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16-year-old boy says only ‘failed men’ do chores so his divorced parents taught him a lesson

The kid believes household chores are only for women.

via Canva/Photos

An upset 16-year-old boy.

It may seem like the idea that housework is a woman’s job was abandoned back in the 1950s. However, there’s a new generation of misogynistic influencers, such as Andrew Tate, that are pushing regressive gender roles to young men. These people prey on young men’s insecurities by teaching them that they can build themselves up by keeping women down.

A divorced 34-year-old father discovered that his 16-year-old son held these sexist beliefs and did everything he could, including using the talents of his ex-wife, to help stop his son’s misogynistic thinking. The father and son are in Germany and live together during the school week and the son lives with his mother on weekends.

“A few weeks ago, I was ironing me and my son's clothes and told him that I want to teach him how to do this, as I don't want him falling into the same mistake I did and never learning this on my own,” the father wrote. “He said he doesn't want to, and I just said he'll have to learn to do this at some point. He then said, ‘only failed men do stuff like this, and I won't be one of them.’”

The father was caught entirely off guard by the comment. “He said that it is his belief that this is a woman's job to do and that only simps do simple household chores,” the father wrote. “I told him that now he will have to choose his next words very carefully, but I said that he will learn household work whether he likes it or not.”

“If you think this is a woman's job, it's time for you to live with a woman,” he continued, asking him to pack his bags because he doesn’t have any “Andrew Tate bullsh*t” in his house. “He must've called his mom in the time I was packing as she called me as well,” he wrote. “She asked me what's going on, and I told her what happened. Surprisingly, she's on my side and has just asked me to drop him off at hers, and she'll help teaching him a lesson.”

teens, chores, sexismA father teachers his son a lesson. via Canva/Photos

Life hasn't been easy for the teen at his mother's house. He has to take public transportation 2 hours each way to get to school, and he has been going through a crash course in chores when he gets home. Two weeks after being sent to his mother's house, the boy called his father, beginning to come home, but the dad intends to keep him with his mother for another few weeks to reinforce the lesson.

“He WILL be getting a fixed chore schedule [when he returns], whether he likes it or not. No more coasting the easy life,” the father wrote.

The father’s decision comes after he learned a harsh lesson in equality himself. He and his ex-wife had their son when they were teenagers, and their parents forced her to stay at home while he worked. So when they spilt up 2 years ago, he had to learn a lot of new skills to take care of himself.

Still, after some friends said he was being hard on his son, the father began to second-guess his decision to send him to live with his mother. So, he asked a group of people on Reddit if he had done the right thing. They overwhelmingly supported his choice. They believed that the dad needed to nip the sexism in the bud and that learning household chores was essential for his son’s growth as a person and potential partner.

teens, chores, sexismA teen boy learning how to cook. via Canva/Photos

“You gave him an important reality check. These guys falling for this Andrew Tate crap need to learn, that’s what it is. Wait till they marry 2 or 3 times and don’t understand why the marriage breaks down,” one commenter wrote. “Pretty sick that so many men and boys think loving a woman makes them a ‘simp.’ And they sincerely wonder why they’re lonely,” another added.

“I don’t even know how to run a dishwasher because I’m such a MANLY man,” a commenter joked. “I can’t take care of myself; I’m utterly helpless. Just a widdle baby. Hell yeah, that’s masculine af. Right? Ladies?”

Some commenters also celebrated how the divorced parents partnered to teach the lesson. "You two may not have been right for one another as spouses, but you’re both amazing parents,” a commenter wrote. "This is one of the best examples of cohesive co-parenting I’ve heard of. Kudos to OP and his ex for both standing firm,” another added.

The parents were right to team up because their son’s attitude is a massive self-inflicted wound. It will affect his future relationships and make him incompetent because he doesn’t know how to care for himself. It’s hard to believe that influencers who claim to build men up are keeping them in a suspended state of immaturity.

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A woman's scary story of harassment got an infuriating reaction from men

Still, she came away from the viral experience encouraged by all the good people out there.

Photo by Molly Blackbird on Unsplash

With one simple tweet, Nathalie Gordon had the attention of men and women everywhere.

Women who saw her tweet probably knew more or less what kind of story was coming.

Men, on the other hand, were in for an eye-opening ride.

Gordon began by recounting a seemingly casual encounter with a man on a bus.

The conversation between Nathalie and the stranger quickly escalated from casual to obnoxious to downright scary.

"I'm horrified and turn to ask him to stop doing it. He laughs at me," she tweeted next.

When she ran to the front of the bus to report the man to the driver, the driver reportedly told her to "sit somewhere else."

The bus driver was no help.

"You're a pretty girl, what do you expect?" the driver asked her. Gordon had a pretty powerful answer to that.

As Gordon's tweets went viral, similar stories from countless other women poured in.

Several women responded about their own run-ins with creeps on public transit.

One woman wrote that, in her case, it was the bus driver himself who wouldn't take "no" for an answer, actually following her off the bus one day and insisting on a date.

"The stories I'm being told [from women] are harrowing," Gordon explained over Twitter direct message. "There's a real sense of hopeless when you see these messages en masse."

Then men began responding to Gordon's story, many unthinkingly proving her exact point: They just didn't get it.

Quickly, the Not All Men brigade was out in full force. So were the Victim Blamers, and the This Never Happened gang.

Some of their responses were truly vile.

One man even responded by writing a lengthy screed from the perspective of Gordon's bus driver, in which he tried to explain that the bus driver's right to say "no" to helping a female passenger avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted is what equality really looks like because the bus driver shouldn't have to "fight her battles for her."

To them, Gordon has one simple answer: "Men, your input isn't necessary here. Just listen."

"Don't find fault or shout your opinion over people talking about actual experiences," she later wrote. "Just listen, read these stories and be a better, kinder, more informed, supportive and understanding man for the women in your lives."

Despite the critics and the doubters, Gordon says she came away from the discussion feeling encouraged.

"For every guy saying something cruel there's 10 rushing to my defence," she explains.

"They've recognised that women don't want, need or expect to be saved. We want people standing beside us going 'This is wrong, we need to find a way to stop this from happening.'"

"I know so many good men and this has confirmed that there are plenty more out there," Gordon says. "I just hope they are as vocal in real life as they are on Twitter because they have such power if they do."


This article originally appeared on 5.11.17

Identity

Man exposes the absurdity of sexist marketing by creating shirts that label men like we do women

This guy exposes the absurdity of sexist marketing by creating shirts that label men like we do women.

Recently, Upworthy shared a tweet thread by author A.R. Moxon who created a brilliant metaphor to help men understand the constant anxiety that potential sexual abuse causes women.

He did so by equating sexual assault to something that men have a deep-seeded fear of: being kicked in the testicles.




An anonymous man in England who goes by the Twitter handle @manwhohasitall has found a brilliantly simple way of illustrating how we condescend to women by speaking to men the same way.

ManWhoHasItAll also highlights society's ridiculous need to label the women who participate in male-dominated fields. We can't just say that Amy Schumer is a comedian. She has to be known as a "funny female" or a "female comic." No one ever feels the need to point out the fact that Chris Rock is male.

When we qualify women for their professions, whether in science and technology or entertainment, it diminishes their involvement and makes them appear instead to be a token of someone who has earned their position.

Comedian Jen Kirkman has a perfect response to the question: What's it like to be a female comedian?

"This question is the hardest part – it's yet again another opportunity for guys to say that I'm complaining or to retread the same old stories. There is sexism in the world so of course it bleeds into every single area of life. I don't answer this particular question anymore," she said.

"Getting put on pink flyers. Being asked to do shows that are marketed in such groundbreaking ways as 'Chicks Are Funny Too,' 'Broads, Beer, and Belly Laughs.' Being introduced as 'a lovely lady,'" she continued.

ManWhoHasItAll has found a brilliant way to spread his message by creating a collection of T-shirts that condescend to men by labeling them "Male Scientist," "Male Lawyer," and "Male Programmer."

These shirts highlight the idea that we can be more inclusive by accepting women in these positions without the need to use a gender qualifier.

Here are some of the shirts you can find at ManWhoHasItAll's website.

via ManWhoHasItAll

via ManWhoHasItAll

via ManWhoHasItAll

via ManWhoHasItAll

via ManWhoHasItAll

This article originally appeared on 7.22.19

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Female doctors share bikini pics after group of mostly male researchers deemed them 'inappropriate'

"I am good at my job, I am a professional. I am a doctor. I am also a human."

via Emily Casey / Twitter

It's no surprise that employers often look at job applicants' social media profiles before hiring them. According to CareerBuilder, 70% of employers "use social media to screen candidates before hiring."

It makes sense because social media profiles can reveal a lot about someone's true personality and employers don't want to take any unnecessary risks.

The Journal of Vascular Surgery did a study where it viewed the social media profiles of 235 medical residents to see if they had "unprofessional or potentially unprofessional content."

The study found that "One-half of recent and soon to be graduating vascular surgery trainees had an identifiable social media account with more than one-quarter of these containing unprofessional content."

The paper with a warning: "Young surgeons should be aware of the permanent public exposure of unprofessional content that can be accessed by peers, patients, and current/future employers."

via Science Direct

At first glance, this study seemed like it was helping graduates with their careers by warning them against social media posts that could get them into trouble. But the study created in a backlash from the medical community because it shamed female doctors.

The major bone of contention that medical professionals had with the study is that the team of predominantly male researchers said that "provocative posing in bikinis/swimwear," "provocative Halloween costumes," and "holding/ consuming alcohol" are all inappropriate.

via Dr M / Twitter

There's nothing wrong with a woman wearing a bikini or anyone having a beer in public, why did the study deem them inappropriate?

The paper inspired female medical professionals to push back against the study by posting shots of themselves in swimwear and imbibing adult beverages under #MedBikini.







Some male allies got in on the hashtag, too.

The backlash prompted one of the authors of the study, Dr. Jeff Siracuse, to apologize for the paper's framing.

"Our intent was to empower surgeons to be aware and then personally decide what may be easily available for our patients and colleagues to see about us social media," Siracuse wrote on Twitter.

"However, this was clearly not the result. We realize that the definition of professionalism is rapidly changing in medicine and that we need to support our trainees and surgeons as our society changes without the appearance of judgment."


This article originally appeared on 7.24.20

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