IDK this whole men on this site need advice thing has convinced me that people here really think this isn’t a safe place to ask questions about how to, IDK, be?. So ask them here I guess if you didn’t ask them in the other thread.
I’m drunk and going to sleep now, but I have the day off tomorrow and will sincerely commit to effort-posting responses if anyone has genuine questions they want some in depth advice to.
I will say I’m just a guy who thinks he has enough trips around the sun to have some insight to share but I am not an authority on anything, so anyone else please feel free to chime in
how do you incorporate revolutionary/feminist ideals in your relationship? have you made any mistakes through idealism or misapplied theory?
Yeah, so there’s a lot there but I’ll keep it simple and if you want you can ask further questions.
I’ll start by establishing that both of us are feminists and socialists, though I think I think and read more on these topics than she does.
A simple framework that I try to stick to its that it’s all labour. Wage labour is labour, domestic labour is labour, school is labour, emotional labour is labour. From a feminist perspective I aim to make sure that labour is divided equally, but from a communist perspective I aim to make sure each of us perform labour in accordance with our physical, mental and emotional means, and each receives the fruits of the other’s labour in accordance with their needs.
An example is that during the first year of the pandemic I was out of work for like 6 months (collecting unemployment), and she was in intensive online school working crazy hours on class and homework. During that time, I did all the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and dog-walking. Sometimes she would feel really guilty because she felt like she wasn’t pulling her weight, and it would be really hard for me to convince her that actually she was putting in way more hours of labour than I was each week.
As for mistakes, I think something I’m working on is trying to not let emotional labour fall on her, as I think I can have a blind spot for that stuff.
I struggle with the emotional labor aspect of relationships. On one hand, I am doing my share of labor labor, but I don’t “think about it” as much, and it doesn’t stress me out. So it’s a matter of planning I guess? The problem I run into is the criticism I receive is vague and about the idea of emotional labor, and I need concrete things I can do.
