Writes someone in Tribeca named Macaulay, commenting over at the NYT article "Even Exercise Has a Gender Gap/Women have less time to work out than men. And their health pays the price."
The article begins with an anecdote about a woman trying to use her elliptical machine and getting interrupted, first by her husband telling her that their daughter wants her to come say goodnight and then by her son who had the non-problem of needing "help finding something to do." The woman responds to both interruptions by getting off the machine. Why didn't she just tell her husband she already said goodnight to her daughter and right now she's on the elliptical machine and just tell the son that mommy's running on the elliptical machine and he could run in place and get some good exercise too or go get a book and read out loud to her? Is this woman unable to talk while running on the machine? I don't see how stopping running even works to help others. The whole family seems to have a mutual dependency problem that's not doing anyone much good.
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77 comments:
If you live in America - and you are whining that you are oppressed - you might be an ungrateful leftist brainwashed idiot.
Oh brother. I have 6 kids and have run two marathons in the past ten years. If exercise is a priority, it will be a priority. I ran with two kids in a BOB jogger for years, 4 miles three times a week.
The point isn't the story ... there's an overarching theme that creates these types of stories and that theme is: women are victims.
As long as women feel victimized by men, they will vote Democrat. Except when they begin to fear being actually victimized by foreigners.
So, the NY Times writes a never-ending version of this story to keep their women readers unhappy with their lot in life.
Did my long runs on Saturday when I could leave the kids at home.
It's about the nail after all, right?
I'm always amazed at the strange space aliens that seem to inhabit the NYT's world. Never in my childhood did I or my sister ever ask my Mom for "Something to do". Never did my daughter ask me for "Something to do". If my wife was too busy to say Goodnite, then she didn't say Goodnite. No big whoop.
And when did household chores and cleaning not become exercise? Leaving that aside, if you cant spare 30 minutes in a day to do some aerobic exercise, I call bullshit. Nobody is that busy. Especially, the paper pushing wankers who read the NYT's.
But poor women. Despite being superior to men in every way, they live such hard lives. One weeps tears, for the empty aerobic dance classes and unused exercise bikes.
That article is a complete propaganda to make women feel like victims. I belong to an athletic club. Fancy name for gym I guess. I exercise 6 days a week. I almost always do group hour long events. Yoga, Core, Power, Pilates. Women outnumber the men 10 to 1 in these events. In the weight and cardio rooms. It is about 50/50 men women. In the pool 10 to 1 women. I live very near Seattle WA a very liberal place. I go mid morning about 9 am. I guess it could impact who shows up. But I have attended a few night classes and it the gym is full of women too.
They could say 'no' to some
No quotes - it's indirect statement.
Not understanding how women's health suffers when they generally outlive us mere men by a couple of decades. Perhaps they think they should outlive us by 4 or 5 decades? If that's the case my advice would be for them to lay off the nightly box of Franzia.
Wasn't Trump's entire campaign based on grievance and the "fact" that real Americans were being oppressed by illegal immigrants, trans activists, commies, Marxists, socialists, and fascists?
"Women are actually adult human beings with agency and freedom of choice. They could choose, like men to spend less time on cleaning and household chores, and more time on exercise. They are free to do that if they want to."
Um ... no. Not in the real world -- or at least not in the world I grew up in. You hear a lot of nonsense from women, but in this case, there's some truth in their argument. If women do choose to spend more time on exercise and less on cleaning and household chores and raising children, "Macaulay" would complain about that. I'm not saying that women should blame men or that government should do anything about it, but if there are inherent differences between men and women that may be reflected in this difference in attitudes and priorities.
Women are actually adult human beings with agency and freedom of choice.
Assumes Facts, not in evidence
Why didn't she just tell her husband she already said goodnight to her daughter and right now she's on the elliptical machine and just tell the son that mommy's running on the elliptical machine and he could run in place and get some good exercise too or go get a book and read out loud to her? Is this woman unable to talk while running on the machine? I don't see how stopping running even works to help others.
stopping running serves Two Important Goals.
1) it stops the running, which is GOOD.. If you're looking for a reason to STOP THE RUNNING
2) it lets you think; "They CAN'T do ANYTHING without ME! I am SO IMPORTANT!
My brother is like the elliptical woman. We are both retired and have a gym workout pact. He's got five adult children and a bunch of grandchildren, all are a blessing. If something didn't come up to cause him to cancel his workout, then he tells me about how busy he is.
I call BS on him all the time, reminding him that he isn't in charge of any of that. His wife loves babysitting, and handled it all before he retired. He doesn't like working out, and has a handy excuse. I get it, I don't enjoy exercise either, that's why we workout out together. Also, it's nice to feel that he is needed.
That woman doesn't like the elliptical and is gratified to know that the family can't operate without her. That is the mutual dependency you mention. She is not doing them any favors.
no Fred.. Trump's entire campaign was based on the fact that people wanted Trump..
please Try to keep up.. I Know it's hard for you.. But Please TRY?
Why is this a "gender issue?" If individuals don't have the time or support to do the things they want/need to in order to be happy, they should figure out a solution that works for them and their families.
it's NOT ABOUT THE NAIL!
Does this woman seriously not know what her daughter's bedtime is?
This makes me laugh. If my sister or I asked our parents for help finding something to do (or whined about being bored) we were told to find something to do or they’d find something for us.
The things they’d find…defrosting the freezer, cleaning out the fridge, or maybe scooping dog poop. Those were things my sister and I had to do under the age of 10.
Our parents were not there to keep us entertained.
Is there a reason the kid can’t go to her mom for a kiss good night? How about this, don’t raise lazy entitled kids and then you might have time to exercise.
Fred - Nice try. No - Your side - especially the whacked out fems - have delusions about a dumb book written by Margaret Atwood. Your side is OK with biological males beating women in women's sports. Your side if OK with illegal immigration with millions of illegals pouring in and using up precocious social services while our nation suffers. Your side is OK taking our tax dollars without our permission and spending those tax dollars on illegal immigrants.
Your side demands gay porn in the children's' library. These are real grievances.
The left whine about FAKE grievances. Keep up.
Lets see - YOUR side whines that Trump is Hitler - that Trump is a fascist. You cannot say in any reasonable or real fashion, how he those things - without lying.
We could go on.
No, Freder. No part of Trumps' campaign was based on Americans being oppressed. It was based on them being held back from achieving their full potential by an over-bearing government with misplaced priorities.
Perhaps you thought that was the same thing?
YouTube Shorts sends me a lot of examples of lefty whingers claiming all types of white privilege, oppressive patriarchy, and systemic racism, then, when challenged to provide specific examples, they go dumb and slither away from the microphone.
When challenged (by the white guy), "What can I do that you cannot do?" they have no response because it is a null set in the real world, but a full set in their self-limited minds.
To me, it's about the kids. We need to stop the Cult of Children. My wife and I love of children. But they new from the time they could talk that they were with us and not the other way around. We are the adults and are in charge. Period, full stop. Nowadays, the little buggers run both their parents into the ground. Hence the problem. Tell little Joey to drop and do 50 push-ups. Tell Janey you will tuck her in when you get there. I really gate the Cult of Children.
Exactly Reader....if I was whining about finding something to do...my parents would "find" something. Rake leaves. Clean the bathroom. Sweep the floor. Do the dishes. Go play outside! Endless "things to do".
Wake me when they start dying earlier…
Althouse said...
Why didn't she just tell her husband she already said goodnight to her daughter and right now she's on the elliptical machine and just tell the son that mommy's running on the elliptical machine and he could run in place and get some good exercise too or go get a book and read out loud to her?
You left out the option of poisoning her entire family.
"[BLANK] are adult human beings with agency" is a kill shot when countering Language of the Oppressed. Lethal.
Feminists can sleep well with the knowledge that, regardless of who gets to use the treadmill more, men will die sooner.
Quote "They (women) could say 'no' to some, or many, of those other people, including family members, who make demands on their time"
Absolutely this. Saying no is allowed. Scheduling your OWN time, for whatever purpose, is a good idea and not that hard. Unless you are a single mother with screaming infants and no support...then not so easy. .
Block out your "me" time and tell everyone else that you don't want to be disturbed: unless they are bleeding or have a broken arm. Everything else can wait.
No, Freder. YOU'RE whole life is based on grievance. The rest of us just want to achieve our potential with as little interference from the likes of you and your friends. There's a reason Meade referrd to you as a dumbass. You might want to ponder that for awhile.
P-Diddy will watch the kids for you.
This is another manufactured "penthouse Letters" article. Porn for the Karens.
Aqua Tofana for the win!
RCOCEAN II said…
“Never in my childhood did I or my sister ever ask my Mom for ‘Something to do’.”
I quickly learned that that ask was followed by some boring or tedious chore being assigned to me.
Didn’t we just learn that a lot of stopping and starting was better exercise?
tim maguire
“Does this woman seriously not know what her daughter's bedtime is?”
I interpreted that as the daughter didn’t want to go to sleep and knew how to manipulate the gullible father to play along.
Learning how to hear and deal with being told no is an important part of growing up. Don’t deny your kids the opportunity to learn.
Adult human beings is the term we need to use more.. The woke branding attack is not on men. It’s on White Heterosexual Christian Men. Black men, gay men, Hispanic men, Oriental men are exempt from the EDU courses of slander teachings.
If you let your family interrupt you, you're teaching them to interrupt you, and rather than sigh about it, as if you are a victim, you should analyze why you are choosing to do it. What's in it for you? You won't find a pretty picture of a wonderful, empathetic person, if you are honest.
Little children feel an urge to interrupt you whenever you do anything that isn't focused on them. If you hop to every interruption, you're depriving them of the opportunity to learn that other people are real and that not everything revolves around them.
If I ever dared to tell my parents I was bored, and ask them for something to do, I'd never repeat that mistake. It looks like learned helplessness might be catching in that family.
Simple childrearing tips I grew up learning from my parents:
1. If you need something to do, find something yourself or you'll be given a task you won't like.
2. Sharing fairly is accomplished by one person doing the splitting of food or toys or whatever, the other person getting first choice.
3. If a sibling is upset because of you, you get to figure out how to correct their upsetness. Parents will watch and judge your performance.
4. Schedules are for adhering to, we all have things to get done. Be late or unready and your spot on the schedule will be replaced by someone ready for their needs to be satisfied.
5. Money doesn't grow on trees. Find a way to do it (whatever it is) for free or come back with minimal requirements and we'll talk.
6. The dishes won't do themselves, the floor doesn't self clean, the bedrooms don't pick themselves up. So reuse your cup, don't drop your stuff in the living room, and put laundry in the hamper. That makes your jobs of dishwashing, sweeping and room cleaning a lot easier.
7. You have brothers and sisters who can help with that. Your older sibling can do that with you, ask nicely. And yes, your younger siblings get to tag along, take care of them.
8. Parents can say, "Not now." That means not now, and maybe, just maybe, later. But definitely "not now."
9. No means no. Don't keep asking.
10. A parent's approval and affirmation are valuable commodities, earn them.
Little children feel an urge to interrupt you whenever you do anything that isn't focused on them. If you hop to every interruption, you're depriving them of the opportunity to learn that other people are real and that not everything revolves around them.
Could follow that lead with "of all ages" as it is NOT just little [actual] children that do this. A fair number of adults never learned that they are not actually the center of the universe. They were failed by their parents.
Birches
Did my long runs on Saturday when I could leave the kids at home.
Good thing your neighborhood Karens didn't know about that child neglect...
Actually, it's worse than that. When the foreigners invade, they wipe out the men and boys, but not the women and girls. So women actually fantasize about being "victimized by foreigners". Tall, handsome, masterful foreigners.
That's true. We are all granted 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 plus a little bit less than a quarter day per year. No more no less. I forgot who it was but I was a teenager and an adult responded to me when I said I didn't have time called bullshit. You are just afraid to declare what your priorities are he said.
I know. How much anti-freeze DO you want in your food? Hmm???
My comment to the Times: 'I read this morning about a young Iranian woman who received 74 lashes for not wearing a hijab. The Taliban recently issued a decree prohibiting women from speaking in public. In Iraq, the "age of consent" has been lowered to nine to permit families to sell their daughters to prospective husbands at an early age. A number of countries permit little girls to be "circumcised", that is to have their genitalia mutilated. Meanwhile the " Newspaper of Record" bemoans the fact that American women don't have time to exercise. The "gender gap" you know. What am I missing here?'
Ditto
The point of the commenter is that women should be responsible for what their attitudes and priorities are. If your priorities are for something other than exercise, that’s fine, but that’s on you, not the patriarchy.
Don't tuck your daughter in and kiss her good night. It's win-win for feminism. You get a toned body to better fight the patriarchy, and your daughter grows up with an inchoate sense of resentment that will motivate her later on to join the ranks of militant feminists.......I'm not sure but I think a lot of this patriarchy thing is what helped people survive in the era of saber toothed tigers and hostile neighboring tribes. It's time has passed, but bed time cuddles for toddlers is not such a bad idea. Women feel softer and smell nicer than men.That's not so important for many activities, but it's many toddlers think such things are essential.
My wife has a case of something like OCD that makes her maniacal about cleanliness and keeping up appearances for the approval of other women. Lately she has begun demanding that I empty the Water-Pik after each use and stow it under the sink, lest someone accidentally wander through our bedroom and into our master bathroom and see it sitting on the counter ready for use.
She does not complain about having to work harder than me for the upkeep of the house, though. Not only am I the sole breadwinner, making it possible for her not to have to work outside the home, but she recognizes that she has a mild neurosis about it and that I would laugh in her face if she asked me to work as hard as she does scrubbing every surface multiple times a week.
My mom liked doing heroic amounts of housework, so I never washed a dish or cooked an egg before college. We were told to get jobs outside the house as soon as we were old enough, and I — not my brothers —had sports. Yes, girls were just then being allowed to compete in 5Ks, in the autumn season only, but nobody could stop me from just running. Both my brothers and I somehow absorbed our mother’s habits and were all amazed by the filth our college classmates lived in. Our dorm rooms were immaculate. Housework is exercise. Gender didn’t enter into any of this.
I don’t recall ever daring to say I was bored, but if I did, I would be handed a book. Saturday was library day. The library was an old mansion overlooking the Hudson River. It was my heaven. We all read throughout dinner. We used flashlights to read in bed. We read while watching television. My mother read while vacuuming. I have an indelible image of her vacuuming in a light-filled room, a paperback in one hand, a cigarette between two fingers pushing the heavy vacuum cleaner, Simon and Garfunkel singing “Time it was” in the background. Yes, sadly, she died of lung cancer. I didn’t find any of this weird. I went to college and law and grad school thinking I was supposed to read all my professors’ books, if possible, before taking a class with them. Years after we were married, I mentioned this to my husband, and he said I was likely the only person who had ever read many of those books.
Neither of my parents could afford to go to college, but they both wanted to go, so they read, and they made us want to read. What a placid, lucky start to the life of the mind and the home. A golden age. Who wouldn’t want to return to it? How sad it must be for those Times writers, nursing their bitterness about absolutely everything.
And getting off the elliptical somehow put her on a path through the kitchen where "snacks" reside.
Keep going Freder. Double down on 'its all Trump's fault!'
I love the ads for the new cat Peletons. They’re like $200 hamster wheels. They couldn’t even get a single cat to use it in filming the commercial, so the spokescatlady says she knows she will eventually teach the cat to use it. The cat sits there glaring at her.
Metaphor?
Count your blessings. Now go mow the lawn.
I always considered hanging out with my daughters as a fun time at any age. No matter how tired I was I'd make time for them.
Wait, I thought that exercising was a sure sign of far-right extremism and "bro culture."
In reality, you don't need that much time to exercise. Thirty minutes three times a week is sufficient for most people. How much time do most people spend online every week? Plus, you can do what I do and set up a laptop in front of your exercise bike and watch videos while you exercise.
That woman in the article could have easily told her husband, "I'm going to be busy on the bike for the next half hour. Can you keep the kids out of my hair?"
And don't get me started on the "women are oppressed by having to do the cleaning and housework" cliché. I have had (and currently have) female roommates and it's like pulling teeth to get them to clean up after themselves and do their share of the housework.
Freder, there is a difference between stupid, insignificant grievances and important, legitimate grievances.
My wife taught the kiddos to do their own laundry. Put up their own dishes, clean up their own room. If you teach them to do it, they will do it.
This speaks to one of the biggest problems with feminism: it doesn't encourage any kind of self-reflection. ALL problems experienced by women are always someone else's fault - the patriarchy or misogyny. It's NEVER a woman's fault - ever. Women NEVER contribute to their own problems.
Women are more than half of the population. If they can't get what they want from the world then it's their own fault.
I had a friend who lived on the opposite coast. Every time we talked on the phone a kid would interrupt with some or another grievance/need…generally some whine about a sibling. I asked her to tell the kid that unless there was a fire, or someone had broken a limb or was bleeding to not interrupt when she was on the phone. She didn’t. Way too solicitous.
I had a friend who lived on the opposite coast. Every time we talked on the phone a kid would interrupt with some or another grievance/need…generally some whine about a sibling. I asked her to tell the kid that unless there was a fire, or someone had broken a limb or was bleeding to not interrupt when she was on the phone. She didn’t. Way too solicitous.
The gender (i.e. sex-correlated attributes) gap of females is between their thighs and breasts as a physiological distinction from the masculine gender.
Freedom of choice: to fuck or not to fuck.
With the Democratic legalization of queer sexual orientations (e.g. incest, pedophilia, men identifying as the feminine gender in women's spaces, faces), and [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, there is a compelling argument for the wicked solution.
The Pro-Choice religion, and feminist class-disordered acolytes, deny a woman's capacity to choose, her agency.
#MenToo
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature. If you don't have enough time to exercise or whatever, you're doing it wrong.
Women-women or women? The female sex or males posing in feminine gender attributes and clothes?
I wonder if being a constant victim is as tiring as me having to listen to the constant victims.
Wasn't Trump's entire campaign based on grievance and the "fact" that real Americans were being oppressed by illegal immigrants, trans activists, commies, Marxists, socialists, and fascists?
One would think after getting your ass handed to you last week, you'd use this time to shut your mouth for awhile.
I know I would.
I work with an attorney who is married with two kids and somehow finds the time to run and run marathons. So it is possible. And Althouse at 9:55 for saying what my parents told me and my brothers "The world does not revolve around you."
Are there women on their deathbeds regretting less time spent on the elliptical machine than tucking their daughter into bed? I have raised fierce, independent children and I gave them every moment I could. I wish it had been even more. Are toned thighs or a legal career more important than your children? Really?
It takes what, 90 seconds to get off the elliptical and kiss the girl goodnight? And to tell her husband to "find him something to do" takes less time than it took me to type it.
Didn’t more than 50% of women who voted voted for Trump?
Never stop believing.
Can you say "Performative Martyrdom"?
This is a huge chunk of what this crap boils down to, in the end. Observe it all around you; "Oh, I have to cook and clean... Nobody does anything in the house but me!!!"
Actual observation of the person saying this? Usually, shows several things: One, that that person does not delegate any chores to the kids or husband, so there's no real organization to it all, and two, that anything the kids and husband do are generally "not good enough" for them. This is the person you find reorganizing the dishwasher and refolding the clothes because "It's not done right!!"
They're also generally not telling their kids and partners what "right" looks like, to them. It's a constant source of "Oh, poor, poor pitiful me!!! I have to do everything!!!" whinging, because that's the situation they've set up for themselves.
It's not limited to women, either. I've seen particularly prissy males do this, as well, but it's waaaaaay more common with the women.
Four words my brother and I learned early on to never, ever, ever utter: "There's nothing to do."
Washing dishes, vacuuming, dusting, sorting/folding laundry, pulling weeds, picking up after the dog, cleaning the tub, watering the yard, there was always SOMETHING.
Elliptical mom can just say 'scrub brush and cleanser are under the bathroom sink, get to work' without ever breaking stride.
It's also of a piece with the beloved feminist trope "Women are never responsible for the consequences of their poor decisions."
One can see it in the whinging of grown women about being "groomed" by some slightly more famous dude in some field who wanted to get laid. No feminist/leftist ever seems to point out that she was the one who decided to drop her panties because she thought she might get something (exposure, as it were, connections, etc.) out of the experience.
When the young woman (note: WOMAN) experiences remorse about her decision, suddenly it's all "HOW COULD YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS DELICATE, HELPLESS FLOWER YOU TERRIBLE MANPERSON WITH YOUR SPECIAL MANPERSON POWERS."
Womyn must have "Choice," but only has to accept the consequences she likes. Unpleasant consequences are always the fault of someone else.
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