What is your opinion and criticisms, if any, about the feminist comic "You should've asked" by Emma?

absoluteposition · 2018-01-07T18:42:57+00:00

Well firstly, how about I do a 30+ panel comic about how women are awful drivers? Unable to use power tools or work a computer? I thought generalization based upon gender was sexist?

Secondly why on earth are these empowered women always getting with (according to them) lazy dirtbags and then extrapolating that out across all men? Want a man that does his fair share? Ask one out. Don't blame everyone else for your poor life choices.

imbecile · 2018-01-07T21:51:39+00:00

This kind of argument won't fly much anymore. Nowadays pretty much every man lives without a girlfriend or wife for a few years. May that be by himself or with roomies. So it isn't like they can't fix themselves sandwiches or don't know how to do laundry like those semi-mythological 50s husbands. They know how to clean, to get through the mail and the bills, to cook, to do the dishes, to get croceries, to organize chores with roomies etc.

So if they stop doing those things once when they are in a relationship, it's almost certainly because the woman prevented them from doing those things in some way, and doesn't want them to do those things.

In that case she doesn't have any standing to complain. It's all her own doing. And eventually all it takes for him to walk away is if the maintenance of her becomes more bothersome and more work than maintaining a single household yourself.

A partnership means sharing the load, it means division of labor and if it is to become more than the sum of it parts it means specialization and becoming a unit, and over the years a refined and synchronized dance.

How exactly the responsibilities are shared or divided up is of course a matter of negotiation and communication and trial and error. It's dance practice and some toes will be stepped on.

2018-01-07T20:34:54+00:00

So I do most of the cleaning, cooking and repairs around the house. Most guys I know do cooking and other things around their houses. This is quite the inaccurate cartoon.
My wife goes out and visits friends more than I do. Should I make a cartoon about her partying while I cook dinner? Or doing a crossword while I replace the sink? Or being on her phone while I brush my sons teeth? Or cleaning the floor after she's been in the kitchen? Its perspective and the author wants sympathy and attention

chemicalprogrammer · 2018-01-07T21:15:42+00:00

This comic contains a lot of truth mixed with a lot of falsehoods and overbroad generalizations.

One big problem is that the studies of who does more household chores conveniently do not count traditionally male performed activities (lawn care, errand running, banking, budgeting, finance, home repair and remodeling, etc.) as "household chores". It also doesn't acknowledge that - even in relationships where both partners work - men, on average, work many more hours per week than women on average.

In sum: women have it unfair if you don't think that they should be doing more around the house to make up for the extra work their spouse does at work (on average) AND if you don't count stuff that males usually contribute to the home economy as actual contributions.

Honestly, I think it is a bit unfair that many women (most I know) end up doing a lot of what is called "mental work" related to planning ahead, organizing schedules, making medical appointments, etc. But I think it's also important to differentiate between what's truly necessary and what is a matter of the (usually woman's) preference.

Not having mustard is not an emergency that should consume whatever adult has to notice it. If you choose to devote your mental energy to it, and you always have mustard, that's a choice. If you choose not to and you sandwich doesn't taste as good until you remember to grab a bottle at the store that's also a choice. Both are fine choices. In general, women care more about that kind of stuff than men. It's unreasonable that women should expect the men in their lives to care equally about this stuff.

I hang out with a lot of other stay-at-home-dads and our birthday parties for our kids require a LOT LESS planning, cleaning, arranging, decorating, and organization than the parties thrown by stay-at-home-moms in my town. Kids seem to have equal amounts of fun whether there's a cake and a few balloons and their friends to screw around with or whether it's a huge, Harry-Potter themed gala complete with build-a-owl workshops. The stay-at-home-moms who do that stuff are great, and good for them. But please don't tell me that there's not at least a little bit of fun in that activity for them and that all their extra organization time (while I'm probably playing pub trivia with the other dads) should count as real work.

foot_kisser · 2018-01-07T21:43:40+00:00

Overall, it's incredibly biased.

The first story, about a pot of spilled food, tries to push the idea that the mom is acting reasonably, by having the rude guest overreact in the aftermath. In fact, she should not have been trying to both feed her young kids and cook at the same time. Or, if she did, she should have maintained a clear awareness that she's performing two tasks at once that both require her constant attention, so that she wouldn't end up getting too distracted by one of them.

While the mom in the first story is a sympathetic character, it is her error that causes the problem, and it's entirely within her power to resolve the situation before it becomes a problem, or at the very least to learn to avoid similar problems in the future.

When a man expects his partner to ask him to do things, he's viewing her as the manager of household chores.

It's fascinating that feminists can take being in charge of something as a way of being oppressed.

planning and organizing things is already a full-time job.

Planning and organizing takes less time than doing. Any task which is as easy to do as it is to decide to do is a very easy task. The planning and organizing of household chores takes significantly less time than doing them, so there is no possible way that merely planning chores for a single household could possibly fill up all that time.

At work, once I started managing projects, I quickly stopped participating in them. I didn't have the time.

How many people were you managing? More than one or two, surely.

Female: You didn't do the dishes? Male: Well, you never asked.

What's wrong with this picture? She is blaming him for not doing something she did not ask him to do. She could do much better by simply asking him to do the dishes. He wouldn't get defensive and the unnecessary argument she just started would not happen.

Feminists call this work the mental load.

Of course feminists have managed to make themselves out to be oppressed even when they're in charge. It's terribly hard work to think to yourself "The dishes need doing". Much harder than doing the dishes. A second or two of thinking by a woman is much harder than several minutes of physical activity by a man.

In fact, how dare he put that heavy mental load on her! Just because she decided she wanted to think about these things doesn't mean it isn't his fault somehow! And how dare he not read her mind! And how dare he not accept the blame for something he didn't do wrong!

Can he not see how oppressed she is? Can he not imagine how hard it must be for her not to get her whims fulfilled without even stating what they are?

It's permanent and exhausting work. And it's invisible.

Of course, being a feminist, she can't take responsibility for it and take action to resolve the problem. He doesn't know of the existence of the problem, but she does. A reasonable woman would sit down with her man and discuss with him when and by whom the dishes should be done, and perhaps even whose problem it should be to worry about whether the dishes are done. A feminist, on the other hand, assigns blame to the man, does nothing about it, and then whines about the fact that the problem still exists. Of course the problem still exists. You didn't do anything about it.

Man: Let me know if you need help. Woman, arms full of laundry: <glares angrily at man, but says nothing>

What's wrong with this picture? That's right. The woman needs help and has even received a request for information about whether she needs help. Does she do the obvious and reasonable thing, which will solve her problem and get her the help she needs? No, she's a feminist. She blames the man and is angry at him, despite the fact that he has done nothing wrong.

Of course, there's nothing genetic or innate about this behavior.

She's quite right. There is nothing inherently wrong with females that cause them to blame everything on men, act unreasonably, refuse to ask for help when they need or want it, or whine about how much work it is to be in charge of things.

Oh, wait. She doesn't mean that. She means that men aren't genetically different from women, and don't naturally think in different ways and different amounts on the topic of housework. Which is just wrong.

Right now, only feminists are demanding longer paternity leave

Really? Only feminists?

In a future comic, I'll talk about emotional work, which also gets heaped on women.

I'm sure you will. Let me guess, that's also all men's fault.

omegaphallic · 2018-01-07T18:26:35+00:00

But, but I thought women we're supposed to be great communicators!

-manatease · 2018-01-07T18:51:18+00:00

There were far too many mentions of vegetables in there. Since...

American families throw out approximately 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy. The cost estimate for the average family of four is $1,365 to $2,275 annually.

Source: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf (page 12)

... it doesn't seem like a very good job is being done.

duffelbagninja · 2018-01-07T22:51:07+00:00

It is blind to the mental load carried by men. Fixing things around the house, taking care of the finances, dealing with the electronic gadgets that power our lives (have you patched for spectre / meltdown on all your gadgets ? Do you know what I am talking about ?)

Granted that I'm being gender stereotypical, but no more so than this cartoon.

Lithorien · 2018-01-07T19:47:27+00:00

With respect to the comic author, I see where she's going with this. And in some cases, the criticism of the inaction is fair - it's fair to be upset with your partner when they do the bare minimum and deliberately ignore obvious work that needs to be done (like ignoring a towel on the floor, or not putting the dishes away, or any of her other examples).

However.

You can't place the blame on society's gender roles for that. You can't say "women are expected to do all the work and men aren't." The trap that builds is the idea that men are conditioned to be lazy and single-minded... which is just wrong. Assholes are conditioned to be lazy and single-minded, not a whole gender.

People in general are good. They will generally take care of the work, they will try to do their fair share, and they will play to their strengths to try to work as a team (at least in some form). So if your partner is saying, "You could have asked me," they are pointing out that you are shutting them out and trying to take on too much, and they are respecting you by doing what you asked (implied or explicitly) by not forcing themselves into the situation - trying to be a team.

Nion_zaNari · 2018-01-08T05:27:33+00:00

If you want to have 100% of the authority to decide how something is done, you also get 100% of the responsibility of making sure it gets done. I'm certain that every man who acts in the ways described in that comic has plenty of anecdotes of them trying to be more proactive and getting yelled at for doing it "wrong".

putamanoutofaplane · 2018-01-07T21:33:02+00:00

She seems to get her "facts" from feminists, women's magazines, and her sexist worlview so she knows little about what 's really going on in the real world.

fredikins · 2018-01-08T02:50:33+00:00

Womansplaining : The act of explaining how something is mens fault and women are victims.

KingRobotPrince · 2018-01-08T08:39:44+00:00

If both parties are working full time yet the woman does all the housework and looks after the baby while the man just sits and chills out, there's something seriously wrong there and she has every right to complain.

But it is her choice of husband. Obviously, in the actual real world, we know not all men are like this and what toys you played with has nothing to do with it. (I played with boy's toys yet in am happy to share housework.)

I think it's important to acknowledge your choice and take responsibility. There are men who are not like this so it isn't an innate male quality, therefore blaming society is really a poor excuse for regretting your choice or realising that you should have thought about this when you selected.

I have no doubt that if a man chose a woman solely on her appearance and she was completely incompetent or crazy, he would simply be blamed for being shallow.

It's a typical feminist trope to try and blame the world for their own weaknesses though. "I can't be the problem. Society must be the problem."

2018-01-08T16:30:39+00:00

Men say "you should have asked" because when men want help , we....ask for it...what a bloody concept. We don't refrain from asking for help so that we can rationalize resenting our partners for not reading our minds.

GreyTortoise · 2018-01-08T03:09:00+00:00

It's best not to have an opinion on it. People are shitty, gendering an issue that can easily have the genders flipped is a weak statement and stands to do nothing other than build straw men and call them "common men".

2018-01-08T04:39:51+00:00

Ive known a lot of women to prefer to be in the know and in control of these things. They accept the burden when they claim the power in decision making. (if you want mustard in the fridge you keep it up. i buy and make sure to restock the coffee brand i like because when bonnie goes shopping- shes buys shit)

Title	What is your opinion and criticisms, if any, about the feminist comic "You should've asked" by Emma?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	17
Comments	42
Date	January 7, 2018 5:23 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/7oruof/what_is_your_opinion_and_criticisms_if_any_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/what-is-your-opinion-and-criticisms-if-any-about.1180226 https://theredarchive.com/post/1180226

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