Feminist Advice Friday: Is neurodivergence a reason not to have household equity?
Do we owe more labor to neurodivergent men?
A reader asks…
Over the past month or so, I’ve gotten more than a dozen questions from readers posing basically the same problem: A male spouse or partner doesn’t do their fair share, but that partner is also neurodivergent. These women want to know if neurodivergence should shift the balance of household labor.
Here’s a sample letter:
My ex, father of two kids now aged 4 and 2, never stepped up, never. I left about 6 months ago and have the kids. His lack of assistance began with our first, but now it turns out he had at the same time PTSD from work. I’m done and will never go back, but can help but feel guilty. Are my needs and wants lesser because of his condition? Have I been selfish to leave?
Here’s another one:
Every time I ask my husband to do anything, he tells me his ADHD means it’s too hard for him to help around the house. Evidently my ADHD doesn’t count. I feel like he is weaponizing disability language, and I don’t know how to get around it. Maybe he really can’t do things. I don’t know. What should I do?
My Answer
As I was writing this post, I got an email from a reader. She’s disabled, and can’t participate in a lot of household labor. As a result, her partner endlessly criticizes her. She wanted to know if this criticism is warranted.
Doesn’t this just sum it up so well? When women are physically incapable of participating in household labor, they still think maybe they deserve to be abused for it. And when their partners are capable of at least some household labor, women wonder if maybe their partners shuoldn’t have to do it. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, if you’re a woman you’re fucked. This isn’t really about neurodivergence or disability; it’s about men doing anything they can to exploit women.
Talking about neurodivergence is tricky, especially when treating it as some kind of monolith. That’s because people with actual neurodivergence are very accustomed to having their condition treated like a personal failing or medical problem. I wrote about this earlier this week, outlining how this oppressive bias has affected my own daughter.
So before we go any further: Neurodivergence is real. A person cannot think or will themselves out of executive dysfunction, trauma, etc. And really, a person shouldn’t need a diagnosis to get need-based accommodations. We should all be working together to identify needs, strengths, and weaknesses, and assemble relationships and agreements accordingly.
But neurodivergent people do not get a pass on household equity.
One of the reasons I talk so much about equity rather than equality is that almost no relationship can ever be equal. Partners are interested in and good at different things. Energy levels vary. Obligations shift.
We’ve got all kinds of neurodivergence in my house, as well as shifting work needs, unique school needs, unconventional schedules, and a whole lot more. So we’ve mastered the art of equity over time rather than equality moment to moment.
Some basic tips:
People should get basic accommodations for their needs. But then they need to pick up slack elsewhere. Because otherwise they’re just opting out of something at the expense of their partner. My husband, for example, is terrible at organizing toys. He’ll do it, of course, but it will take him three times as long as it should. I, meanwhile, hate cooking and don’t know how to do it. So he cooks and I take over organizing projects.
There will be times when one partner needs more and does less than the other. It’s a partnership if the favor is later reciprocated. But too often, men do all the taking and women do all the giving. Witness the women who still cook for and clean up after their partners immediately after giving birth.
Human beings exist in community, and the idea that we are all completely and individually responsible for our emotions and needs is ridiculous. We can and should lean on others. The people who love us should occasionally do more than their fair share, help us get support, and advocate for us. But that support has to go in two directions. And ultimately, the person whose needs are more demanding must, if they care about their partner, take responsibility for mitigating the effects of their ND on their partner. This includes looking into treatment.
None of these are the case for most of the women who write me. In many cases, the man’s neurodivergence is evident nowhere but home, but the woman has an actual diagnosis that never undermines her ability to do significantly more than her fair share.
In my own survey of the issue, I found that neurodivergent women do more household labor and parenting, while neurodivergent men do less. Often, neurodivergence in women is an excuse to undermine them (“Am I really exploiting you, or is that just your PTSD talking?”) and in men it’s an excuse to do almost nothing (“Sorry, can’t feed the kids or the dog or myself, or do anything at all, because I have ADHD. See you later after 12 hours of golf!”).
A lot of men have weaponized the disability rights movement, and act as if they can push a button, cry “neurodivergence,” and get out of whatever they don’t want to do.
This has happened with other movements, too. Men have weaponized feminist rhetoric to claim that equality demands they be able to hit women who hit them, for example. So when men claim a right that seems untenable—the right to not participate fairly in household labor—we must push back, even when they’re using social justice language.
So, to the writer of this question:
No, you were not selfish to leave.
Leaving is never selfish.
No one is entitled to a relationship. You are allowed to leave your relationship at any time, for any reason, especially if the relationship is harming you.
To readers involved in relationships in which neurodivergence is a factor, the goal needs to be working out a system that works for everyone. Because women do not exist to serve men. Even neurodivergent men.
I suggest starting by asking yourself the following questions:
Does my partner demand accommodations from me that he is unwilling to offer to me in return?
Do care and support in my relationship flow only in one direction?
Am I always the caretaker, never the care recipient?
Does my partner dismiss my mental health, or use it as an excuse to ignore and undermine me?
Has my partner avoided taking any action that would improve his ability to function and make it easier for him to support me?
Do I consistently do more work around the house and with our children than my partner, regardless of my own needs?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, this points not to neurodivergence being the problem in your relationship, but sexism and entitlement.
It’s gaslighting and mom-shaming for men to claim that they don’t have to participate in family life because they’re neurodivergent. Your life matters, too. You do not have to give it up for someone who won’t give up anything for you.
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Men will put to use any language or framework at hand to secure their own interests. It could be social justice language, clinical psychology language, feminist language, sex positive language, patriarchal language, therapy language, religious/spiritual language etc. The message is always the same: you need to stop asking him to do xyz and let him enjoy himself doing whatever he wants because (fill in the blank). You need to give him what he wants because (fill in the blank). There isn’t a single framework that will produce a man thinking he needs to change himself or do something for a woman for her benefit at his expense. Ever. It never happens. Men never claim any form of vulnerability unless they think they can benefit by it by leveraging women’s guilt and care instincts. Women are the exact opposite. We find out these things about ourselves and immediately set out to fix ourselves and become better so our problems don’t bother or inconvenience those closest to us.
This is why I believe it’s counterproductive for women / feminists to get invested in frameworks that place us in a role of caring for / saving others especially if it’s going to take on a moral valence. We keep replicating the same dynamics because the same power operations are in place no matter the framework.
I’ve said this forever. A man who is neurodivergent gets a caretaker. Women are warm, understanding, and accommodating to that. A woman, however, who is neurodivergent gets overwhelm, shame, and “coached” on how to manage time better and put in maximum effort. Despite OVERFUNCTIONING and overwhelming perfectionism. Until recently, as a neurodivergent woman diagnosed after graduating top of my class in grad school, I still got told I was “not ADHD “- which I’m not. I am a person who has ADHD (which makes me awesome in so many ways) because I “could focus.” In fact- I was “a perseverator.” While also being told I was “the princess and the pea” when I complained of sensory overload. My brother, diagnosed much earlier than I was, was always “living in an uncomfortable body.”
In the dating world this translated into men literally telling me “what value do you add?” When I said I am not into cooking and cleaning and would prefer to make enough money in our respective careers to delegate those tasks if responsibility couldn’t be reasonably shared.
And by shared- this meant me doing the work of learning to organize with an organizer and cook less taxing and healthy meals via an ADHD aware dietician so that I could do my part. (Something for which I also get shamed for- it’s considered a “luxury “ I should just know how to do on my own). Obviously, I’m a woman. Bachelor men though…messy houses and take out is expected, right? Until he finds a woman?
Now that I can do those things on my own- I want a man even less. If I can learn for myself and to be as good a partner as possible, so can men.