Nadia Bokody: Toxic relationship habit most women have

Nadia Bokody is imploring coupled-up women to stop rewarding their other halves for doing this common task, describing the act “toxic”.

Do straight men know how to take care of themselves?

This is a legitimate question I’ve found myself asking recently.

And not just because it’s rare to sit at a table of women and avoid discussion of a boyfriend who refuses to put his soiled underwear in the laundry basket, or a husband being praised for participating in basic parenting. (Read: “Dave watched the kids all weekend to give me a break. Aren’t I lucky?”)

Research shows men spend a mere third of the time performing household cleaning tasks that women do. And it gets much grosser than that; data collected by Ipsos found almost a quarter of guys don’t consider changing their underwear each day a “crucial behaviour”.

Then there was the disturbing revelation I made last year while researching a column, when I had the unfortunate experience of exploring the underworld women’s advice forums on how to get their partners to use toilet paper.

News.com.au columnist Nadia Bokody. Picture: Instagram/Nadia Bokody

In a cringe-inducing 2019 Reddit post, a woman complains, “Every man I’ve been with, and I’ve been with men in varying states of grooming habits, has skid marks … Is wiping your butt a skill men lose over time?”

Another laments, “My boyfriend of six months is quite unhygienic … he constantly leaves skid marks on my sheets after sex … PLEASE HELP!”

Not only were these stories disturbingly common, but, once I scratched the surface, I found hundreds of threads of women sharing “tips” on getting their husbands and boyfriends to carry out painfully rudimentary tasks, like washing the dishes, and flushing the toilet after use.

A trend that’s made its way around the internet more recently, known as the “My Place vs. His Place” trend, sees young women show comparisons of their apartments with their boyfriends to highlight the startling contrast in cleanliness.

Many of the scenes are stomach-churning to view, including decaying fast food atop a bedside table, a bathroom sink brimming with dusty hair shavings, and a shower that looks like it’s quite possibly never seen a bottle of Exit Mould.

Strikingly, the comments sections on these posts are filled with women collectively giggling at how relatable the images are, as though there’s an adorably comedic quality to grown men living like adolescents whose parents have gone out of town for the week.

Perhaps it’s because we’re indoctrinated to believe having a male partner is the greatest goal we can aspire to in life. That, being picked by a man is so covetable, it’s worthy of overlooking not ever actually feeling like an equal in the relationship.

@maddykruegss

When it’s your turn to stay at HIS place.. #dontletthisflop #fyp #help #college

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I see examples of this all the time – women fawning over their boyfriends and husbands for the most minuscule of contributions to their relationship, as though praising a child for doing homework.

There’s the friend who gave her significant other oral sex because she was so thrilled he cleaned the house while she was away one weekend, and the work colleague who had to sneak new underwear into her husband’s drawer, because he refused to buy more – despite his undies quite literally having faded away into stray threads.

As a culture, we commend men for being “good guys” and encourage them to proudly wear this term as a badge of honour. And the only qualifying factor for earning such a title is having made it through adulthood without hurting or disrespecting a woman.

These men, we tell women – the men who don’t assault and degrade us – they’re the cream of the crop, the best we can hope for; the “good guys”. The bar has sunken so low, merely acknowledging a woman’s humanity is enough. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a misandrist.

“Why don’t you just admit you hate all men?” read the comments under my Instagram posts each time I publish anything encouraging women to demand equality in their relationships.

These men fear a world in which women require more of them, where their non-existent efforts will no longer be rewarded. They’re the same dudes who complain their girlfriends are “high maintenance” to gloss over their own laziness; who’d sooner type hateful rants in the comments section behind faceless profiles than reflect on how they can step up for the women in their lives.

Call me a pessimist, but I actually believe these guys are a lost cause.

And not just because I’ve spent the better part of a decade futilely attempting to have intelligent discussions with them that don’t immediately descend into name-calling and threats of violence.

The men who contact me each week to tell me they’ve learned to be better husbands, fathers, and brothers by listening to a woman speak are the reason I do this job. They confirm what I know to be true: that men are capable of so much more than we’ve been asking for from them.

Women often write in and ask, “Does it get better than this?” when talking about their relationships, and the answer is yes – but it needs to start with unlearning the infantilisation of men.

Because, trust me sis, your boyfriend knows how to clean the apartment (research confirms there’s no such thing as gendered “mess blindness”, by the way). It’s not your job as a woman to convince him to contribute equally, nor to hand out gold stars when he does so.

He’s not your son, he can wash his own clothes.

Also, let’s face it, no woman wants to have sex with a guy who feels more like her child than her partner. So, let’s stop praising men for doing the bare minimum and start setting a higher bar than the one we’ve been settling for.

And guys, if reading this, please, for the love of straight women everywhere – go change your undies.

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