In recent years, I have seen an uptick in couple’s entering counseling. I can’t speak for other counselors, but almost all the couple’s I see have some common themes that arise while untangling the web of hurt and complaints they bring to therapy. The most common issue I see with couples is confusion regarding the head of the household role. Women will ask for their spouse to step up and be more involved in the planning and execution of the family’s daily lives. Men will often reply that they aren’t permitted to make the decisions they want to make or do things the way they want to do them. What inevitably ensues is both partners feel disgruntled and frustrated. And why wouldn’t they? Neither feels heard or understood and what they both are looking for (the forest) gets lost in the daily grind (the trees).
Before we untangle this web of confusion, hurt feelings, and loneliness; we have to identify how we got here.
Making fun of Boomers has become a bit of a sport in our current culture. They are blamed for almost every cultural issue, not to mention financial and international affairs quandary, we face in America. While Boomers are not perfect and have contributed to the problems we face, they are far from the only generation with silken thread on their hands. This web has been woven over at minimum 3 generations, leaving the youngest generation of adults, Gen Alpha, to take a pause and wonder what the hell has all of the fighting over sex stereotypes been for anyway.
Boomers had a lifestyle that was much more in line with what one might think when the word “patriarchy” gets thrown around. Most Boomers were alive in a time before women could bank or own property. They grew up with most jobs being held by men and much of the economic landscape was still rooted in production and industry. For many of them, their moms were SAHMs and their fathers came home expecting a warm meal, a clean house, and kids excited to see their dad. Until the sexual revolution, they lived and breathed a male dominated world.
Then the 1960s came along, with all of its free love, antiwar, and civil rights angst. Don’t get me wrong. Many of the battles waged in the 1960s needed to be fought and won. If we are going to live in a society governed by a relatively small group of people, we need those people to refrain from discrimination in law making. We need those people to be representatives for all people affected by the laws they pass. Thus, all adults who no longer had a legal guardian to speak for them needed the ability to cast a vote on who would pass laws that impact them.
Black Americans needed the ability to have an equal opportunity to give their opinion, via their vote, on who would be able to dictate aspects of their lives. Aside from the obvious principle of equal opportunity as an American, more and more women were entering the workforce and needed the ability have bank accounts in which they could cash checks, make deposits, and from which pay bills. Women needed the ability to move out of their parents’ homes without being forced to marry in order to own property.
Like it or not, the doors were slowly and steadily opened to women to enter higher education and the workforce decades prior to the 1960s and the inevitable was upon America. Women were going to live lives independent from men. (I am intentionally leaving out the sexual connotations of the Sexual Revolution for now. They will be addressed further on and much more in depth in other Substack posts.)
This newfound independence provided women with a much-needed ability to provide for themselves and secure a future even if they were never to marry. Of course, there was no consensus on how this newfound independence would impact the family home should a woman marry.
And thus, Gen X grew up in homes with both parents working but no clear path for how this shift in time away from the home was going to be managed. GenX has a reputation for being the wild and unauthorized generation for a reason. We, yes, I am a GenXer, grew up as latchkey kids who, as young as 6 or 7, were getting off the bus or walking home from school, making our own snacks, and entertaining ourselves until one or both parents got home. To be clear, I was one of the homes were the mother both worked and managed to be home the majority of the time when I got off the bus. As far as I know, there aren’t solid numbers on how many children of the 1970s and early 1980s were latchkey kids and how many had mothers at home, but a cursory glance at the data available suggested as many as 40%. From my experience it was roughly 50/50.
What hadn’t shifted was the division of responsibilities within the home. While women were much freer outside the home to manage their finances, work, seek higher education, own property, and explore sexuality; within the home the majority of the management of the household was still under the woman’s purview. For the sake of brevity, let’s refer to this managerial position within the home as the COO (Chief Operating Officer). I have found the use of terms of which we are all familiar from the business world to translate well and ease communication about the business of marriage and raising a family.
While the wife/mother was often the de facto COO, she was still not often the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) or the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) during the 1970s through about mid 1990s. Women were in control and responsible for the daily functioning of the house and children, but were not often in control or responsible for the general direction or goals of the family (CEO) or the financial decisions of the family (CFO). Those two roles were still very much within the husband/father’s purview.
This imbalance of power and responsibility was another strand in the already begun web of dissatisfaction between the sexes and disillusionment with the shiny veneer of the women’s liberation movement. Women were definitely freer outside the home but were not given any relief from responsibilities within the home or control over the direction or finances of the family. We GenX kids grew up watching exhausted mothers still trying to fulfill a stereotypical 1950s housewife role while also trying to advance their career and independence outside the home. From my vantage point, it was not a pattern I wanted to continue when, if, I ever got married and had kids.
Witnessing exhausted women attempt to do it all without complaining (did you know Boomer moms rarely complained? It is a whole thing I should elaborate on in another post) while we ran wild and tried to bond with our fathers when they were home was a formative experience for us GenXers. When you combine that with the never-ending propaganda about the dreaded “Patriarchy” and the “exhilarating” freedom of women’s sexual liberation; it is easy to begin to see how the web of dissatisfaction between the sexes became ever more entangled and how the women’s liberation movement began to twist into something completely unhealthy and overly feminized, a toxic femininity in response to a toxic masculinity if you will.
As GenXers became adults and began attempting to have relationships in earnest, we felt liberated to “f*ck around and find out” as the kids say. Our generation created a boom of our own in percentages of fatherless homes, which in turn means single mothers, and a heavy reliance upon the destruction of women’s biology as well as our offspring, in the form of abortion, in an attempt to navigate the threads of web we witnessed in the generation before us.
So much was our dependence upon abortion that we passed a legacy of deconstructing women’s healthy reproductive systems and terminating our young onto the generation after us, Millennials. At one point in the last few years within the black community in some locations, there were more babies being aborted than born. Of course, the overrepresentation of socioeconomic hardships amongst the black population has many causes including previous government interference with freedom and ability to build stability and wealth. There is far too much to explore regarding generational poverty for a deep dive here. But it is worth noting the abortion industry has and continues to target impoverished women for biological deconstruction and termination of their children with the blessing and encouragement of our government.
But I digress. GenX did a lot to tear down barriers for women, LGB, and immigrants. Being so antiauthoritarian, we weren’t interested in policing other’s lives or allowing government to do so. We also were dedicated to pursing freedom at the risk of security and wanted the same opportunity for everyone else. There is strength in numbers and the more people free from government control means the more people to fight against attempts at tyranny. What GenX failed to do was to establish any new norms within the family that would allow for both the masculine and the feminine to flourish. Instead, we divorced at record numbers, single-parented our way to empty nesting, and began the movement to delay procreating until our 30s.
This delay in procreation is yet another series of threads in the web of dissatisfaction between the sexes and disillusionment with the women’s liberation movement. While there are plenty of causes to investigate for the increasing rates of infertility in our Millennial and GenZ populations (including chemicals, plastics, and unnecessary medical and pharmaceutical interventions); a trend of delaying parenting in hopes of securing enough financial security to outsource COO roles prior to becoming parents had begun.
It is at this point you can begin to track the threads in the web of women’s work outside the home that perpetuated the necessity for women to work outside the home. We had women being paid to provide childcare, cleaning, and (beginning in earnest with Millennials) meal prep and provision so other women could go to work…often doing those same jobs. As it turns out, we GenXers weren’t so fond of being latchkey and a booming industry of childcare centers and a demand for younger and younger government financed and run “school” options was born. Women were still the COOs of the home, but they were outsourcing that sh*t (Swearing is a GenX thing, indulge me my main vice).
Within marriages that lasted, GenXers still failed to barter an agreement that would allow for a clear CEO or CFO. The two most often fought about topics amongst GenX marriages were and are finances (CFO) and division of labor (COO). The shift to female takeover of the CEO role had already been spun and the thread was shiny. Due to the shear percentage of single mother homes, women were becoming more and more the CEO, CFO, and COO of their homes. They had no partner to rely upon.
Women, no longer burdened by a man that had been (their baby-daddy) or drunk on the intoxicating power of liberation vibes, began pushing back against whatever direction/goals men wanted to set in and outside the home. This has never been more evident that in the percentages of divorces pursued by women versus men. That isn’t to say there aren’t men who women should leave. I, myself, was in such a marriage in my early and ignorant 20s. However, the decision to divorce is a CEO decision, and Millennial women were owning it. A cursory review of the data available suggests that by 2015, squarely in Millennial marriage territory, 70% of divorces were filed by women.
(Side note: I am not sourcing anything for you. This Substack is my opining, not a research paper. I don’t ask you to trust me. I ask you to do your own research.)
There are lots of articles about why women are initiating divorce at significantly higher rates than men. You can do a search on Twitter (X) and see a lot of very strong opinions as to why marriage is a dead institution and dangerous for men, women, and children. However, the majority of what I have read wants to pin this statistic on either women or men, rather than on a society that has failed at every step of the way to address the much-needed conversation regarding power within the home, and by extension between the government and home.
Now, in the year of our Lord 2024, we have toxic brochoicers duking it out with toxic right-wing throwback bros. When I say “throwback”, I am referring to the time in which men did not want women to have the right to vote, own property, or have any financial security of their own. We also have toxic proabortion women who are terrified of their own biology duking it out with toxic “transwomen are women” alt-right women. (At some point I will do an exegesis on why I think women who abandon their own sex by allowing men to “put on their skin” are alt-right, but the quick and dirty explanation is that it involves a deep insecurity with their own biolofy and/or a desire to be dominated by men in an unhealthy way.)
The web that began with centuries long threads of women as property has come to the place where women outside the home have overly feminized culture with toxic empathy (thanks proabortionists and AGP sympathizers) and thus destroyed any security and protection men could offer and women in the home are not burdened by the CEO, COO, and often CFO roles.
Congratulations women and men, we have now so overburdened (and oversexualized) women’s roles that we have girls in record numbers wanting to flee womanhood and men so weak and feminized they won’t protect or provide for women. Rather, many men cosplay women in sissy fantasies, simp for toxic women in hopes of virtue signal approval, and/or remain quite as they watch their dreams and responsibilities fall to pieces as they are called “lazy”, “unsupportive”, “weak”, and “useless” in counseling sessions. Women are referred to as “dominating”, “confusing”, “incongruent”, and “overbearing.” This is not a case study phenomenon. This is across our country. This isn’t just in my office; it is all over online and in research.
To be clear, neither the wives or husbands that come to my office for marriage counseling are inherently toxic or bad people. On the contrary, they are both usually very capable, compassionate, and loving people. What has gotten in the way of their ability to see who they are and what they want are millions of strands of thread in a toxic web of the battle of the sexes and women’s liberation.
Not being one to just point out a problem, I would like to offer a solution. Can we return to a society in which biological reality, both physical and mental, is recognized?
Regarding physical biological reality, men are inherently physically stronger and faster than women. If you aren’t into scientific facts, I am sorry about your luck, but there it is. No amount of “societal bias”, hormones, or surgeries will undo what biology has dictated for us. I see you, Dr. Frankenstein’s, out there attempting to start some type of micro evolution that you want to result in a macroevolution of transhuman robot creatures.
I am pleased to inform you that nature, and thus biology, will thwart your attempts over and over again. Just like I have to repeatedly “pierce” my ear in order to have a hole available for earrings because my body is dedicated to healing itself, your attempts to mechanize human bodies and our minds will require ongoing piercing of our bodies and minds at the expense of a sane and functioning society. The revolt has already started. Both men and women are waking up to the toxicity of your ghoulish imaginations of a sexless being who answers only to the call of their elite overlords.
GenAlpha, and a bit of Gen Z, are mocking you. They are memeing your futile attempts to create nightmare fuel right down a Skibidi receptacle. We, late procreating, GenX parents are experiencing the reemergence of our Breakfast Club anti-authoritarian vibing, Buffy the Vampire stake throwing, Jeannie Bueller “By the way Mr. Rooney, you left your wallet on the kitchen floor” attitude. Those of us who have finally had enough of the overly feminized yet anti-women endless battle of the sexes. We are raising our children to laugh at any attempt to shame or demoralize them with whatever self-righteous flight of fancy you have cooking over there in your cauldron. We are firmly grounded in our biology and we aren’t afraid.
Along with an appreciate for the blessings and boundaries of our physical biology, we can acknowledge the unique gifts of each sex mentally. You see, some stereotypes are true, and for very good biological, survival-of-the-species, reasons.
Women tend to me more nurturing and empathetic. Along with our unique reproductive system that gestates, grows, nurtures, and sustains our children, we also have a pituitary gland that processes our baby’s cry as a searing pain from the pits of hell. Without our natural inclination to nurturing and empathy, we end up the villians of horror stories like the women who have been so dulled by a disembodied society they throw their babies in a dumpster mere moments after going through all the labor to birth them. Healthy women are mama bear’s because we are uniquely tuned into the ways adversaries of youth and innocence attempt to emotionally and mentally destroy our children.
Men, on the other hand, tend to be more physically dominating and decisive. They don’t have time to nuance the hell out of a nightmare. They need to vanquish Dr. Frankenstein before he attempts to cut off their children’s healthy body parts. Men are designed in body and mind to move with force, quickly, to step in the way of danger that may befall their beloveds, to literally kill intruders. Men talk to men much more harshly than to women, because men respond to confidence and bold authority whereas women respond to calm and gentleness.
Of course, there are outliers to these preferences. Those outliers reinforce the norm rather than conflict with the norm.
This is where we might see a Joan of Arc who saved France at approximately age 14 via becoming a military leader. Of course, she died by age 19 in that her path was not one of nurturing mother, but warrior and leader of soldiers. She was an outlier, and a remarkable young lady. As remarkable as she was the mothers and wives of the men who saved countries from downfall, as well as Joan’s own mother, were also remarkable in their nurturing and refining of the character of the heroes we know.
On the contrary, a man like the modern-day Dr. Dermot Kearney, a beloved friend of mine, has risked his career and freedom to, with gentleness and grace, offer women and their babies a second chance at motherhood, life, and relationship. He doesn’t battle with swords or even a stern voice. He quietly, with nurturing, listens to women, offers them their options, and provides them with an opportunity to live out their biological destiny and their role as mother if they should choose to do so. His masculinity is secure in his willingness to put his life on the line for women and children. He is an outlier. As remarkable as Dermot is, he and so many men before him had fathers who raised them with a brave and unwavering spirit of truth and goodness.
These outliers are good reminders that we must embrace room for variance of gifts, talents, and characteristics within the sexes. Oppressive stereotypes of what one may wear, hobbies/careers pursued, and roles lived within the household will not work for everyone.
Thus, as modern couples navigate the uncharted business road of marriage, they must discuss and discover who is more adept at long-term planning and goal setting (CEO), who is wiser and more discerning with finances (CFO), as well as who is more organized and aware of the day to day needs and functioning of the household (COO). Even amongst these roles, there is room for men to be masculine without toxicity and women to be feminine without a lack of agency.
Beyond the business roles of marriage and family, each person within the family can partake in the tending of the home, hearth, and health of the family. Physical chores and emotional support can be balanced amongst the members of the household, with the parents always being responsible for the well-being of the children.
In some houses, that may look more “traditional,” while in others it may look much more modern. There is no need to adhere to stereotypes of division of labor beyond that which biology dictates (such as opening that damn jar of pickles). There is a desperate need for men and women to lean into their healthy biology and psychology in order to blend together a home that functions well and lovingly.
Beyond the home, our national nightmare of millions of spider webs keeping us from prosperity and health will only end when we fully embrace women’s reproductive biology as both normal and worthy of full support. That may look like effort from community, private business, public entity, and everything in between to embrace pregnancy, birth, and postpartum as beneficial to the women we claim to love as well as our species as a whole.
In addition, we must refrain from demanding men respond to events or information like women. It is not toxic for a man to refuse to participate as a coach for a girls’ sports team that a school allows males to compete on. It is not toxic for men to set stern rules that keep their children safe. (Take the bloody door off the hinges, my guy, if your daughter thinks she can shut the door when her romantic interest is present. In fact, don’t let them be in her room together at all if they can’t respect your boundaries and potentially her biology.) It is not toxic for men to open doors, pay for dates, or offer chivalrous courtship. If that isn’t your thing ladies, then pass that man on. There are plenty of young women looking for just such a man to build a future with.
We can save our culture from the poisonous spider webs we have spun over the centuries. It will require us all to take a heaping dose of anti-venom in the form of respect for biology and one another. I pray we aren’t too far down Frankenstein’s experiment to give it a try.