'I'm so much better than other men!' 'My dad was way worse than me!' The Weapons Sexist Men Use series

...But is he better than the bear? Spoiler alert: No.

Quick editorial note: I am currently gathering examples of domestic and emotional labor on social media. I’d love your input. I’ll continue gathering this data through September 25, 2024.

Do sexist men care at all about impressing women? Not if you hear the excuses they make for their bad behavior. If we listen to sexist men* themselves, it becomes clear that the primary focus of their romantic and intellectual attention is always other men.

When a man runs out of excuses for his bad behavior, he may lean hard into his focus on what other men think, do, and feel. That might sound like:

• “My dad never would have gone to therapy!”

• “I’m better than all of my friends, and you demand way more than their wives!”

• “Your best friend never complains, and her husband does way less than I do.”

• “I’ve already done so much! I’m so much better than my dad.”

• “All of my friends get more down time than I do.”

• “My mother never complained about this. My dad was a great provider, and that should be enough!”

• “You wouldn’t be any happier with any of my friends!”

What these excuses fundamentally miss is that having a relationship is not a competition, in which the person who is the least bad wins and gets to keep their partner, regardless of how badly they treat their partner in absolute terms. These excuses are dehumanizing, treating women as objects to be won rather than unique people with important needs.

It’s the woman-as-appliance model, where a woman exists to serve her male partner with little in return from him. And if she doesn’t provide the services he wants, it must be because he got a dysfunctional model.

So why is this argument so often effective? Why do we judge men compared to other men, rather than according to the human needs of women? And what can you do if your partner makes this argument?