State_Alok_Sharma_MP_to_those_working_in_Manufacturing.pdf
Official recognition of reality.
Still leaves Krugman safe at home, a mixed blessing.
“I was gifted a necklace for Mother’s Day…”. It has become common for people to use the word “gifted” when they mean “given”. This is not acceptable. That is all. Carry on.