By far the most common complaint the heterosexual women I work with have about their long-term relationships with men is the seemingly unsolvable problem of the unequal distribution of household labor and caregiving work. These women are exhausted, fed-up, and out of ideas. They are confused about why their partners won’t make the changes necessary to give them some relief. And they are desperate to communicate their unhappiness in a way that finally inspires their partners to participate in co-creating a fair and equitable relationship.
I believe that this dynamic is a major contributor to a myriad of women’s physical and mental health issues including anxiety, depression, postpartum depression, lack of sexual desire and satisfaction, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain.
Gendered labor inequity in heterosexual relationships is a mental and physical health crisis for women that shows very little evidence of improving despite decades of women begging, bargaining, and demanding change. Just about every woman in a long-term relationship with a man eventually wonders if an equitable partnership is even possible.
Most heterosexual women want to be in a relationship in which both partners contribute equitably to housework, child rearing, and the invisible mental load that comes with having a home and family. And yet most of us find ourselves doing the vast majority of that labor. Eventually it may be easier for us to conclude that an equitable relationship just isn’t possible because the actual truth is so much more difficult to accept: The men who say they love us are also perfectly happy to exploit our time, energy, emotional well-being, and physical health in order to preserve their own.
The subject of equity in relationship is often minimized as a small disagreement over who does the dishes or takes out the trash. In reality, it’s a battle over who gets to thrive, who gets adequate rest and sleep, who has time to pursue their dreams and hobbies and careers—and who sacrifices all of those things to care for others.
Women mostly lose this battle and, as a result, sacrifice days, months, years of our lives—thousands of hours that could have been spent pursuing our dreams, tending to our emotional and physical needs, creating art, advancing in our careers, or simply resting. We give up our free time, our creative pursuits, our sleep, our personal income, and often our health in return for having a family. Nothing of the sort is expected of our male partners.
Why are equitable relationships so rare? It’s a myth that they are impossible. Rather, very few men are willing to give up the privileges granted to them by traditional gender roles—not even for the women they claim to love.
The popular ideas that men are just bad at housework and childcare, or that they have different standards for this work, exist to enforce the status quo. A man who can work as an engineer can load a dishwasher properly. A man who can remember to meet a work deadline can remember the time of his daughter’s soccer practice. Try imagining a man making the following statements to his boss:
• I have lower standards than you. If you want it done better, you’ll have to do it yourself.
• If I’m fine with a half-done job, why can’t you be?
• Do I have any meetings this week? What times? Can you send me a reminder?
• If I said I’d write the report, then I’ll write it eventually. Stop nagging me about it.
If a man would never place the burden of his own feigned incompetence on his boss, why will he insist that it’s his right to do it to the person he vowed to love and care for?
Men are more than capable of equity. Unfortunately, most of them don’t want it. If they did, most relationships would be equitable already—it’s not like women haven’t been asking for decades. However, for an inequitable relationship to become equitable, the man must give up some of his time, his rest, and his mental, emotional, and physical energy. He must give up the unearned privileges granted to him just for being a man. It seems that, to many men, this is too much of a sacrifice to make—even for the women they claim to love. Makes you wonder what their definition of love is, doesn’t it?
If you find yourself at the end of your ability to tolerate the inequity in your relationship, you’re not overreacting. When people tell you, “it could be worse,” or “at least he’s not abusive” or “that’s just the way men are”—they’re minimizing the real, measurable damage inequity does to women’s health and well-being.
If you’ve repeatedly asked your partner to care for your well-being as much as his own but his behavior never changes, you may be considering couple’s counseling. While some relationship therapists incorporate the goal of gender equity into their work, many therapists who work with couples continue to downplay the real, severe damage inequity does to women’s lives. It’s ok to specifically ask a potential couple’s therapist what their views on gender inequity in relationships is.
And, if you’re in an inequitable partnership and wondering how to start the conversation with your partner, how to define what equity means to you, or whether you should stay in the relationship at all, reach out and we can talk it through together.