Darcy Lockman writes in The Atlantic, that wives, who are grateful for their husbands help in raising their children, are holding back the rewriting of gender rules necessary to arrive at somewhere different than where we currently are with vestiges of the patriarchy still haunting us.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother to read such an article, but, to generate content for my blog, I held my nose and read her short screed on your behalf.
Ms. Lockman discovers her grievance: For the past 20 years, research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistently found that women employed outside of the home shoulder 65 percent of child-care responsibilities, and their male partners 35 percent. … In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development called the uneven distribution of unpaid labor between men and women in the home one of the most important gender-equality issues of our time. … MenCare, a fatherhood campaign working toward child-care parity in 45 nations, estimates that at the current rate of change, it will be another 75 years before women achieve gender equality in the home —a more optimistic figure than the 200 years the United Nations International Labour Organization predicted in March, on the eve of International Women’s Day. … Women’s gratitude is doubtless a result of the well-known, deeply felt fact that while domestic labor isn’t equal now, it was even less equal before.
So, according to Ms. Lockman, the Feminism foiling gratitude is because many wives perceive a relative improvement in the distribution of child care responsibilities since the 80’s and 90’s. Apparently Feminists are not to be prematurely grateful for getting what they want, because giving up their raging aggrieved state may slow the progress of achieving complete parity between the sexes in the child care role.
Andrea’s misplaced gratitude is not only common, but also an impediment to the elusive goal of equity in the home. … Gratitude is a brand of benevolent sexism, a force that repels change. To offer thanks for whatever contributions men happen to make reinforces the implicit idea that parenting is women’s work, that 65/35 is a very fine place to stop. … Only once gratitude is relinquished for righteous anger will gender rules in this realm be rewritten. Then we can land somewhere different: not grateful, only glad.
So, according to Ms. Lockman, ladies you should not ever be grateful for your husband’s help with child care, until complete parity is achieved in 75 – 200 more years. Basically, you should express no gratitude for your husband’s help, ever! So, ladies, Please stay aggrieved and filled with anger, because your individual marriage is not to be a joy filled pothole on the grim road to our future sexless society. /s
Addendum:
Dalrock has now mentioned this story:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2019/06/18/gratitude-is-the-enemy-of-feminism/
However Lori Alexander gave it a better treatment, in this case:
If Lockman were any more explicit, she would undermine her own argument.
Jack,
I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.
“For the past 20 years, research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistently found that women employed outside of the home shoulder 65 percent of child-care responsibilities, and their male partners 35 percent.”
What’s missing in this statistic? Ms. Lockman. “Other women have been oppressed for thousands of years by my definition! That means YOU owe ME! Even though I personally don’t suffer this problem.”
Also missing in this statistic is context. A part-time mother and full-time father are both “employed outside of the home” but a 2:1 labor split would be generous in the mother’s favor.
Dubious statistics, crazy entitlement, lack of context,… Its like you’re expecting Feminists to be somewhat rational. LOL