How to talk to your husband about household labor inequity without making him mad

Women as empathy machines, nonviolent communication, estrangement from family, and more

“I’m hearing that I’ve made you angry. Is that right?”

It’s the way a lot of exchanges with a certain kind of troll on social media begin for me. This sort of communication is not what we typically think of as trolling, but feminist writers often experience it—a sort of endless emoting and empathizing that can feel like gaslighting.

It went like this: a woman in an inequitable relationship took issue with my assertion that male laziness is deliberate. She spent days—literally days—arguing with me about why women shouldn’t leave these male partners, and how we should be “teaching women better communication skills.” Yes. If only women communicated better, I’m sure everything would be fine.

I finally gave up, but the experience has left me thinking a lot about how we expect women to behave as empathy machines. We’re supposed to remain calm, endlessly practice nonviolent communication, and flawlessly understand and relate to everyone else’s emotions, even when we never get the same in return.

It’s just one more way of distracting us from the unacceptable circumstances in which society expects us to live.

Just try harder.

Ask more nicely.

Spend more time in therapy.

Master nonviolent communication.

Keep trying.

Keep trying.

Keep trying.

Be nicer.

Be really, really, really nicer.

Mirror his emotions.

Keep trying.

Keep at it until you’re dead, and you’ve wasted your entire fucking life trying to understand and support and care about the emotions of a person who gives absolutely zero fucks about your emotions.

This is the demand heterosexual marriage places on many of us, and it is unsustainable and unacceptable.

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In June, I’ll be releasing some new tools to paid subscribers, including an assessment to measure how bad the inequality is in your own home.