Why household labor inequity is abuse

A reminder that it's not an accident, not a minor inconvenience, and not something women cause with bad communication.

Every few months, a new article makes the rounds asserting that household labor inequity is a structural and inevitable problem, not a form of abuse, and certainly not something men are choosing.

“Hey ladies,” the message always seems to be. “I know it looks like you’re always working while he relaxes, and like he uses emotional abuse to get out of household labor. But actually, it’s just as hard for him as for you, and it’s not really his fault. By the way, have you tried communicating better?”

These pieces, like the Fair Play book from which they draw so much of their material, inevitably share several things in common:

• The author emphasizes that their own relationship is unequal, seemingly as some sort of proof that even good guys (and, less frequently, lesbian women) can’t do their fair share. We’re supposed to accept on faith that the person exploiting their partners’ labor and ignoring their emotional needs is “good.”

• The author labels inequality is frustrating or annoying, but dismisses how much it encroaches on women’s lives and freedom.

• The author focuses on equality rather than equity. “Well gee, of course he can’t parent as much as she does when he works outside the home and she doesn’t!” And then they pretend that equality has always been the goal, that feminists are silly for seeking it, and that by the way, since equality is impossible, we shouldn’t worry about any kind of fairness at all.

• The writer implies that it’s all about chores—a few dishes here and there, a couple of piles of laundry per week. They leave out that household labor includes much more: the labor to sustain the relationship, to emotionally support the children, to tend to pets, ensure children succeed at school, basically all of the work necessary to build and sustain a functional family. In so doing, they devalue the work of women and undermine the extreme levels of inequality that pervade most heterosexual relationships.

I’ve long asserted that household labor inequity is abuse, and working with hundreds of women over the last few years has only solidified my belief that this inequity is the mere tip of the iceberg in most marriages.

I think these pieces that pretend household labor is an accident or a minor inconvenience or something that men fall into rather than choose daily serve a very specific cultural purpose: They gaslight women into believing we have to accept this, and cannot do better.

This is the work of patriarchy: encouraging women to accept their own servitude, and to entire relationships in which that servitude is codified and normalized.

It is targeted

I am so tired of hearing about the “default parent” and how “parents are overwhelmed.” Mothers. It’s mothers who are overwhelmed. Pretending the issue is gender neutral doesn’t make it so. Men would never accept the treatment from women that women accept from men—and, in fact, they don’t.

Did you know that stay-at-home dads do less household labor than working mothers? And if you believe my data, they do less household labor than any other group, including working dads. So the problem is not that whoever stays home with the children ends up doing more labor. Nor is it that women are less likely to work, given that more than 70% of mothers work outside the home—just slightly lower than the number of dads who work for pay.

This issue targets women—not parents, not stay-at-home parents, not default parents.

This is by design. Society socializes women to accept a subordinate role, to believe that their time matters less, and to think that they are unreasonable, with impossibly high standards, for demanding anything at all of their partners. We tell them they must get married or be worthless, and that they must stay married at all costs. Men, meanwhile, learn early that they shouldn’t have to sacrifice anything for women—and that if they do, they should immediately replace their defective woman-appliance with a woman-appliance who doesn’t make such unreasonable demands.

Society instructs women to do more labor for their families, and more labor for men, because doing so benefits men specifically and society generally. This is happening for a reason. It’s time to stop pretending it’s random.

If labor inequality didn’t benefit men, it wouldn’t happen.

It harms women

Household labor inequity is a primary driver of women’s inequality. It is literally stealing our lives.

The data tell us that the average husband creates an additional seven hours of work each week for his partner. That’s on top of all the work he doesn’t participate in—work he doesn’t have to do, because his partner does it.

So marriage reduces men’s normal workload, while it adds greatly to women’s. This seven hour figure is just an average that includes equitable households, and women notoriously underestimate the amount of work they do, so the real impact of household labor inequity is likely much more significant.

That extra time is enough to take two college courses, to exercise and take up a new hobby, to put in tons more time at work.

In short, it’s the time women need to improve their health, achieve their dreams, and be the people they want to be. And men are stealing it from them. No wonder women feel so frazzled and overwhelmed. This is by design. If we’re so distracted by the endless work we have to do, there’s no time to come together, demand better, and create a better world—both for ourselves, and for the larger society.

This isn’t a small thing. It’s endless harm that multiplies over years and decades.

We just pretend that it’s small because we think women’s needs and time are unimportant.

It’s significant

Thinkpieces on household labor inequity love to pretend it’s a small problem—that she’s spending five minutes on the dishes while he relaxes—or that it’s not a problem at all. You’ll see this when these pieces pretend that household equality advocates want an exact 50/50 split of all duties, rather than a fair and equitable split. So they’ll talk a lot about dads who work outside of the home who can’t possibly do as much parenting as their partners, but very little about the majority of families—the ones in which mom works, too, and still does a second shift of labor at home while dad relaxes.

When we talk about inequity, we’re not talking about minor differences in leisure time, or even about a gendered division of labor. Instead, there are three hallmarks of labor inequity:

• It is a significant disparity, that requires one partner to give significantly more than the other, often at great personal cost.

• The partner who does less finds subtle and not-so-subtle ways to reinforce the inequality. They may become violent or angry when their partner requests something different, or indulge in a myriad of gaslighting techniques.

• It reflects a power imbalance in the relationship, reinforces that power imbalance, and intensifies loss of power in the wider culture. For example, labor inequity might prevent a woman from getting a job outside of the home, therefore making it much harder to leave the relationship.

Labor inequity is about significantly more than simple chores. It’s inequity in all household labor: tending to children and pets, tending to the relationship, keeping the house in order, ensuring everyone’s health, and all the millions of other vital tasks that go into maintaining a home.

Abusers feel entitled to be abusive

A hallmark of abuse is the belief that an abuser is allowed to behave in abusive ways in certain circumstances. That’s why an abusive man will hit his partner for pushing his buttons, while an un-abusive man never will.

Household labor inequity follows a similar pattern. Abusers never admit to being abusive, never see themselves as abusive, never believe their behavior is unjustified. Instead, they’ll say things like:

• I work to support our family and that’s enough!

• What do you even do all day?

• I never asked you to do those things!

They can’t admit that they want to exploit you for their own personal gain, so they’ll try to find some way you deserve it.

Society listens. Therapists, family members, and friends repeat men’s excuses to justify their exploitation, leaving women wondering if they’re crazy, and perhaps even thinking the woman is the entitled one for wanting fairness.

An abusive society will tell you that this is your own creation. That you’re engaged in maternal gatekeeping, that your standards are too high, that you’re an intensive mother. A patriarchal society will do anything at all—even endanger children—to avoid blaming men and demanding accountability.

This doesn’t change the truth: Inequality is not inevitable, and is not present in all marriages. Instead, it persists because men like it this way—because they would rather exhaust and demean their partners than do some extra labor.

It is knowing and deliberate

Men are not innately stupid. And if they are, we really shouldn’t let them do anything out there in the world, let alone marry them, should we?

Men can see that they are relaxing while their partners clean. They know someone buys the food, the presents, the treats for the pets. They know what is happening.

This is why it’s so offensive to tell women to communicate better, to buy the right book or deck of cards, to hire a consultant, or to go to therapy. It demands that we fix something we didn’t break.

Let’s stop pretending men don’t know any better. They do. The human male is typically born with eyes and ears, and the ability to think critically.

It is a choice

Your husband doesn’t need to go on a “journey” to fix this. He might have to learn some new skills. He might have to give up something. But ultimately, household labor inequity is a choice he makes every single day. It is active, not passive, and the harms are perennially apparent to everyone who witnesses it.

The only thing that enables men to pretend they don’t see the harm is the widespread belief that harm to women is not harm at all, because women, their time, and their lives don’t matter.

Men choose labor inequity, and the abuse that enforces it, because they can, and because it benefits them.

It’s not something imposed on them. It’s not something caused by neurodivergence.

It. Is. A. Choice.

It’s a tool for oppressing women

Household labor inequity traps women in bad marriages. It forces them to exit the workforce. It subjects them to financial and physical abuse. It gives them little recourse, fewer options to leave bad marriages, and little control over their children’s upbringing.

It is, above all, a tool for oppressing women.

Understanding household labor inequity: A syllabus of sorts

I know folks love to send posts like this to significant others, and to other people they love who need to make significant changes. If you’re new to this issue, or seeking to better understand its impact on people’s lives, I recommend starting with the below articles:

• The Weapons Men Use series: a list of tactics men use to escape accountability for inequity

• Results of all the surveys I’ve conducted on marriage and household inequity

• Gaslighting inequality: A series devoted to the ways friends, therapists, and society as a whole excuse inequity

• Why Nothing Works to Bring About Household Equality

• The Dad Privilege Checklist

• Your Postpartum Depression is Probably Your Male Partner’s Fault

• Family Courts and Child Custody Are Biased Against Women, Not Men

• Why the Threat of Violence Lurks in Every Unequal Relationship

• The Myth of the Bumbling Nice Guy

• The Problem With Fair Play, and Other Systems for Gaining Household Equality