> When people have different standards, they need to communicate and work together to solve problems in a mutually acceptable way.
I agree! I don't mean to imply that the "relaxed" standard is better than the "tidy" standard. But my point is that the husband was not being hypocritical. He was not expecting his wife to keep the house to the "tidy" standard while himself only meeting the "relaxed" standard (which is what rhacker implicitly accused).
> This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman individual agency.
Yes, I made a generalization. I've never met the man or the woman involved, so I don't know their specific circumstances. It would have been more accurate for me to say something like "it's probably coming from an expectation of femininity that she's internalized", or "many women in the US today internalize an expectation of femininity that prioritizes tidiness". Obviously not every woman is tidy and not every man is relaxed, but there's a definite trend towards women being tidier than men, and that trend comes from internalized gender norms.
This kind of generalization is very common in discussions about gender on the Internet. For example, rhacker's parent comment made a similar generalization, as did your comment about "rich middle-aged white men" a few days ago. [1] I don't think my generalization was any worse than those; I just flipped the genders by making a generalization about women instead of a generalization about men.
I think there's a deeper discussion here about "if personal preferences arise from internalized gender norms, does that mean the preferences are invalid?" You seemed to interpret my comment as saying that her preference for tidiness was somehow invalid because it came from internalized femininity. I didn't intend that; I think that personal preferences arising from internalized femininity (_and internalized masculinity_) are perfectly valid.
I agree! I don't mean to imply that the "relaxed" standard is better than the "tidy" standard. But my point is that the husband was not being hypocritical. He was not expecting his wife to keep the house to the "tidy" standard while himself only meeting the "relaxed" standard (which is what rhacker implicitly accused).
> This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman individual agency.
Yes, I made a generalization. I've never met the man or the woman involved, so I don't know their specific circumstances. It would have been more accurate for me to say something like "it's probably coming from an expectation of femininity that she's internalized", or "many women in the US today internalize an expectation of femininity that prioritizes tidiness". Obviously not every woman is tidy and not every man is relaxed, but there's a definite trend towards women being tidier than men, and that trend comes from internalized gender norms.
This kind of generalization is very common in discussions about gender on the Internet. For example, rhacker's parent comment made a similar generalization, as did your comment about "rich middle-aged white men" a few days ago. [1] I don't think my generalization was any worse than those; I just flipped the genders by making a generalization about women instead of a generalization about men.
I think there's a deeper discussion here about "if personal preferences arise from internalized gender norms, does that mean the preferences are invalid?" You seemed to interpret my comment as saying that her preference for tidiness was somehow invalid because it came from internalized femininity. I didn't intend that; I think that personal preferences arising from internalized femininity (_and internalized masculinity_) are perfectly valid.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30977147&p=3#30979367