There’s this certain type of cultural commentary that’s ostensibly a super feminist observation of how much invisible labor women do, how they’re the glue the holds the whole damn thing together, but actually ends up presenting women as having no real inner lives beyond consideration of others. I saw this thing yesterday that was like “my wife is so much more socially astute than I am; she’s considering all these complex relational factors while I’m sitting here wondering why glue doesn’t stick to the inside of the bottle.”
My dude, my guy, my pal – do you seriously think women *don’t* sit around pondering the absurdities of life? Do you think we exist merely to keep the more juvenile sex in line? Because that’s really goddamn dehumanizing to *both* sides. It does nothing to complicate the idea that women are shrewish fun-suckers – it just tacks “but that’s good actually” onto the end.
I always come away feeling sorry a) for the men who’ve internalized the idea that they are essentially children whose inner absurdities must be squashed in the name of adulthood and b) for the women whose husbands seem to believe they’re fundamentally different creatures who care only about chores and feelings. What a terrible paradigm.