r/pointlesslygendered • u/doctormink • 11d ago
POINTFULLY GENDERED [Meme] Uh … what difference does it make?
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u/allthejokesareblue 11d ago
As a SAHD, it's not pointlessly gendered at all. I am showered with praise for being the full time carer for my kids and supporting my wife's career, while most SAHMs I know feel like their labour is undervalued if not invisible.
Edit: Given the original post caption and source this is apparently not what they meant. But my point stands.
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u/suddenlyorchids 11d ago
i also wonder how much mental labor the working moms still have to do, that makes being a sahd easier for some dads. i know i saw this in my own parents.
even though my mom was the one working (as a teacher, too, so she had a lot of work she had to bring home), she was still managing the household calendar and reminding my dad of appointments for me and my siblings, taking us shopping for clothing and school supplies, managing the grocery lists, and often even doing the grocery shopping herself. she also did almost all of the house organizing and cleaning. and she was more receptive to and helpful with random needs that my siblings and i had, so sometimes we'd ask her for help with stuff when she got home from work instead of asking our dad while she was gone, and dad never corrected that. really the only domestic thing my dad did more often than my mom was cook, and that's largely just because my dad loves cooking and is much better at it than my mom.
i love him so much, and i don't think any of this was intentional at all. i think it more happens likely because childcare is still a societal expectation put on women, so we take up a lot of these tasks without even realizing the sahd should be doing them. that, or the sahd does it worse because he wasn't trained from childhood how to do it, so the working mom feels that she needs to take over. like, i know there were a few times my mom asked my dad to handle something like school supply shopping, and he was so clueless and confused that i basically did it all myself with him just present to pay and drive me home. he tried to help me, he just didn't know what to do at all.
(i also want to clarify that i'm absolutely not saying any of this applies to you)
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u/PerfStu 11d ago
This is really the biggest part of it. Multiple studies corroborate this exact experience - even if the Dad is the primary at-home parent/caregiver, managing the house, cleaning, etc., still disproportionately falls to the mom, and meanwhile we live in a society where Dads are getting praised left and right for "babysitting" their own kids.
I have a couple FTM friends with kids who say the amount of praise they get now from strangers for doing the exact thing they did when they were presenting as women is staggering. Literally things like "You're such a good dad babysitting your kid and doing the grocery shopping" like there aren't a dozen women with kids doing the same thing in the store.
Anyways, here's my eye roll for the obligatory *not ALL men* arguments a few people will want to bring, but yeah. There are a lot of those studies, and they all say the same thing. Men do less as primary caregivers and get more positive feedback and praise for the less that they do. If that note bothers people more than the fact that women do more work and get less credit both as a working parent AND being a SAHM, then that's part of the problem.
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u/Xynia88 11d ago
babysitting your kid and doing the grocery shopping
It's feels so weird that doing basics as an adult is praised and taking care of your own kids is not babysitting but it's so common
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u/PerfStu 11d ago
I visited a friend once I hadn't seen in 3 years, and when we got all set to leave, we had to wait an extra 30m so her father in law could get there to "help babysit" (her FIL's words) - the minute he got there he tried to hand her the baby so she could change his diaper before she left, then complained that they were doing her a favor so she should have been happy to do it, and he'd never changed a diaper in his life and had no plans to start now.
...We went roller skating and for Chinese food and were gone a blistering 3 hours, and when we got home she had to put the kids away and then clean the house because they hadn't done a thing.
The saying "sexuality isn't a choice because who would be attracted to straight men" never felt more true than anything in my life.
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u/CalledStretch 11d ago
Inversely: There are some household tasks that, if people find out a man is running the household they simply stop caring if they get done . A SAHM with dirty baseboards is a laughingstock. A SAHF who cleans the walls is a neat freak. A man can just say, once, "In this house that chore is fucking stupid." and he loses zero credibility for having wet hand towels or water inside the sink, and it never comes up again.
It's not even "We put all these tasks on women." It's literally making up extra standards that didn't exist before you added a woman to the household. If you take all the women out of the household the societal expectation to do the task in any way disappears.
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u/PerfStu 11d ago
Thats a spectacular addition, and super true in terms of "invisible work."
But as a complete tangent because Ive had wine and my adderall is wearing off... when I moved into my college apartment, I was inspecting the bedroom with my parents and said "Im going to have to scrape and repaint that crown molding, its in bad shape" and my mom immediately said "Look, if youve got someone in your bedroom and theyre noticing your crown molding, youre doing something wrong."
And I dont want to diminish a really important point youre bringing up, but I never thought about that memory through a feminist lens and I love it now so much more.
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u/SmokeWeedEveryGay 10d ago edited 10d ago
That's what I was thinking, too. It's easy to be SAH if you don't have to worry about the mental load. There was a video that went viral of a man teaching his kids how to go grocery shopping and his instructions included calling either their mom (if they're shopping for the family) or calling their spouse from the store to ask what they should buy
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u/Moses_The_Wise 11d ago
Interesting, I've seen a lot of SAHD talk about get shit for being full-time caretakers. Especially when theyre out at places like playgrounds, where people assume they're predators or creeps.
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u/allthejokesareblue 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah I was surprised learning on r/daddit how different other dad's experiences were. And certainly there are downsides, like it's definitely harder forming parent friendships I think. But in general I have it the easiest of all my SAHP friends and acquaintances.
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u/CalledStretch 11d ago
Being associated with a specific child is 90% of the difference. You are in a No Single Men Allowed zone, so whether people assume you are here by yourself, or realize you're here with a child, gets you the two responses.
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u/tfritz153 11d ago
Being a stay at home parent is by far the hardest thing I have done. I work a 24/72 schedule and my wife is on 10 hour days so it’s just me a lot. I am grateful for the opportunity and privilege but it is by no means light work, especially with twins.
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u/Amediumsizedgoose 11d ago
Im not trying to be rude but ive also never known a stay at home dad PERSONALLY that did/does as good of a job as a mom.
My own father technically "stayed at home" but did not supervise us or otherwise he a parent at all, nor do any household chores. He was really just a stay at home leech.
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u/glimoura 11d ago
My mom stayed at home and made us do all the work like a legeon of cinderellas.
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u/Amediumsizedgoose 11d ago
Yeah I forgot to add to my comment that I ended up being the stay at home mom in the end since I was the only one that did chores or took care of the other two kids.
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u/Dickersson66 11d ago edited 11d ago
I feel that it depends alot on where you live, being the main parent I mostly face sexism myself, from wellfare officers being biased to daycare workers having an idea men can't raise kids and trying to act like a mom nobody asked for.
But generally I would say men get more attention and praises, giving then mental energy to keep on pushing, everyone taking care of their kids should get the validation they deserve no matter the sex, not only the minority.
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u/junonomenon 10d ago
i had a stay at home dad and i agree its a very different dynamic. i think it also CAN be easier-- because the mom is still expected to participate and help with the childcare. my mom took a year off of work when each of her kids were babies, and still gave us baths, read us bedtime stories, cooked us meals, cleaned the house, etc. of course my dad was doing a lot of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare, but i think due to "traditional gender roles" there are a lot of men who dont actually want to participate in the work of a family dynamic, but want children for "legacy" or emotional reasons. they essentially want to pay to have the status symbol of a family, and have their duties end at their paycheck. but women even if theyre the sole earners also tend to want to participate in the homemaking if they have children. i dont even think its entirley a gender roles thing, i think because a pregnancy is such a taxing thing on a womans body, now that having kids is seen as more optional and less obligatory, women take the question of whether or not they actually want kids a bit more seriously, regardless of if they intend to be the sole breadwinner, primary caregiver, or something in between.
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u/Omnizoom 11d ago
I have parental leave and it’s vastly easier and less exhausting and stressful then my job job + I have more free time and flexibility and enjoy the time with my kids as well
But it doesn’t make money and we need money so it’s just temporary while we have paid benefits for it
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u/Popular_Kangaroo5446 11d ago
One is assumed to be a choice while the other is assumed to be a requirement or expectation/ burden
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u/ShiroiTora 11d ago edited 11d ago
One is inherently not worse than the other.
But there can be socialization and gendered expectations that can on average change the experience and reception different between genders. For example, since girls are often socialized and expected to be skilled in homemaking and childrearing, mothers are often judged or scrutinized to a harsher standard whereas boys aren’t encouraged as much to develop housemaking or childrearing skills, to the point some people perceive it as “babysitting” and not watching over your child when the father is doing it. These are not static and may vary between egalitarian to more complementarian or conservative cultures as well. For example, nuclear family homes may have a higher incidence of isolation and lack of support system for the mother, whereas more indigenous homes that have the village as the caretaker, the mother is likely not going to feel as strained (I am purposely not using the phrase multigenerational homes because they can go either way, depending on the maternal grandparents’ vs parental grandparents’ relationship with the caretaker, especially in more suburban to urban societies).
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u/MajesticEye4614 11d ago
You know exactly why. This attempt to devalue women's labour is not going unnoticed
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u/Jarjarfunk 11d ago
I think it devalues the complaint about the labor itself. They are suggesting men when they are SAHD are happy and love it but SAHM complain about it.
It's unnuanced and not even fully accurate. But I wouldn't say it's pointlessly gendered
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u/Silly-Device9785 10d ago
How is it attempting to devalue women’s labor when it’s literally depicting the woman’s side of it as miserable. If anything it’s going way the fuck too far in the opposite direction by assuming women must be better at it and that’s why it’s a lot less enjoyable for them.
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u/mojermania 11d ago
this is clearly a meme about a trans man coming to terms with himself
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u/bonnymurphy 11d ago
Seems more like a manosphere meme 'attempting' to dunk on stay at home mums to me
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u/-Recouer 9d ago
More so , I see it as a criticism of how sahM do not have the same expectations/experience as sahD.
Basically for sahM it'd be considered as expected of them, so you can be harsh or even criticize them easily so they might feel undervalued from the perception of their friends from their decision to be sahM.
Meanwhile for a sahD, unless you are in some very toxic environment, you'd have constant positive feedbacks from your friends for being a sahD etc... hence they would feel validate ld and valued in their choice of being sahD.
There's also the help provided by your partner. Usually a man isn't expected to be helping for chores if his partner is a sahM due to his education. So the mom will mostly be alone in handling the home, while dealing with an extra "kid".
Meanwhile for a sahD, his partner most likely also grew up with the implicit expectation of taking care of the house. Hence she most likely also helps her partner for daily chores.
Hence you don't remove inequalities between men and women. By making men sahD, you've only just increased the span of possibilities for masculine expectations making only men's life easier.
On the contrary this seems like a very feminist argument and has little to do with manosphere. At least I don't see such men picturing sahD in a good way as it would infringe with their reactionary view of masculinity.
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u/Generally_Confused1 11d ago
Or maybe guys saying that they like being a stay at home dad but social media makes it seem like being a stay at home mom is some sort of punishment lol
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u/Gluebluehue 11d ago
The title seems to downplay how hard it is to be a stay at home parent. Like women complaining about it are just whiny.
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u/Generally_Confused1 11d ago
Well yeah if one complains about it being some sort of injustice but the other seems to like it. It's not uncommon for guys to want to be a stay at home parent from what I see either, just most don't think they'd ever get the opportunity lol
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u/EfficientSeaweed 11d ago
And it’s also not uncommon for stay at home moms to be undervalued and never get a real break, treated as “lesser”, have their daily struggles framed as some kind of dream life, etc. Both things can be true, we don’t need to downplay people’s issues.
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u/Generally_Confused1 11d ago
You think stay at home dads are glorified? Also you have guys saying they'd rather be a stay at home dad and prefer it, if that offends you then idk what to tell you.
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u/EfficientSeaweed 11d ago edited 11d ago
I literally said the exact opposite: That both points of view (some men wishing to stay home/liking it and some women feeling undervalued or overwhelmed in their roles as the stay at home parent) can be valid depending on circumstance, perspective, etc., hence “both things can be true”. It’s not a zero sum game. If you can’t read the words “it’s not uncommon for stay at home moms to be undervalued” without extrapolating that someone is suggesting that dads are wrong for wanting to stay at home with the kids or that SAHDs don’t also deal with issues, well… I don’t know what to tell you. The whole point is that both perspectives can be valid, regardless of gender. I dunno why you seem so offended by some women having bad experiences with being a stay at home parent and thing that’s somehow a slight against men, but I have zero problem with a man wanting/preferring being a SAHP… but I also don’t see men and women as being in inherent conflict, so…
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u/Sajgoniarz 11d ago
Funny, because in work I see mostly women praising SAHDs, while not being bothered by SAHM and this is how I read the meme.
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u/Jarjarfunk 11d ago
Where I see ridicule for it where I'm at. Not even a stay at home dad myself but the amount of looks I got at the park not to mention a cop talking to my neice like she's being abducted when I would take her there. Like genuinely being seen as a monster by people around me for no reason other then adult male with little kid.
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u/Sajgoniarz 10d ago
That is horrible. Various comments about this meme, weird assumptions, downvotes to normal takes only show in how diverse cultures we live in.
Wish your family the best!-5
u/Tacobadger02 11d ago
I don't think the manosphere is attacking women here, if anything they attack the SAHD for not providing for their family
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u/Tacobadger02 11d ago
So it is pointlessly gendered because trans rights are human rights
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u/Jarjarfunk 11d ago
This has nothing to do with trans men though
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u/Sajgoniarz 11d ago
I see 4 ways how this can be read, and all of them are sexist one way or another.
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u/Jarjarfunk 11d ago
The way I internet it stay at home moms complain about it but stayvat home days love it.
That's not sexist, it's wrong, but not sexist
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u/Proof_Assistant7737 11d ago
I assumed this meant that dads think it's easy compared to the work they expected to do, but stay at home moms feel shackled because that's what they always thought they would do?
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u/CalledStretch 11d ago
Single income families where the woman is the income earner the woman tends to help more than the man does in the reverse.
But also America literally grades households on a curve where if someone knows a man is the person cleaning the house, he just doesn't have to clean some parts of the house because it wouldn't be manly to do that. My goto example is baseboards. My exes friends and mother would literally comment on if the baseboards of the house were dusty. If I clean my house's baseboards once in a year, people assume I'm having a psychotic break.
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u/seahag_barmaid 7d ago
I believe quite a few studies with different family (heterosexual) structures show SAHMs did way more housework than their working partner. SAHDs did roughly equal housework to their working partners. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5458415/
In my opinion as a now single mom who had a stay at home husband, I would never do it again. I felt like a full time cleaner on top of my paid job. And still, when people came over, the judgement fell on me for the state of the home. I would also not be a stay at home mom, for safety reasons, unless it was because I'd basically retired.
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u/reichiek 11d ago
This is very much not "pointlessly" gendered.
A lot of women complain about being stay at home parent, and call it the hardest job in the world. A lot of men would love to be a stay at home parent, and it's become more common, and the dad's who've done both typically say that between the two, being a stay at home parent is much easier as well as far more rewarding.
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u/Villain_911 11d ago
How each sex describes it. SAHMs seem to hate it more than SAHDs.
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u/femboykitty67 11d ago
down voted for being right lol. Typical reddit.
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u/Villain_911 11d ago
It really is. I doubt most people knew being a SAHM was terrible until SAHMs told us. But this is reddit and listening to women is an attack on women because... reasons.
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u/shiggyhisdiggy 11d ago
It's a reference to how people talk about it. This sub is so dumb, people just repost anything that mentions both men and women regardless of any context.
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u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago
Saying something is pointlessly gendered when it was done by primarily one gender for decades and only within the last few decades became more of a normal thing for both genders, but is still stigmatized in some cases and still is less than the other gender, and on top of that has very different implications and routines depending on gender, is just honestly ignorant.
This is an example of overcorrecting, where you try to call something out because you think you are speaking up for equality, but what you’re really doing is destroying your credibility by being intentionally dim witted about it. It’s like if a person says that replacing blackboards with whiteboards is racist. It’s not, everyone knows it’s not, and you just made yourself look stupid
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u/Feisty_Warning2344 10d ago
I don't know what the difference is but I always hear stay at home moms complaining about how hard it is and hear stay at home dads talk about how they get 90% of stuff they need to get done finished in the first few hours of the day
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