One mom on TikTok, Paige Turner, is pointing out yet another glaring injustice between men and women. She is seriously the queen of these eye-opening (and quite frankly depressing) double standards that often occur in marriage.
In one of her latest videos, Paige points out something called “the leisure gap” which basically is a large variance of how men spend their downtime versus how women spend their downtime.
The concept came while she was at a kid’s birthday party. While chatting, her friend noted how annoyed she was that her husband got to be home alone while she was gone with the kids for a couple of hours.
“He’s gonna spend that time watching TV, and when he does the same thing, she spends that time cooking, cleaning, organizing, folding laundry, whatever it is,” she notes.
“She’s going through the checklist of all the things that have to get done. And she’s trying to get them done when she doesn’t have the kids. Because as parents, we know everything is easier when you don’t have your kids with you.”
This is definitely an unfair dynamic. Moms are always trying to get s**t done, mark off a couple things on the never-ending to-do list, and just keep things moving. When men have time to themselves, typically, they use that time for themselves.
“He feels entitled to relax and use that time just to wind down and watch TV,” she reiterated.
And before you come at us, saying that this is just women complaining about their partners, there’s actual data to support Paige’s theory.
“There is a leisure gap between mothers and fathers. Fathers tend to have three hours more per week for leisure and they often spend that time watching TV. It’s probably golf or baseball, who knows what, but they are watching TV. And women typically spend that time doing things for the family,” she notes.
“Now, this is not surprising to me because we know that women do a disproportionate amount of work when it comes to chores and raising kids and just carrying the mental load required to manage a home. But because women are doing that work, because they are spending their time doing that work, they have freed up time for their partners to rest and relax.”
How nice of us!
Paige says she wishes women felt more entitled to rest and relaxation, but society has stacked the cards against them.
“They have been conditioned to always be doing. But what we need in order for women to be able to rest and relax is for more men to participate in the work required to manage a home and to have a family and to carry that mental load,” she concluded.
And therein lies the problem, right? If women take that two hours to watch a couple of episodes of Queer Eye, will they just be stuck doing the dishes at 10 p.m.? Will they get behind on laundry? Because, at this point, if the dynamic in this household has already been set up, the man is not going to do it.
