I don’t want to be called a house husband, my wife says I’m being misogynistic

“If she was in your situation and you called her that, she would go ballistic on you.”

Liam* would consider his life pretty great right now; he has a great job, an adorable toddler and everything he could possibly dream of having. 

Since he and his wife Tara* welcomed his daughter Maya* to the world three years ago, he’s been enjoying watching their life together transform into something magical. 

Liam loves his job, which allows him to work from home and get plenty of time off. 

But now he’s spending more time with his toddler; he’s getting a little agitated by the label his wife has handed him.

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Liam doesn't want to be called a house husband, despite taking care of his daughter full-time. Picture: iStock

“I don't care about my ‘internalised misogyny’”

For the past month the 27-year-old man has been away from work, which gives him plenty of time with his 3yo daughter. 

“I have a sweet gig in terms of my job,” he explained on Reddit. “Essentially, I get to condense all my work into about 20 small periods and am free for the rest of the year.”

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His wife, on the other hand, works in a traditional 9-5 role, meaning she’s out of the house during the day. 

But when Liam isn’t working at his job, he’s making the most of his bonding time with his beloved child.  At this point in time, he's a full-time dad until his job calls him back for more work. 

“Currently, I'm free for nearly a month, so I'm staying home with our kid, which has been absolutely awesome,” he said.

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The American man “enjoys the peace” and quiet of spending all day with his daughter, who he said was “entertaining as f**k”.

“I recently got back into finger painting,” he joked. “I'm a bit rusty, having not done it for about two-and-a-half decades, but my toddler assures me I'm still good at it.”

All this aside, he has a pretty good life. 

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But there’s a glaring issue: he doesn’t want to be considered a “house husband”, something his wife has started to jokingly call him from time to time. 

“Recently, she's been making jokes, calling me her house husband. I don't know why, but I just don't like it, so I asked her to stop,” he said. 

But she didn’t stop calling him her house husband, instead arguing it “shouldn't bother me and it’s just a joke”. While he agrees the name “isn’t a big deal”, he said it shouldn’t be difficult to stop referring to him by that moniker. 

Then Tara told him why she thinks he has such a big issue with being labelled a “house husband”: it’s “internalised misogyny”. 

“She told me the only reason I was uncomfortable with being called that was that I must not respect the role of a homemaker,” Liam wrote, adding he doesn’t believe he has internalised misogyny; he just doesn’t like the term.

Here’s the thing, though - internalised misogyny is technically defined as sexist behaviour towards women enacted by another woman, not a man. That’s just plain old misogyny. 

Either way, Liam was stupified by this accusation, telling Tara that he “didn’t care about my ‘internalised misogyny’”. 

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“I would never want to be called a housewife”

The people of Reddit had mixed feelings about Liam’s frustrations, arguing that women have had to deal with the same labels for millennia and are expected to grin and bear it. 

“It rubs me the wrong way how you felt offended by the term,” someone said. 

“Your wife made a loving joke; it was just weird how much offence you took with it. Yeah, feels misogynistic to me, too.”

“You should definitely reflect on your gender biases and strive to be better,” said another. “If she became that upset, then I doubt she reached that conclusion off this event alone, and you need to consider that you might actually be misogynistic at times.”

“So, in other words, you just found out what it was like when men make offensive cracks and then tell the offended women to just lighten up,” a third wrote. 

But others claimed Tara was overstepping and should have stopped calling him a “house husband” when he first asked, particularly as he doesn’t identify with the term. 

“If she was in your situation and you called her a housewife, she would go ballistic on you,” someone said. 

“I would never want to be called a housewife, and I despise the idea of being shrunken down to a term implying I am just at home all day,” another wrote. 

*Names have been changed

Originally published as I don’t want to be called a house husband, my wife says I’m being misogynistic