by Dr. Helen
Yes, this is the headline of a Washington Post column (you may need a subscription to view it) about–you guessed it–women who do too much (thanks to the reader who emailed the article):
Like our love, women’s anger — the simmering rage toward our families, our mates and assorted males that can turn even the calmest woman’s expression into The Death Look — is always there. Even when it’s the last thing on our minds….
Surprised by my sudden bitterness, I asked, “Why do we keep doing so much with so little help?” “Because no one else will do it,” Ilena snorted. “Because we can’t live in a house that looks like a cyclone went through it,” I added.
Because we’re the wife, we agreed. The mom. The girl.
Millions of Death-Look-wearing women ask, “What can I do?” yet few embrace the obvious answer: “Stop!” Stop with the cleaning, the arranging, the cheerleading, the shopping, the whole relentless shebang. Some who do stop see their homes’ disarray devolve into a chaos that’s unbearable — for them, not their families. I wonder what a Male Death Look would look like? A desperate look that says “Stop with the body guarding, fixing the faucet, mowing the lawn, earning much of the living, the light-bulb changing, the honeydo list…. and on and on.”
But we’ll probably never know because what men do is not valued by most female journalists and the white knight males who support them in their sexism. In addition, men keep their anger against women to themselves as complaining will only serve to get them tagged as a misogynist or whiner. This needs to change.