Unpaid Labor Mega Thread

mountainofjoy · 2021-05-29T18:29:34+00:00

Isn't it the obvious answer that it depends based on different couple's situations??

The mental gymnastics are unnecessary.

If the couple is: a stay at home wife with no kids + a husband who works 60 hrs a week at a lumber mill, I think it's obvious who works more.

If the couple is: a stay at home wife with five kids whom she homeschools + a husband who's a receptionist at an office, I think it's obvious who works more.

NarniaFox · 2021-05-29T16:25:18+00:00

I’m definitely seeking a woman to be a happy SAHW/M. I have no need for a career woman.

nemma88 · 2021-05-29T12:59:34+00:00

I have no experience of this really so y'know, pinches of salt.

I think uninterrupted me time (or the lack thereof) might be a large component in why SAHPs feel a higher burden.

The rigidity of the working week is great. I know when I'm working, I know when I finish and when I finish I can switch off. Some time ago I worked on a call rota and I hated it, even at 7k PA and only 1/3 weeks on call it wasn't worth it. It's like a shadow following you around ' Oh you can't make plans because what if you're called?', 'Hey you like this movie, well get ready for when the phone goes and it's work time again!', 'Good nights sleep? NAH 3AM call!' - you get the idea, there is no 'off' and this becomes and entirely different thing to a normal working rota.

I know I am much happier working in set time periods, and thousands of £ isn't worth being 'on' even if I didn't get called, and most weeks I wasn't called.

So I think while SAHP generally get breaks from physically doing anything, they're never really 'off' and never really relaxing or recharging because of it, its like being in limbo.

So when breadwinner comes home and gets x hours unwinding with videogames or whatever they want this causes resentment. 'Cause sure, the SAHP got breaks in between things in the day so we are on equal time here right? The uninterrupted time is just important for some people.

abaxeron · 2021-05-29T08:58:50+00:00

My favorite genre is women's stories about how their exes didn't do chores that perfectly repeat the structure of average abuser's self-justification speech.

qwerty-222 · 2021-05-28T19:21:02+00:00

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other domestic duties are exaggerated and not nearly as hard or time consuming as most women make them out to be. If you're even moderately efficient, it's maybe 10h of work a week max.

NotEvenPrettyXx · 2021-05-27T23:08:50+00:00

Women, point blank period. It not only applies to immediate family or romantic relationships but to every relationship a women has. We are expected to be the world caretakers and it annoying as well as unfulfilling and exhausting. In a relationship a women will always lose because men expect to be catered to at all times.

Starter91 · 2021-05-27T19:28:44+00:00

Wtf is this shit. When did you simp the sub????

md8716 · 2021-05-27T18:00:30+00:00

My wife does most of the unpaid labor considering she's a SAHM. But she finds incredible meaning committing the bulk her lifelong efforts toward supporting the people she loves the most, rather than making other people rich. Hell, I find comfort in knowing she can hold down the fort no matter what, which frees me up to pursue bigger opportunities to advance our family's long term goals.

She has often told me that being a younger single working woman, there was fun, hobbies, travel, etc., but it was all done despite a constant lingering anxiety and fear in her life. Anxiety over finances, anxiety over work, fear that she wouldn't achieve certain milestones, fear of getting hurt in relationships, fear of growing old with no real plan, fear of dying alone. One day when we were dating, she just decided to take a leap of faith and trust me utterly, and 10 years on, she hasn't had to worry about any of that stuff. Instead, she gets to focus all her energy on her own fitness, life goals, and self-actualization.

I'm not saying the SAHM life is for everyone, but when it works well, it's definitely one of the more ideal life outcomes.

Specific-Mall-9972 · 2021-05-27T08:00:33+00:00

One option that is really nice but not an option for a lot of people nowadays is taking only a few years off. One parent gets maternity/paternity leave for up to 3 years. Or, one parent takes a sabbatical to study at the same time their kids are young. These options aren’t always paid, but they are more temporary and reversible than quitting your job. My parents both took years off while us kids were young and it was super helpful, I think.

TheBookOfSeil · 2021-05-26T23:05:26+00:00

I'm not sure what people actually consider to be "work," but physical work is measurable. There's a formula for it. If we were to put a heterosexual married couple through the math for each of their daily lives, would they be equivalent? I'm not inclined to think so.

Considering that most men do the majority of physical work in a relationship through their job and outdoor labor chores, I think there would be a pretty significant disparity here that can be shown on paper.

Most of the difference in this argument is what people consider/what qualifies as "work."

Where this argument becomes important is when women say that they want an equal 50/50 division of labor at home, regardless of who does more actual "work" throughout the day, which, if we consider that men are doing more physical work than women, that wouldn't result in a balanced equation of equal work being done. The other problem is that women have lower strength and stamina than men, so what women might feel is "work" might not feel like "work" to a man, which leads women to think that they're doing more work than they actually do, since the work is relative to how they feel while doing it.

Thanks for come to Ted Talk.

relish5k · 2021-05-26T03:43:08+00:00

Do people here think that the work of a SAHP is more or less equivalent to what's needed to cook and clean for a solo adult? As in "hey I cook for myself and do my own laundry so I don't get what these SAHPs are saying when they say it's hard. If all I had to go was cook and clean that would be like a paid vacation"

Special-Armadillo-99 · 2021-05-26T01:08:18+00:00

Why is it you don't hear about tidy men with slobby bitches nagging.

Barely-moral · 2021-05-25T22:59:50+00:00

I make things easy. It is not unpaid. I am paying for everything she needs and everything she wants to so I would say that it is quite well paid labor.

Another way to make things easy is to clearly define who does what and under which circumstances and to have both parties consent to it. That way every responsibility and task was agreed upon. No such thing as unpaid labor, there is only labor you agreed to do and there for are obligated to do in exchange for your partner to do their part of the deal.

TheSquatchMann · 2021-05-25T22:05:23+00:00

Something that’s not getting mentioned here is yard work, and it should be acknowledged. Yard work is significantly and inarguably more physically strenuous than indoor housework. My own responsibilities (for a 1 acre property) include:

-Mowing the entire lawn -trimming hedges -edging with a weed whacker -weeding -blowing off the deck -watering the garden -splitting firewood in the winter -cleaning the roof -sawing off dead or overhanging branches

And the list goes on. If I’m straining myself in bitter cold or oppressive heat to maintain the exterior of a property, to landscape, that’s equal, if not greater, unpaid labor.

Good-Strong · 2021-05-25T21:32:17+00:00

Honestly no offence intended to anyone commenting here but looking at some of these comments is exactly why I never want to be a SAHM unless by some stroke of luck I marry a super rich guy (and even then I don't really know if I'd do it).

I like to live well. Good makeup, good hair products, good clothes, nice days/nights out, holidays, hobbies and a really well kept house are things I know I want for myself, my kids and my partner. But I completely understand if a man with a nice but normal job paying £35,000 or something is unhappy to pay for this stuff whilst also handling the basics all by himself.

You only get one life to live, and I don't want to spend any of it risking my career, having to do 90% of the un rewarding, un payed work, whilst also leading a heavily trimmed down, much more boring lifestyle due to this arrangement (the other option being landing up in a pile of debt).

No thanks.

NarniaFox · 2021-05-25T09:07:21+00:00

Imv the best scenario is when you have similar standards about tidiness and child raising and you manage chores in a way that leaves similar amount of free time for each partner. I don't think that it should be tied down to one's salary, as there are professions requiring far more efforts and time but that are getting paid less than some no as demanding office positions. Nurses, for example. So it doesn't make sense to load one partner because they earn less if they also work similar/more amount of hours.

Also hiring help is great, more people should do it.

Personally I was lucky to marry a guy who has slightly higher standards than I do and who doesn't think that domestic chores are my work because I'm a woman. We usually divide things close to 50/50, but when one of us is really busy, the other does more. No problems here.

tiposk · 2021-05-25T03:48:19+00:00

My partner has an acquaintance who is in his 70s. Once he spent a whole dinner complaining how modern women refuse being homemakers and how proud he was of his wife staying home instead of prioritizing her career. A month later during another dinner he couldn't stop complaining about all the money he had spent on his daughter's professional formation for her to become "nothing but a wife". Next time I have a guy bitching about women choosing their careers over their families I'll suggest he stops paying for his daughter's schooling and lets her find a wealthy guy to pay her bills, and in the meantime, I'll ask him to skip work and clean my kitchen.

Laytheblameonluck · 2021-05-24T23:48:44+00:00

Anyone note the high amount of gas-lighting I received to this comment?:

Unpaid Labor: Wives buying cheap houses in expensive suburbs and getting the husband to fix it.

LeadInfusedRedPill · 2021-05-24T23:09:31+00:00

Household responsibilities != unpaid labor

relish5k · 2021-05-24T17:59:09+00:00

Q4 people who have worked and stayed home full time (with a child <5, at least for a month), how did you find the two compared?

In my experience it is much easier to work for 8 hours a day. I love my kid but it's the only 'break' I really have from her. Even tho my job can be challenging, I get to use my mind, start AND finish tasks, and I'm not "on" all of the time (team meetings, emails, etc). Whereas being at home with a baby was much harder because I could never do anything else for more than 15 min while she is awake, and the couple long naps that I get were used just to brush my teeth and shower! Every baby is different tho, and mine is definitely very active and is either needing constant supervision or wants to be held and cuddled.

alberto-hoff · 2021-05-24T16:00:01+00:00

Q4W

How much money do you spend on beauty a month, and how many hours of work is required to pay for it?

jax006 · 2021-05-24T15:34:19+00:00

Most GFs I've had were happy to help clean my place. Some of em were happy to come over and clean while I play video games. Not that cleaning is hard in the least.. but I Wouldn't have it any other way lol

ivy176 · 2021-05-24T15:02:29+00:00

You know what my boss said to me when I brought up having many extra unpaid responsibilities at work, even though my male colleagues have zero? "It's not UNPAID, you're doing it within work hours so you can't call it unpaid". So then why do men earn the same amount of money to do less? Besides, I DID have to complete some of it at home, completely unpaid. Boss said there should be tine to do it during work hours as there's "not that much to do". Oh... so because other people sit around with nothing to do, that applies to me? The person who's already doing ALL of the extra unpaid responsibilities? The reason I ended up in that position is that others cared so little, and management is so poor, that if I didn't do these things, people's lives would be in danger and our jobs would become very difficult with no resources and nothing organised. But other people are so lazy and avoidant that they'd let that happen rather than just have to be at work for the amount of time they're paid for, or do like 7 tasks in a 6 hour day. It's like they had no concept of tomorrow. It's all just here and now. What's easy for me right now?

People like me end up just walking oit one day and people go, oh that's so weird, why did she give up such an easy job? Derp.

Another experience in my life was with an ex husband. He wouldn't lift a finger aroubd the house AND was unemployed for years. I pointed out how unacceptable it all was and he said "You'd be doing all this even if I wasn't here". So he was seriously saying that all the unpaid labour (AND PAID LABOUR), was nothing, and him leeching off me had no impact on me at all. Yet it was a 3 bedroom house because he needed all the space, groceries for 2, 2 cars, cleaning up his mess etc. He literally denied the impact of supporting and cleaning up after a 300lb adult.

evanstown21 · 2021-05-24T14:31:15+00:00

I think the thing that irks me the most is that I’ve had guys that I wasn’t even living with passive aggressively imply that they had less time to maintain their house or how they haven’t seen me clean their house/do their dishes. Like get out of here, if we’re not living together you need to take care of your own house. I also have a full time job and a lot of it implied that their work and time was more important than mine. I’ve also had this same attitude with male roommates that implied I should be doing more household maintenance because they worked a lot. It never occurred to them that I also have a full time job and that I will not be cleaning common spaces for free.

King_D0ng · 2021-05-24T13:58:25+00:00

I have a few different thoughts on unpaid labor so here's the tl;dr. 1. Many Housework studies are bad/biased 2. People overestimate their own work and underestimate others work 3. Men traditionally handle different but equally necessary unpaid labor.

Does anyone else notice that a large amount of housework studies seem to be biased? It just seems these studies start with the intention of maximizing the difference between male and female household work. Here's an example from the first result of when I searched "housework study":

https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=111458&preview=false

From the article "Other activities such as home repairs, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow were not in the study". Why else would this study not include necessary housework that is usually performed by men if not to make men seem worse? This isn't a single study issue either. When housework studies are posted here, traditionally male dominated housework gets intentionally left out of the study.

I believe many women who complain about how much they do unpaid labor while their husband does nothing suffer from the common cognitive bias of overestimating their own work/effort while underestimating their partners work. I don't think this is a flaw in women, but if people in general. You can see similar effects everywhere throughout society, for example 80% of drivers think they are above average at driving. It is even easier to feel this way when men and women do different but still necessary "unpaid labor".

Besides traditionally male/female household chores that I somewhat touched on in my first paragraph, it's my observation that in a relationship men generally take the lead in the big/important decisions, even in otherwise fairly equal relationships. I see men are the ones doing the legwork for things like buying a house, finding a place to rent, buying a car or any high priced item, finding contractors, and determining investments.

While I don't think every woman who complains about their man-child husband is wrong, I think many of them simply have a cognitive bias in overestimating their work as compared to their husband, especially when they do different types of work.

Laytheblameonluck · 2021-05-24T05:40:06+00:00

Unpaid Labor: Wives buying cheap houses in expensive suburbs and getting the husband to fix it.

angels-fan · 2021-05-24T04:08:24+00:00

Unpaid labor is just women bitching about their neurotic need to do all kinds of extra shit to maintain their hierarchy in their FSM.

Men simply don't give a shit about 90% of the shit women feel they need to clean.

relish5k · 2021-05-24T03:52:04+00:00

[permanently deleted]

_The-J0ker_ · 2021-05-24T01:37:40+00:00

Unpaid Labor

It's not unpaid, the woman gets paid in food, water, and a roof over her head.

PMmeareasontolive · 2021-05-24T01:05:51+00:00

Men, why do you want to get married? Is this the kind of shit you want to grapple with in your life to feel fulfilled? With rare exception you WILL take a backseat to the kids, the pets, etc, your role reduced to that of faceless background worker drone.

GridReXX · 2021-05-24T00:43:26+00:00

“I’m a single man and my home is spotless. Stop acting like it’s brain surgery!”

Yeah keeping a home tidy with just yourself is always easy unless you’re a gross slob.
Men who say this tend to enter into relationships with women and suddenly settle into her doing all of the stuff he claimed he did himself when he was living single.

“House work is easy!”

Yeh and it’s tedious and daily. Cooking and doing dishes and scrubbing the toilet and doing laundry for a family every day doesn’t sound like peace. It sounds like never ending chores because it is. There’s a reason no one wants to do it but men like to pretend it’s so easy. There’s a reason ppl hire others to do it but only want to pay shillings for the work — it’s needed labor that no one respects the value of. If it’s so easy... men should do it for the household instead. Sounds like a simple fix.

“She should do the housework because he makes more!”

It should be proportionate. If a man is making $5K more than his wife and expecting the SAHM experience he’s delusional asf if he doesn’t expect her to be overcome with resentment. He’s also the type to be shocked when she “unexpectedly” files for divorce. This happened to my uncle. My aunt worked more shifts than him at work and made a bit more than him, but he treated her like Dolby the elf in the house. He was “blindsided” that she left him. He’s r*tarded.

PickleLine · 2021-05-24T00:40:43+00:00

Wive's housework is always paid.

Women get paid by their husbands, through legally getting half the income of their husband, while doing 85% of the spending in the household.

Household work is also easier than office work.

CommanderOfTheDeath · 2021-05-24T00:11:06+00:00

Where the fuck are you people that you can get maid service for $8/hr. Over here it would cost $100+ to do a basic clean of our 3bd/2.5 bath house and that’s on the low end. Childcare and having someone cook for you every day is even more.

The people in these comments seem to have no idea how much domestic labor services actually cost.

LeadInfusedRedPill · 2021-05-23T23:59:50+00:00

Did Reddit jannies really need their own mega thread?

nemporisso · 2021-05-23T23:19:18+00:00

Hopefully this changes in the new work from home age we're in. Guess who can fold laundry in between zoom meetings?

HOLYREGIME · 2021-05-23T23:16:46+00:00

Why are people saying women should be paid like McDonald’s employees and getting 8/hr an hour? They’re wrong.

They should be paid like a waitress. 2.13 plus a tip. The tip of this dick.

OddAlternatives · 2021-05-23T23:16:23+00:00

Stop bitching and put your money where your mouth is: if it's so bad and "husband is additional child", raise the kid alone.

In the meantime, consider that on average it's equal when you add up hours worked inside and outside the home.

Why aren't women's complaints that men should work more hours inside the home accompanied by advocating for men to work fewer hours outside the home?

Because that is unthinkable to women, as they insist on maximal extraction from males (who they aren't randomly meeting in a bar lmao, those don't even need to provide a real name)

The way for men is clear

Kaisha001 · 2021-05-23T22:50:55+00:00

I'll just leave this here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf

ex_red_black_piller · 2021-05-23T21:57:51+00:00

Women who talk about how 'tedious' housework is, please. My house was spotless when I lived alone, and it took a couple of hours a week max, except for dishes which took me like a minute after I was done eating.

Women create a ton of work for themselves and then complain.

Psychological_Wear_7 · 2021-05-23T21:40:22+00:00

I see the downvotes for my previous comment is flooding in

Never change PPD

Timmy721123 · 2021-05-23T21:31:07+00:00

One feminist actually said that for a woman to get ahead in business she needs a wife.

Meaning a woman simply can't competete against a man who has a SAHM to do kids and house work.

So if the man has to spend time at home doing laundry he's not at work. So the girl power girls are on an equal footing.

hesipullupjimbo445 · 2021-05-23T21:17:36+00:00

Unpaid labor only sucks if you work and make average or less money. Being a middle class SAHM is relatively easy. Working and cleaning but combining with your partner to make 175k+ isn’t too shabby either.

tiposk · 2021-05-23T21:00:43+00:00

The problem with unpaid labor isn't that it it hard. The problem with it is that it's tedious with very little value in the market. Rich people pay minimum wage to immigrants to do it and men leave it to their wives, so why it's so surprising when women don't want to do it either?

Psychological_Wear_7 · 2021-05-23T20:44:13+00:00

Only on PPD is 3 hours of housework the equivalent of 10 hours in the office

poppy_blu · 2021-05-23T20:35:45+00:00

So basically every weekly mega thread is going to be a free circle jerk for the tradcels who aren’t able to compile a coherent and articulate post but still want to whine about how much modern women suck and not have it removed for ranting.

TheBookOfSeil · 2021-05-23T20:25:02+00:00

I think "unpaid labor" is a term mostly used in the US Oppression Olympics (and is not to be confused with the unpaid labor done in third world countries).

In terms of relationship dynamics, both sides are engaging in a trade-off. The emotional labor that women do is just part of their share of "work" done to make the relationship balanced.

xXx_FireHydrants_xXx · 2021-05-23T20:23:47+00:00

Should men be paid as they hit the gym so they can get a woman?

wtknight · 2021-05-23T20:16:35+00:00

I think that women usually do because they usually perceive more of a need for it to be done. Even among men who try to be neat, I think that their standard of neatness is not as strict as a typical woman's standard. Sure, there are women who are slobs who don't do much "unpaid labor," but I don't think that this is the norm, and there are likely more male slobs than female ones.

Mustbeaight · 2021-05-23T20:16:30+00:00

I wish every man on earth would just disappear temporarily for a month an appear back and see what happened in our absence

I’m sure women would have a great time

SonicBackScratcher · 2021-05-23T20:15:36+00:00

First, anyone who wants to get into emotional labor as a "thing" can just fork right off. Its a stupid concept that has to do more with things like service jobs, and even a doctor I get a lot of this in my job too. Thats life not labor. Now fucking smile and do your job.

Ok that out of the way its a silly question over all.

My wife is now working full time so it no longer applies but for the last 15 years shes been a SAHM with some minor work for me in my office.

She did the most unpayed labor because doing the laundry doesn't pay wages. So what? I did the most paid labor which let that washing machine work, be bought and have a place to stay in our house.

To me the only issue is time. If I only needed to spend an hour at work to do this and it took her 5 hours a day, it would be fine to argue thats a fair complaint.

But lets not stress about how hard it is to raise kids or take care of a house. Its not unless you are dealing with special needs.

So it both are working full time and only one does the house stuff = bad.

If one is working full time and one is doing all the house stuff = fine.

Its about time.

DaBlockObama · 2021-05-23T20:14:24+00:00

If you seek to begin a conversation with a woman online and introduce yourself by saying “hello”(the standard way that human beings are known to greet each other), they will often complain that you (a complete stranger) has not expended enough effort in greeting them.

And if you invite a woman out for a date, if you do not say something humorous, they will often complain that you are not entertaining them throughly enough. As if by being a man you are also expected to be a creative content provider for any woman who will allow you to eat food in her presence.

Squiddy-the-wise · 2021-05-23T20:12:25+00:00

Is unpaid labor like mowing the lawn and fixing things around the house?

midwestufohunter · 2021-05-23T20:11:45+00:00

I think historically it was very balanced for the vast majority of couples. You think men who viewed women as their property were going to allow those women to sit around and not work? In prehistoric times women had many, many jobs and were equal contributors to the group as men were. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists

However, we are going through a transition period as now for the first time men and women both need to work for money.

There are growing pains as we have to transition out of women being the heads of the home and men being the heads of the family.

Couples need to have A LOT of conversations as they make decisions like moving in together or having kids and ESPECIALLY someone cutting back on their work hours or intensity in order to benefit the couple. Those decisions are equal with someone financially contributing and need to be treated that way. We would all benefit from discussing this openly and making sure people are okay with the sacrifices they are making as they happen, instead of letting resentment build up because one person feels they are carrying the other.

OddAlternatives · 2021-05-23T20:00:45+00:00

I won!

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Title	Unpaid Labor Mega Thread
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Upvotes	6
Comments	904
Date	May 23, 2021 8:00 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/njfsgr/unpaid_labor_mega_thread/
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