Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple

It’s always the same thing with these guys, isn’t it? The ones who complain about women being golddiggers or sleeping their way to the top are the very ones who got their money and power through connections – marrying the boss’ daughter, playing tennis with the nephew of the guy who owns the company, inheriting from a slumlord father.

(Or they are just bitter and angry because they have not reached those levels and don’t understand why their white penises have not given them the power they think they rightly deserve.)

Every accusation is a confession.

It’s a story as old as time.

Many Europeans crossed the sea, including large numbers of poor women who came to seek their fortunes. Mothers were frequently disappointed. Since these immigrant women brought no resources, many of the young men who came to the colony to get rich preferred to marry girls of colour, whose dowries included land and slaves they could use profitably. Such preferences began to inspire jealousy in white women.

Source: Julien Raymond, Observations on the Origin and Progression of the White Colonists’ Prejudice against Men of Colour (1791), quoted in Empire’s Crossroads, by Carrie Gibson

(True, women have long had to marry financial security because marriage has long been one of the only ways for women to sleep safely. But despite the way Julien Raymond, an indigo grower on Haiti – who inherited his plantation but who later became an abolitionist, so that’s awesome, Julien! – wait he sold his slaves to become a full-time abolitionist? Couldn’t he have freed them? – phrases it, I would suggest that women were seeking survival, not a fortune, via the only route available to them.)

(Also, although I question the interpretation of women’s sentiment by an 18th century man, abolitionist or not, I must comment on the apparent misplaced jealousy. My sisters in Christ! Other women are not the enemy – the patriarchy is the enemy. )

(Whoa the Julien Raymond/Raimond plot thickens! I found this on wikipedia. Racism has entered the chat! Like – his dad married his mom despite her color because she had money? Julien is sounding more and more like Arthur Schopenhauer, a bitter old German philosopher who thought women were inferior and, as it turns out, was outshone by his mother, who wrote books that sold better than his did.)

He (Julien Raimond) was born a free man of color; the son of a French colonist and a colored mother born to a planter in the isolated Sud province of the colony. His mother, Marie Bagasse, was significantly wealthier and more educated than his father, Pierre Raimond, providing an economic incentive for their interracial marriage. 

(Also, I saw that Julien was an activist for voting rights for free people of color – the author uses the word “people” but I bet she meant “men,” – on the basis that they were taxpayers. As in, if you had money, you should be able to vote. Which I guess was the prevailing philosophy at the time looking at you United States but still, people are awful.)

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Sleeping your way to the top started way before 1791. You probably were taught that Christopher Columbus was a plucky explorer who happened to convince the king and queen of Spain to finance his expedition just because he was so cool.

Ha.

No.

He married the daughter of a man with connections to the Portuguese court – the very court that had kings and princes related to Queen Isabella – and those connections played a part in Isabella’s support.

Many of the crown’s advisors, however, were reluctant to believe this unknown Genoese sailor. Although he had made some important connections in Portugal and had married well, his relative obscurity did not inspire confidence….Still the queen was intrigued. Perhaps it was the promise of wealth, or the crown’s own spirit of adventure, or a simple post-Reconquista confidence. Perhaps, as some historians have argued, Columbus won over the queen for more sentimental reasons – Isabella’s great-grandfather was King John I of Portugal, her grandfather was Prince John, and her great-uncle was Prince Henry. Although Columbus was Genoese, his Portuguese connections did him no harm.

Source: Empire’s Crossroads, by Carrie Gibson

But how could such a humble man marry someone with such connections? Historian Samuel Eliot Morison had theories about it decades ago. The wife was an ancient 25 years old and didn’t have a dowry, which I guess means she was desperate. (Speaking of women needing marriage for survival.)

Discussing the question of how Christopher Columbus, the son of a Genoese wool weaver, could marry the daughter of a Portuguese Knight of Santiago, a member of the household of Prince John, Lord of Reguengos de Monsaraz (Master of Santiago,) and of Prince Henry the Navigator’s household, Samuel Eliot Morison^[4] wrote that this is “no great mystery.” Filipa was “already about 25 years old,” her mother was a widow “with slender means,” and “her mother was glad enough to have no more convent bills to pay, and a son-in-law […] who asked for no dowry.”

Christopher Columbus slept his way to the top

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And this practice has carried on. Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, of course, is one of the most egregious examples. Bless his sweet heart he’s kind of dumb, but he married the boss’ daughter and then went into business with the boss’ son and then the boss, who happened to be an F500 CEO, threw a ton of business at Johnson’s/son’s company, which definitely violates ethical practices and is probably illegal and I’m surprised the auditors never said anything.

Point is, Johnson would never have amassed the fortune he did had he not married into a very good situation.

Wisconsin representative Jim Sensenbrenner also had the sense to be born to riches, but at least he was smart enough to graduate from Stanford.

You would think that someone who came from this background would have fought more for women’s rights, but I guess no.

Sensenbrenner was born in Chicago, Illinois. His great-grandfather, Frank J. Sensenbrenner, was involved in the early marketing of Kotex sanitary napkin and served as the second president of Kimberly-Clark.

Source: Wikipedia

Inheriting your fortune. Sleeping your way to the top. Making the right friends. It’s what white men do. They connect to power and money and then they think they got there on their merits.

Howard Lutnick? The current secretary of the treasury and one of the regime’s useless idiots?

He came from a middle-class family. But yet got a Wall Street job where soon, he was making a ton of money. How did he get such a job, you ask? Aren’t those Wall Street jobs widely coveted?

Why yes they are but when you make friends with a partner at the firm who also happens to the the boss’ nephew? It sure makes it a lot easier to get that interview.

After graduating, Lutnick worked at Noonan, Astley & Pierce as a broker for the United States dollar–Japanese yen exchange, where he met B. Gerald Cantor.^[13] In 1983, Cantor took Lutnick as his protégé and hired him at his eponymous firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, encouraged by Rod Fisher, a partner at the firm and Cantor’s nephew.

Source: Wikipedia

Men. Marry. Money. And. Power.

But assume women don’t accomplish anything on our own.

I dunno – because The Patriarchy has me so pissed off?

I was on an overnight flight recently. After six hours of not sleeping well because who can sleep well sitting up in an airplane seat, they turned the lights on to serve breakfast, which also is the last thing I want at Dark O’Clock when I have not slept. I do not want food. I do not want your wretched coffee. I want to be left alone.

Oh good grief here I am justifying why I do not want to smile.

We should not have to justify our feelings to anyone.

When the flight attendant asked me if I wanted anything, I took off my mask and asked for water.

I was not rude.

I was not loud.

I was not demanding.

I was not cranky.

I politely said, “I would like some water, please.”

And yet.

The male flight attendant asked, “What’s wrong? How about a smile?”

How dare I not ask for water in the way he wanted?

How dare I not arrange my face in a manner that pleased him?

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In all my life, I don’t think a woman has told me to smile.

To be fair, not many men have told me to smile, either.

They have told me not to be so direct, so loud, so outspoken.

But they have not told me to smile.

Maybe that’s why this was such a shock? That at my age, I finally got the “Why don’t you just smile?” treatment?

Except I think I would be just as angry if this happened all the time.

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Seriously, why does a FA care if a middle-aged woman who just woke up is smiling?

Are all the men smiling?

If not, did he tell them to smile? I didn’t hear him prompting anyone else to smile.

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It’s been almost two weeks and I am still angry about this.

You know what makes me even more angry?

When he asked me to smile, I did.

So much dodging

Did I tell you about seeing an old – what should I call him? not boyfriend but someone who would call me every day and took me to meet his parents and told me he could see a future with me but then married the woman he had been driving 12 hours each way to see about once a month the entire time he was carrying on with me? – JERK at my college reunion?

Well I did see him.

I saw him and he looked awful – super skinny, which could be illness and is nothing to mock, but also with long – like down to his waist – scraggly, dirty hair.

The thinness might not be a choice.

But the hair was.

My friend Karen Ashby wrote a poem about it:

Reunion

How appropriate

You aged like you treated me

Rather terribly

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Well.

I just heard about another former boyfriend and I use that word so, so lightly.

This guy – let’s call him Dick – was from grad school. We dated in the spring of my first year and in that summer.

I was supposed to spend the fall semester in Rotterdam.

I flew to Rotterdam and spent two days there before returning to Austin because –

DO NOT DO THIS! DO NOT DO THIS STUPID THING, YOUNG WOMEN –

because I missed him so much.

(WTAF was I thinking?)

In the two days that I was gone, he had already asked out my friend Sabine. We were only beginning friends so she didn’t know I was crazy about Dick. He told her that he and I were not at all serious, which I guess would have been OK if he had given me the same information. He did not.

He told me he had planned to spend the semester apart thinking about our relationship, so I waited until the end of the semester, hoping, hoping.

(I was so stupid.)

I should have just said, Oh OK. You want to break up. Bye.

But I didn’t. So a lot of my misery is my own fault.

After that semester, I realized that I had put myself through extra torture for nothing because sure enough, he did not want to be with me.

I also spent the semester being really angry at Sabine, which was unfair to her. She kept pushing and trying to revive our friendship. It wasn’t until she told me everything that had happened with her and Dick and we discovered that he had used the exact same lines on both of us that I was over him and back with her.

She and I have been close friends every since.

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As one does, over the years, I googlestalked Dick. He married a woman who taught at a small college in California. She looks like a nice person. They had two children. He already had one child from his first marriage. (He was divorced when I met him.)

I talked to Sabine yesterday and she, also, has googlestalked. And she discovered that he is married again.

His third marriage.

And he married a woman more than 20 years his junior.

And they have two toddlers together.

Yes he is on his third marriage and his fourth and fifth children.

Y’all, he is 68 years old.

With two toddlers.

He will not get to sleep at night for years.

He will not have a peaceful house for decades.

He will never be able to retire.

Maybe it was another miracle?

I just started reading Rosalind Miles’ Who Cooked the Last Supper? I thought it must be new, but no, she published it in 1988.

1988.

That was before I had even heard of women’s studies. Before I had heard of The Patriarchy. Before it struck me that the textbook in my art history class – which was taught by a woman – had not included a single female artist and that professional women didn’t wear dresses, much less pants, to work.

Before I thought to question a male boss who arrived at work at 6 a.m. and left at 7 p.m. and came in on weekends yet always had clean clothes, a clean house, and a meal when he got home.

Before I started to wonder why only men seemed to get promotions, even though I had documented results that were as good as or better than my male co-workers.

Before I was laid off from a good job after a corporate edict that every manager had to cut staff by 10% and realized that I was the only childless woman on the team – the rest of the team was married men with stay at home wives.

Before I thought to vote for women.

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Just a few years ago, Nautilus ran entire story – Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too – Many famous scientists have something in common—they didn’t work long hours – about how male scientists and writers found success by focusing on their work and spending the rest of the day in leisure. About how we all need to have a lot of leisure time to process our brain work and make contributions to art and science.

How on earth did they accomplish that, one wonders. How on earth did these men spend a lot of time in leisure?

(The author does include a woman: “Irish novelist Edna O’Brien would work in the morning, ‘stop around one or two and spend the rest of the afternoon attending to mundane things.'” One does wonder what those “mundane things” might have been. Laundry, perhaps? Cooking? Grocery shopping? Making sure the kids got a spot in summer camp?)

(And this: “Microsoft founder Bill Gates to the Beatles put in their 10,000 hours before anyone heard of them.” The author seems to have forgotten that Gates had family connections to IBM.)

After his morning walk and breakfast, Darwin was in his study by 8 and worked a steady hour and a half. At 9:30 he would read the morning mail and write letters. At 10:30, Darwin returned to more serious work, sometimes moving to his aviary, greenhouse, or one of several other buildings where he conducted his experiments.

By noon, he would declare, “I’ve done a good day’s work,” and set out on a long walk on the Sandwalk, a path he had laid out not long after buying Down House. (Part of the Sandwalk ran through land leased to Darwin by the Lubbock family.)

When he returned after an hour or more, Darwin had lunch and answered more letters. At 3 he would retire for a nap; an hour later he would arise, take another walk around the Sandwalk, then return to his study until 5:30, when he would join his wife, Emma, and their family for dinner.

On this schedule he wrote 19 books, including technical volumes on climbing plants, barnacles, and other subjects; the controversial Descent of Man; and The Origin of Species, probably the single most famous book in the history of science, and a book that still affects the way we think about nature and ourselves.

Nautilus

Oh the author, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, is male. But you knew that.

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It took another woman, Katrine Marcal, to point out the obvious in Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?

The reason, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, that your male scientists and artists had so much time to relax and ponder and take walks after a lunch they had not prepared in clothes they had not washed and put away in a house they had not cleaned was because someone else was doing all the damn work.

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Miles’ book came out decades ago.

Back when I still stupid voted.

Back when I didn’t even question the world around me because it was the world around me and that’s just how it was.

(In 1988, when a friend suggested we could wear pants to work, I was horrified. That was simply not done. I didn’t wear pants to work until the early 2000s.)

(I was an idiot.)

I am trying to make up for it now.

Fish don’t see water

At my old job, I needed to talk to a male VP – a middle-aged white guy. Let’s call him Mike.

I had spoken to Mike many times on the phone, but we had never met, as he worked out of another office. He was in our office for a meeting and I caught him at a break. I knew what he looked like, so approached him and started talking to him.

He interrupted me. “Are you Texan?” he asked.

Oh right. I had not introduced myself! Rude!

“Yes,” I answered. “But how did you know?”

“I recognized the sound of your voice,” he replied.

“How bizarre!” I said. “You must be really good at voices, considering there are so many women at this company!”

The only other woman in the room, Cynthia, started laughing so hard that she almost fell out of her chair.

Mike looked puzzled.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

Cynthia was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.

I just rolled my eyes.

Nobody has it harder than white men. Nobody.

There are many reasons I do not take Uber or other rideshares, not the least because even now, I still have it drummed into my head never to get into a car with a stranger and the news is full of stories about how Uber is failing to address the rape problem it has with its drivers.

(The other reason is that rideshare companies exploit the drivers, taking so much of the revenue that drivers are basically just monetizing their cars. I did the math with a driver once – I had to take one for work because we were not allowed to rent a car if Uber was available – and the only way he made any money was because he could do his own repairs.)

(Also, this driver was a jerk. He’d had a factory job with insurance, but his divorce decree said he had to provide insurance for his children if it was available to him through his job, so he quit the factory job to drive instead – as an independent contractor with no benefits – so he wouldn’t be spending that money on the extra premiums.)

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I made the stupid mistake of reading the comments on a New York Times story about Uber and rape and sure enough, the “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEEEEEENNNNN” guys appeared pretty darn quick.

You know – the ones who – any time women talk about rape and how most rapes are not reported and the ones that are are rarely prosecuted and when they are prosecuted, the defense focuses on the victim’s clothing and sexual history etc etc etc.

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Speaking of a victim’s sexual history:

Mr T’s nephew – the one who has gone full MAGA – was accused of sexual assault a few years ago. We know this only because the nephew asked Mr T to send $5,000 from the nephew’s trust to a lawyer for “pre-trial investigation.”

We never got all the details, but the best we can figure is that the “pre-trial investigation” was really “finding any possible evidence that the victim had had sex before and had communicated with the rapist and maybe met him for a date therefore it is not rape.”

The DA did not prosecute the nephew’s case.

Nephew’s father told Mr T that nephew had been exonerated.

Nephew is dead to both Mr T and me.

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Back to the Uber story about rape and how Uber keeps drivers accused of assault on the road (and about Uber’s mild, pathetic attempts to offer a women-only service that men cried about because again, allowing women to select only women drivers is so unfair to men).

John is very concerned about the men who are falsely accused. That is the biggest issue society faces today. Not the rape of women. But the false accusations of men.

Many “claims” we’re never proven or outright falsely alleged. I know this is a sore subject for women but it’s even sorer subject for men being falsely accused. Now if these claims were proven with corroborating evidence than the drivers should be terminated

John

Uber thinks the solution is more training.

Hopefully this article will be a wake-up call for the ride share industry. If a driver requires seeing a video to understand they shouldn’t sexually assault someone…then why are they hiring them in the first place.

Kath in Houston

I think the solution is enough men yes men because they are the ones making these decisions with the balls to do the right thing.

I know. It won’t happen.

Until then, my friends, do not get into a car with a man you do not know.

Can you do the emotional labor for your partner’s – oh heck let’s say it your husband’s – job?

I thought the days of women who existed solely to support their husband’s careers were over.

Not far from over, but over.

And yet, my friend’s Silicon Valley Google/Facebook/tech bro ex-husband told her that the reason he needed to divorce her was because she was not – and I quote – “CEO wife material.”

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When their kids were little, my friend Layla’s husband was told to spend a week at an off-site meeting. And to bring his wife.

Layla and Malik had just moved to Fargo. They had no family there. They had made no friends. Layla had her own job as a nurse. How on earth was she supposed to drop everything and go out of town for a week with Malik? Who would watch their children? How would she get time off from work?

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I have another friend who to this day always dresses nicely when she leaves the house, even to walk the dogs. I think she might do this no matter her life situation – she is not a slob like me, but one of the reasons she does it is because her husband is a big shot and she doesn’t want to be seen doing anything not appropriate for the wife of big shot.

(Also they are in Dallas, which matters for this story. If they lived in Minneapolis or Milwaukee, my guess is it wouldn’t matter so much – the Midwest is so much more practical about these things.)

(Or even if they were in Fort Worth. But Dallas – whew, Dallas is its own thing for sure.)

She is not expected to produce supper at the last minute when Darrin brings Larry home without warning, but her husband could never have reached his position without her hard work. He acknowledges this and he, too, has worked extremely hard. They deserve everything they have earned. But the truth remains that he could not have put in 60-hour work weeks unless he had had her support.

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All that emotional labor? I guess it’s Women’s Work, according to a Bad Guy on Elsbeth.

“All that schmoozing and glad-handing,” says the judge who is actually a murderer and presided over the trial of the innocent person he framed for the murder. “It’s so undignified. Leave the pleasantries to the wives.”

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But when men actually do have CEO wives, they don’t want to acknowledge it. Remember when Lorna Wendt and her GE Capital Services CEO husband divorced? She said she deserved half of everything because without her, he never would have reached his position.

Her high-school sweetheart husband of decades said she had nothing to do with his achievements.

“Gary Wendt denied his wife contributed to his success, saying in court that she had no interest in business and she wasn’t interested in his problems, leaving him very lonely in the marriage.”

The facts (including, I think I read once, that she would stand next to him at work parties and cue him about the other attendees: “That’s Bob and Betty. Their oldest kid just got into Yale. Remember we had them over for dinner last summer?”) would seem otherwise.

Also, Gary, were you interested in her problems? Were you interested in your children’s problems? Did you know the names of your children’s friends and teachers and doctors? Did you take them to get their vaccinations and physicals? Did you organize their overnights and summer camp? Do you think she might have been busy taking care of every single detail at home so you could focus on work?

In the case, Mrs. Wendt presented herself as someone who had helped put her husband through Harvard Business School, gave up her career as a music teacher to rear two daughters, created an elegant home, gave dinner parties for his clients and co-workers, accompanied him on business trips and provided daily support — all of which contributed to his success.

New York Times

(Don’t you love how the Times says that Lorna “presented herself” as opposed to stating things as fact? It would be pretty easy to verify that someone did indeed work while her husband attended grad school, then quit her job to raise the children rather than hire a full-time nanny, then threw dinner parties and accompanied him on trips. These are all facts. Not speculation.)

The courts were all, “But is it really work for a spouse to take care of everything at home?”

But the case — which also sparked countless office water-cooler arguments and much concern in C-suites — also hinged on two tricky legal questions.

One was whether a stay-at-home wife should be considered an equal partner for the sake of dividing marital assets that had been largely, or completely, acquired as a result of the corporate husband’s job.

Connecticut law requires an “equitable distribution” of marital assets — not an automatic 50-50 split. And “equitable” in the courts often translated into “not nearly as much as 50 percent” for many stay-at-home corporate wives.

CNBC

Lorna did the work that men do not value and do not want to do themselves. She did the emotional labor. (Emphasis mine.)

She later told Fortune, “I complemented him by keeping the home fires burning and by raising a family and by being CEO of the Wendt corporation and by running the household and grounds and social and emotional ties so he could get out and work very hard at what he was good at.”

CNBC

She earned every cent.

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I would have made a lousy CEO wife. I hate dressing up and washing my hair and putting on makeup even for formal occasions, much less for running to the store or the library or anything where exercise clothes and a ponytail will do. I hate being nice to people just because they are “important.” I hate work suppers and making small talk with people I can’t be honest with.

I don’t even know the other rules for being a CEO wife. They are as opaque to me as the rules for being CEO itself. (Although I know one main CEO rule – be in possession of a white penis.)

I am not CEO wife material. I am not CEO material.

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My friend’s ex?

Still not a CEO.

Apparently ditching the inappropriate wife and picking up a younger model and having the oh so essential white penis is not enough.

But thanks to California’s community property laws, he has lost half his wealth in the process with no debate about if his wife had anything to do with his success.

Oh well.

Also, why is it always girls and women who pay the price?

In search of a happy, feel-good show, I started season 5 of Call the Midwife yesterday

Do not do this. Do not watch season 5 if you want warm happiness.

If, however, you need a reminder about how horribly the world has treated women in our lifetimes and how this treatment has put female lives at risk – and even killed them at times, I am sure (CTM is not going to let all of the characters in trouble die, but they are going to get darn close), then watch.

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Leaving aside the thalidomide issue, which has presented itself in several of the episodes (AKA incomplete medical research without consideration of how women would be affected), there’s a girl who is hiding her pregnancy while her mother is pretending to be pregnant. The story will be that the mother had the baby. (The girl’s father is away at sea, so there’s no other grownup who could notice that mom is not really pregnant.)

The mom is doing this to protect her teenage daughter from the shame of an out of wedlock pregnancy.

(“Do you know how many of our neighbors have done the same thing?” the mom asks when the daughter protests.)

(Eric Clapton thought his biological mother was his sister.)

Which means the girl gets no pre-natal care and which means when it’s time for the girl to deliver, there is no medical help. True, mom has had four kids and knows how this goes, but when the placenta takes too long to come out, mom is very worried. She gets the advice to pull on the cord to remove the placenta, but while I am watching her do so, I am screaming at the TV, “DO NOT DO THIS! DO NOT DO THIS!”

I thought she would rip the placenta from the uterus and cause hemorrhaging, but that’s not what happens.

Instead, she pulls her daughter’s uterus out (which is something I didn’t even know could happen but seems almost as bad as hemorrhaging).

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Please notice nobody is going out of their way, at the risk of his health and life, to protect the father of the baby from shame.

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The other episode that struck me (but I am not done with the season yet, so who knows what other horrors await) is the one with the pregnant unwed teacher.

She is pregnant by another teacher – a married man.

But she’s the one who loses her job.

She’s the one whose landlady kicks her out.

She’s the one who sticks a clothes hanger into her uterus and lacerates it, meaning that she collapses in the street, bleeding, and is sent to a hospital where they have to do a hysterectomy, meaning she will now never have children.

She’s the one who faces criminal charges for performing an abortion.

Yes, even if she did it to herself, she could be charged.

The married man/other teacher/father?

His life goes on just fine.

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Their lives go on just fine.

Who’s cleaning up after your party?

Forty years later, I still regret helping with the dishes after my boss had a bunch of us to his house for supper.

Wait. Not “regret.” “Am furious with myself” is a better way to phrase it.

When supper was over, my only female co-worker, Cindy, and I got up to help the boss’s wife clear the table while my male co-workers sat there.

My only defense is that I was in my early 20s and unknowingly steeped in deep, deep patriarchy and that I sensed (I did feel great unease as I got up to help – why were the men still sitting?) I would have somehow been punished if I had not helped. Not consciously punished, but it would have affected how my boss – who once invited us all to attend his church (Assemblies of God, I think? Some denomination even more far-right than the Catholic Church, not that inviting us to a Catholic Church would have been appropriate, either) – saw me.

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I think about that event a lot when I think about expectations. I think about other events.

When Mr T’s parents stayed with us for over a week for our wedding (WHY THE HELL DID I EVER AGREE TO THAT?), I made supper every night. Every. Night. Even though Mr T and I do not have a formal, sit-down supper every night. I did so because I knew that if I did not, his parents would talk trash about me.

(Why did I even care if they talked trash about me? They had already told him not to marry me and had threatened to boycott our wedding.)

Do we ever escape our conditioning?

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I make a conscious effort to not jump into sexist, gendered roles anymore. I am not always successful – I am very likely to help a female friend clean up even if the men aren’t helping just because I don’t want the burden to be on my friend.

But also, most of my friends have partners who are not assholes, so it’s not like it’s even much of an issue for me these days.

I guess I assumed it was not really an issue for other women so much, either, but then I read this.

Dear Carolyn: I usually go to my partner’s sibling’s home for the holidays. I have noticed at the end of the meal, the men sit around and only the women are cleaning. My partner says it’s because when they offer to help, she is too particular or gets annoyed when they do something wrong. But somehow, it always ends up that I am taking people’s plates away and the two of us are in the kitchen cleaning!
I don’t want to leave her in the lurch, but the dynamic really grinds my gears. Since it’s not my household, should I even try to help fix this? If so, how?

Carolyn Hax

You might – or you might not – be surprised to know that there are a lot of women in the comments saying the letter writer should just shut up and help the partner’s sister and leave it at that.

There are a lot of women defending the partner for not helping.

There are a lot of women saying this is not sexism but a sibling issue and the LW should just leave it alone.

But their “leave it alone” does not include supporting the LW in not helping.

The LW is supposed to help clean while the men watch TV and is not supposed to question her role and certainly is not supposed to suggest to her partner that he get off his lazy ass and help.

The LW is supposed to help maintain the patriarchy.

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Here’s a good New Year’s resolution:

If the men aren’t cleaning, we aren’t cleaning.

Amen.