Why am I Always Picking up The Dishes?

If "men will be men" what does that make me?

In my transition from late teens to early adulthood, I’ve had a lot of “awakening” moments. One of the starkest came when I was about 17 or 18. We were visiting my family, and my grandad made a lovely home cooked meal for us. He and my grandma had an agreement that if he cooks, she cleans, so when we finished eating, she started picking up the plates and taking them to the dishwasher. 

Before I knew what I was doing, I got up and started picking up the dishes too. So did my mum. And my aunts. Of course, we were doing the right thing by helping, that’s not the issue here. But as I marched to the dishwasher, falling in line with women from older generations, I felt time slow down. There was a pit forming in my stomach. My grandad didn’t get up as per his agreement with my grandma (which I think is very lovely and compassionate, they’re working as a team). But why didn’t my dad get up? My cousins? My aunt’s boyfriend? They didn’t help with the cooking, at least not any more than I did.

This hit me like a truck. I helped load the dishwasher in silence, but I was never really able to process what happened in that moment. I feel that it’s important to say that the men in my family aren’t bad people. They’re not shouting at women on the street or treating them like property. They’re not the villains in this story. But they are accomplices. 

I’ve been cat called before. I’ve been leered at for having boobs during summer. Older men have praised my “maturity” whilst staring down my shirt. But nothing shook me as much as that one moment with the dishes. 

The next time I was in that situation I planned to stay seating, just to see what would happen. But I didn’t. I tried, and then some deeply engrained part of me made me get up and march to the damn dishwasher. Part of it was the habit, but a more important part of it was the guilt. 

It’s not that women are “made” to be hospitable or to “serve” it’s that we know that if we don’t do it no one else will. If I didn’t get up, nothing would have happened. But I would’ve seen the women in my life march off with the dishes while the men sat in their seats, fat and fulfilled. Does that make me no better than them? It is not service if we are forced into a position of servitude. What I internalized in that moment was that I am a woman, and that is not always a good thing. 

I kind of hate myself for not realising the internalized misogyny in my family sooner. But I also don’t feel brave enough to call the men out on it. I can smell their responses from here. I would help if you asked me! Hell, they probably would. But that’s not what this is about. Why do you need permission to help? We are not babysitters. All those “I do what my wife says” posts make my skin itch. Grown men shouldn’t be babied by their wives. I won’t let myself be treated like that. But what if I have no choice?

You know what’s the worst of all? I’ll probably delete this if it does well. The thought of it ever getting back to the men in my family is terrifying. Maybe that makes me no better than them. A braver woman might send it to them. Plaster this over their doors. Serve it up at the next dinner party. 

So much of this is brushed off as “men will be men”, but what does that even mean? Is a man naturally “messy” or has a woman always cleaned up after him? Does a man not know how to cook because he’s always been cooked for? Claiming that “men will be men” continues a cycle of internalised misogyny because it implies that there is an inherent social difference between men and women. A difference that means women get up and go to the dishwasher.

More importantly, if “men will be men”, then what the hell does that make me?