The excuses men make for household labor inequality--and why they're bullshit

Nothing entitles you to steal another person's time and life. And the desire to get away with doing so is an inherently abusive impulse.

Men create, on average, seven hours of additional work for their female partners each week. And that’s just an average that takes into account egalitarian households, so the real figure in unequal households is much higher. Domestic labor inequality holds women back at work and at home, deprives them of sleep, prevents them from realizing their full potential, or from ever feeling like they can rest at home. It is a way for men to buy their free time with their partners’ labor and exhaustion, and as such, it is a type of abuse. It’s not a punchline. It’s not amusing or a minor inconvenience. It’s stealing women’s lives.

Abusers always look for some way to justify their abusive behavior. And household labor inequality benefits men. It gives them extra free time, more opportunities at work, and a chance to pursue their dreams. It offers them freedom and opportunities most women can never access. So it should come as no surprise that men will do anything to maintain access to a household servant. That includes blaming their wives for household inequality.

Don’t buy it. They’re all reading from the same sexist playbook. Everyone deserves a chance to do the things that matter most to them, and no one deserves household labor inequality.

Over the last few years, here are the excuses readers have shared with me most often:

It’s not inequality! It’s maternal gatekeeping!

Isn’t it great when society blames women for their partners’ incompetence? "Just give him a chance!” they tell us. As if women enjoy doing all the work. The notion that men don’t participate because women won’t let them is pure foolishness.

Competent parents don’t quit parenting just because their partners have standards. Maternal gatekeeping is not a real thing. There’s actual science proving that when women tell men how to parent, it’s because the men are incompetent.

Here’s how we know maternal gatekeeping is a bullshit concept: men don’t debate with their wives about specific parenting interventions like RIE or attachment parenting. They don’t even know what these interventions are. This isn’t about different styles. It’s about laziness. One parent does a ton of research and develops a parenting style, and the other undermines it.

Parenting a child means taking responsibility for another human being’s life. It’s important and serious. There are right and wrong ways to do it. When a dude screams about maternal gatekeeping, what he’s really telling us all is that he’s a shitty parent who has to have someone stand over his shoulders and tell him how to do it correctly.

You’re just better at it!

A great question to ask the dudebro who makes this excuse: If your colleague at work was better at the work necessary to get a promotion, would you throw up your hands and proclaim, “She’s just better at it!” Of course not. You’d get better. Like a grown-ass adult. And by the way, why are men bragging about being bad at things? We’re talking about simple activities of daily living. If they can’t do these, then how can we expect them to dress themselves, show up for work, or do much of anything else?

The idea that women are good at all the things no one wants to do, and should therefore do those things, and that men are good at all the things that garner praise and attention and power, and should therefore do those things, is utter bullshit.

There is not an incompetence allele carried only on the y chromosome. And there is no hormone that makes you more adept at remembering things or cooking or taking care of children or thinking critically about childcare. These tasks all require the same skills and intelligence your husband uses at work. Don’t buy his excuse.

Your standards are unreasonable

When men have exhausted their other excuses, they usually fall back on this one. Call his bluff. Tell him that, ok, you’re happy to scale back your expectations. That begins with not doing his laundry, making his dinner, buying the food he likes, or doing anything else that benefits him.

The different standards excuse is effective because we act as if parenting is subjective, and there are no specific standards. And we do that because we undervalue women’s labor, viewing it as unskilled, arbitrary, random. When a man leans hard into this, he is weaponizing sexism against his partner so he can extract more free labor.

Read more about how to respond to this particular excuse here.

Just ask me and I’ll do it

Half of the work of parenting, domestic labor, and life is figuring out what needs to be done and when. It’s correctly identifying the type of therapy a child needs and the therapist to call. Knowing when the homework is due. Establishing a schedule and a routine.

Men who do this are, out of the gate, asking to escape the least rewarding and most stressful aspect of household labor.

But the insult doesn’t end there.

“Just ask me” presupposes that parenting, domestic labor, and similar tasks are women’s jobs, and that men are too stupid to figure out what needs doing. The result is that even when things appear equal—even when he’s doing half the work—they’re not, because she’s still having to manage her overgrown manbaby and treat him like the emotional child he is.

Anyone can figure out that food appears from somewhere and that there’s food on the counter. This is not difficult.

I don’t have time

The hidden assumption here is that the man’s time matters and the woman’s does not. Women somehow manage to make time to do whatever needs doing, even when they work full-time, even when they have to give up sleep and self-care and everything else.

Do you see him indulging in leisure time? Sleeping when you’re not? Playing video games? Enjoying hourlong pooping sessions? Then that motherfucker has time. He just think your time matters less than his.

I work. The house is your job.

More than 70% of mothers work outside of the home. This means that, in most houses, parenting and housework should be shared equally.

Even when a man is the sole breadwinner, though, it’s simply unreasonable for him to expect to do no household labor. That would mean a woman is working 168 hours a week, constantly on call, with no time off, while he works roughly 40. A fair division of labor would mean that the woman does the parenting and housework when the man is at work, and when he comes home, they split the labor—oh, and they both have to deal with nighttime parenting, too, since a mother tired for her day with children poses a significantly greater danger than a man tired for his day at the office.

While we’re talking about this issue, it’s helpful to know that even when women work and men don’t, women still do the majority of household labor. This isn’t about who earns money and who doesn’t. It’s about who’s lazy and entitled, and who’s not.

If he truly believes that a paycheck entitles him not to participate equally in the lives of his children or in household labor, fine. He can contribute that paycheck from a distance, from a different house, after your divorce. And since that paycheck means he doesn’t have to do anything else, surely he won’t try to seek custody of the children, right?

Oh, and by the way, my data shows that men use this excuse even when they don’t work outside the home at all and the wife is the primary breadwinner. Men make excuses without regard for what is rational or true. Don’t buy this bullshit.

You need to communicate better

This is a great tool for gaslighting exhausted and exasperated women. It works like this: the woman spends years trying to communicate her needs, trying to find that perfect recipe that finally gets her husband to understand that humans need food to live and children need help with homework.

The problem is that parenting and housework are not the “woman’s needs.” They’re what everyone in the house needs. And a woman should not have to communicate about them at all for a man to know they need doing and do them. This is not a complicated issue that requires years of communication. Either do better or get the fuck out.

But I’m neurodivergent and it’s harder for me

Neurodivergence is real. It makes some tasks harder. But somehow, neurodivergent women manage to get by, and the data tells us that their partners don’t pick up more slack or do more housework. Often, they do less. No one has the right to exploit another person’s labor, or to steal their time and life.

In my research, I’ve consistently found that neurodivergent women do more household labor, while neurodivergent men do less. And men often use the woman’s neurodivergence as a way to gaslight her. “Are you sure this isn’t your depression talking?” he might tell her.

Men whose neurodivergence precludes certain tasks must pick up the slack elsewhere. No good at cleaning? Fine, you’re cooking all the meals and doing an extra hour of childcare each day. Overwhelmed with grocery shopping? Great, take over meal preparation and paying bills.

Moreover, if your neurodivergence demands additional work from your partner, then you have an obligation to do whatever is necessary to reduce that workload. Find a good therapist or occupational therapy. Find a treatment regimen that works. Then work with your partner to balance the labor. Women manage to do it every day, even with neurodivergence. Men can, too.

And if you really believe there’s nothing that can be done, and neurodivergence makes household labor inevitable?

No one is entitled to a relationship, and you do not have to give up your entire life just because your partner has poorly managed ADHD.

This is what you wanted when you chose to have kids/become a stay-at-home mom

This one is particularly enraging because it implies that children are a gift that men give to women, and that suffering and exploitation are inherent to motherhood. Both are false.

No one would willingly choose to be another person’s permanent servant.

This excuse plays on mom guilt, implying that if mothers don’t like the status quo they must not like being mothers. The subtle jab is that maybe you’re a bad mom.

Don’t buy it. Tell him that participating equally was what he signed up for when he got married. If he doesn’t like it, maybe he needs to not be married anymore.

Marriage is bad and unfair for men

OK, then leave, buddy.

But also: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.