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iverglas

(38,549 posts)
21. but I don't want to have to pick my way carefully
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 03:03 PM
Jan 2012

around things like:


wives:

"When my husband helps clean up after me, I know that he loves me."

husbands:

"I feel loved when my wife does my laundry."
"Keeping the house clean is an important act of service."


! They make me gag. It's like AA telling people to just ignore all the god-bothering.

Nothing that starts out from such a fundamentally false premise as the idea that men and women have different roles in a man-woman relationship, and that it's to be expected that each will judge their partner's love according to how well they play those roles, is gonna do it for me, I fear.

Keeping the house clean, when one partner is responsible for it by definition because she is female -- it being the premise of the questions that the wife does the laundry and cleaning and the husband has no responsibility for it, is an act of servitude.

I look at a household as a joint enterprise. It involves certain necessary tasks: breadwinning, cooking, cleaning, administrative duties. Neither partner performs the activities involved in those things for the other partner; they do them for the household.


I don't mind this, though:

I ask nothing from him/her and she/he asks nothing from me accept for the light of love.

It addresses what I was saying about subjects and objects. We "use" other people to get love from them, and we give love in return. That's not a bad bargain.

it is interesting how all this is manifesting and the number of women allowing themselves to be seabeyond Jan 2012 #1
I agree JustAnotherGen Jan 2012 #2
it is just another saying we have given to men to chuckle at, to feel superior, to be dominant seabeyond Jan 2012 #5
Oooh I agree JustAnotherGen Jan 2012 #6
VS use to be a company about empowering women their sexuality. i use to buy from them. it was fun. seabeyond Jan 2012 #7
We see relationships based on altruism. redqueen Jan 2012 #12
You are correct, as usual, Seabie....I believe that language is powerful whathehell Jan 2012 #22
IMHO the heart of the matter is the power dynamic. Gormy Cuss Jan 2012 #3
That's what I was going to say. redqueen Jan 2012 #4
"A tool. A thing." Gormy Cuss Jan 2012 #8
So true JustAnotherGen Jan 2012 #9
Exactly. redqueen Jan 2012 #10
I didn't know that Norway and Denmark had taken that step...It's wonderful!..n/t whathehell Jan 2012 #23
and how to get women to stop playing their role? iverglas Jan 2012 #14
Here's where I bring a different perspective JustAnotherGen Jan 2012 #17
me too iverglas Jan 2012 #11
Cooperating vs. using (the way I see it) redqueen Jan 2012 #13
heh heh iverglas Jan 2012 #15
you didn't give us a link :( iverglas Jan 2012 #16
That's a good start JustAnotherGen Jan 2012 #18
but I don't want to have to pick my way carefully iverglas Jan 2012 #21
When I was in corporate, I worked with a really wonderful family man. CrispyQ Jan 2012 #19
Well, I am the breadwinner ismnotwasm Jan 2012 #20
Latest Discussions»Alliance Forums»Feminists»Love Languages, Feminists...»Reply #21