Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

by Kate Manne

The novelty of prosecuting men for abortion—despite the sound legal footing of such charges—tells us something important about the way we have, until now, framed the debate. Boys will be boys, but women who get pregnant have behaved irresponsibly. We are so comfortable with regulating women’s sexual behavior, but we’re shocked by the idea of doing it to men. Though it might seem strange to talk about men and abortion, it’s stranger not to, since women don’t have unwanted pregnancies without them.

This is not to say that women are thereby perceived as subhuman creatures, nonhuman animals, or even mere vessels.35 Indeed, a woman’s humanity is conceptually crucial to the whole enterprise: what she is supposed to give to men, here as elsewhere, is a distinctively human service. She is not just supposed to have the child, in the style of The Handmaid’s Tale, as an exercise in human breeding; she is meant to care for the child, afterward, in a self-effacing manner (and far in excess of the expectations placed on her male counterparts). But even if her humanity is not in doubt, it is perceived as owed to others. She is positioned not as a human being but, rather, as a human giver—of reproductive as well as emotional labor, material support, and sexual gratification, insofar as her male partner wants these. And he, correspondingly, is deemed entitled to take these goods from her, as a matter of his birthright. He is also deemed entitled to waive these goods. For many powerful Republican men, the most important exception to an abortion ban would be for a so-called mistress who got pregnant with a child who was, for him, unwanted.

Human giver.

We can therefore conceptualize the anti-abortion movement as one of many misogynistic enforcement mechanisms designed to compel women’s caregiving. A woman is not to opt out of the role of motherhood that the “AAA strategy” implicitly underlined. When she is pregnant, her habits of consumption will be subject to vigorous cultural policing—notwithstanding the evidence that the occasional alcoholic beverage, say, is unlikely to be harmful.37 When she contemplates childbirth, so-called “natural” (that is, vaginal, unmedicated) birth will be lionized far in excess of the evidence of its benefits, either for her or for the infant.38 And once she has an infant, she will be deemed obligated not only to care for her child with utter, selfless devotion but also to do so in a very specific manner. Consider the pressure to breastfeed, for example, which massively outstrips the evidence, or likely magnitude, of its benefits in contexts where clean water is available for formula as an alternative.39 Heaven forbid that whatever putative benefits breastfeeding has for the infant should be soberly weighed against the pain, exhaustion, and lack of freedom it entails for many of those who try to do so.40 (Of course, to make matters even more difficult, she is not to breastfeed in public, lest her unruly body result in squeamishness and shaming.)

Then, once a mother, she is always a mother—held disproportionately responsible for the emotional, material, and moral needs of those around her, in ways that extend well beyond being overtasked with the care of her own children. She is to be a mother to others too: a giver of succor and soothing, of nurture and love and attention. As we saw in the last chapter, she will be empowered to ask for such moral goods for her own sake comparatively seldom. And, as we’ll see in the next, if she has children with a male partner, then he will be under comparatively little pressure to perform his fair share of their joint caregiving duties.

A similar picture emerged via time-use diary statistics collected by Pew Research and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2000, they found that working women took on around two-thirds of at-home child-care responsibilities, while their male partners did the remaining one-third. Again, women did double the work. And disturbingly, over the past two decades, these figures have held steady.

A 2018 Oxfam report showed that women doing twice as much as men by way of unpaid care work and domestic labor is on the low end, globally speaking. Around the world, women average between two and ten times more of this work than their male counterparts. The global value of this work is estimated at $10 trillion annually.

If anything, time-use studies may paint an overly rosy picture of male household participation. “I question what we know from time-use diaries,” Kamp Dush told Lockman. “Our pattern of results, looking at couples on the same day, is different. It shows that men do even less.”7 Consistent with this is the fact that men appear to overestimate their contributions to shared household work. A recent Economist survey of parents in eight Western countries showed that while 46 percent of fathers reported being coequal parents, only 32 percent of mothers concurred with their assessment.8 It is possible, of course, that women are underreporting their partner’s contributions in time-use diaries, rather than men overreporting their own. But social scientists consider this unlikely. As sociologist Scott Coltrane put it: Because of the potential benefit of sharing family work, the rapid increase in women’s labor force participation, and increasing popular endorsement of equity ideals in marriage, many…predicted that the division of household labor would become more gender-neutral. Nevertheless, studies…seem to offer little support for this notion. This left researchers with a major unanswered question: “Why don’t men do more?”

Interestingly, new fathers don’t seem to realize that they aren’t keeping up with their partners’ growing workload. When we asked, both men and women perceived that they increased their total work by more than 30 hours a week each after they became parents. But our more accurate time diaries told a different story, one where parenthood added much more work for women than men.10 Another reason men don’t do more is that, under such conditions, asking them to pull their weight is in itself a form of labor. — In the opening of All the Rage, Darcy Lockman recounts one of the incidents that led her to write her book. She had asked her husband, George, for a brief reprieve for Mother’s Day: taking their two daughters to visit his mother, giving Lockman a rare opportunity to have some time for herself. Part of the tacit deal was that George would pack the children’s suitcase, for the first time in the six and a half years since their eldest daughter’s arrival. Lockman recalls her frustration at being asked if there was anything he might forget, and struggling to respond with equanimity.

This inner dialogue captures the complex toll emotional labor often takes. Emotional labor encompasses, among other things, the keeping track and anticipatory work that so often falls to women: knowing what is where, who needs what, the grocery list, the family’s budget, the family calendar, and so on—not to mention packing endless bags, from diaper bags to suitcases. (After Lockman declined to provide further assistance, her husband forgot their girls’ pajamas; they ended up sleeping in their bathing suits.)

Free, invisible work women do to keep track of the little things in life that, taken together, amount to the big things in life: the glue that holds households, and by extension, proper society, together.

Emotional labor. Superintending.

Housework isn’t the only thing that becomes a drag. I am also the schedule keeper who makes appointments and knows what is on the calendar at all times. I am the person who has all the answers to where my husband left his keys, what time that wedding is, and what type of dress code is necessary, do we have any orange juice left, where is that green sweater, when is so-and-so’s birthday, and what are we having for dinner? I carry in my mind exhaustive lists of all types, not because I want to, but because I know no one else will.

This.

Emotional labor also encompasses the work of managing the feelings around these kinds of tasks: not ruffling a male partner’s feathers, for example, by pointing out that he has done something badly, and avoiding asking for too much of his “help” or “support” within a household. As a result, many women face a potent double bind: Don’t ask, and you’ll be saddled with far more than your fair share of material, domestic, and emotional labor. Do ask, and you’ll be violating the implicit social code that tells women to keep the peace, nurture others, and not be too demanding.

Asking, and asking in the right way, is an additional layer of labor. Delegating, in many situations, requires repeating requests, which is often perceived as nagging. Sometimes it is simply not worth the effort of asking again and again, and continually asking in the right tone (and still risking being called a nag). So I do the task myself.

This.

She described her subsequent anger at the “compilation of years and years of slowly taking on the role of the only person in our household who cared.”

It’s between women and their male counterparts who fail to take on an equitable proportion of the household caregiving burden. And there is no good reason for men’s failures on this score: the all too convenient, sexist hypothesis that men and women “naturally” have different child-care proclivities or preferences has been debunked in part by studies showing that when men are the primary caregivers, their brains—being malleable—come to resemble those of women who are primary caregivers.18 Men’s failures in spite of this to participate properly in household and child-rearing labor appear to affect women in every demographic group.

when higher-income, predominantly white men fail to care, and their similarly wealthy (and, again, typically white) female partners become exhausted and desperate, they often end up “leaning down” and calling upon the labor of nonwhite and poorer women. So privileged white men’s dereliction of their duties have deleterious effects not just on their wives, but also, by extension, on more vulnerable women, who may end up being exploited to do the work these comparatively privileged women should not have to cope with single-handedly.20

It’s not just within the context of a household that men either fail or refuse to care. Even paid care work among men is strikingly unpopular. Economists have observed that men often prefer unemployment to taking on jobs in nursing (for example, as a nurse’s assistant), elder care, or working as a home healthcare aide. Yet these are increasingly the jobs that are available and need doing, as traditionally male blue-collar work disappears from the U.S. economy. A New York Times article from June 2017 put the matter bluntly: “It seems like an easy fix. Traditionally male factory work is drying up. The fastest-growing jobs in the American economy are those that are often held by women. Why not get men to do them?”

Care work

If men often feel entitled to certain kinds of paid work, they also feel entitled to far more by way of leisure, as compared with their female partners. As Darcy Lockman notes, multiple studies have found that “fathers who work long hours have wives who do more child care, while mothers who work long hours have husbands who sleep more and watch lots of television.”24 Herein lies one of the answers to the question of how men are spending their time outside of paid work hours. But a chicken-egg question remains: Do men do so little because they engage in more leisure activities than their female partners? Or do they engage in more leisure activities in order to do so little?

Part of the reason why men get away with doing so little may be that, as recent research suggests, women in heterosexual couples are held to higher standards than their mates.29 That is, women are more likely to be shamed and blamed for a messy home, eccentrically dressed children, or a lack of a perfect bento lunch box for Junior on every school day.30 And another part of the reason may be that, even when men are doing woefully little, these are nevertheless the good guys, comparatively speaking.

With the bar for men in general set so low, there is a temptation to compare a present male partner and father to his absent counterparts, and to find him morally admirable rather than wanting. Another invidious comparison turns on the fact that, currently, fathers do far more than their fathers usually did. The modern father is far more involved, on average, than his predecessor. But, again, it is vital to be clear about the most morally relevant comparison to make here: between male and female partners. And seen through this lens, women remain massively overburdened, while men often fail to do their fair share. This is particularly so because a man’s female partner is nowadays much likelier to bring in a comparable amount of income, and to work comparable hours of paid labor.32 So why should she do far more work than him at home, all else being equal? The answer, of course, is she shouldn’t.

The exchange points to yet another reason why men often get away with this imbalance: many a woman unwittingly echoes and validates her male partner’s illegitimate sense of entitlement to her labor, and to his leisure time. Despite her frustrations, she subsequently gives him mixed messages, and she is reluctant to insist on a more equitable arrangement. She exhibits himpathy—the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy for a man who behaves in misogynistic or, I would now add, entitled ways, over his female victims—even though she herself is his victim in this scenario.

with Sylvie, he is utterly unselfish, kind, and attentive.” Such virtues are all to the good, of course; but the issue on the table, as Real points out, is how Tom treats Dunn, not how he treats their daughter. And, given the grim realities on this score, her pity is surely misplaced. But it is also understandable—and relatable. When a woman internalizes her putative obligations to care for others at the expense of herself, there is affective as well as behavioral fallout. She is likely to feel guilt and shame for holding a male partner accountable—and, as Lockman points out, to feel an excessive sense of gratitude toward him, even for falling far short of fairness.

Part of the problem here, then, may be women’s sense of entitlement—or lack thereof. Some women may not feel entitled to equitable domestic arrangements and leisure time for themselves, on par with that of their husbands. Or they may feel entitled to this in theory but be unable to insist in reality, given the social forces around them that tell them not to insist and to “take one for the team” in perpetuity.

Progress though this may be, there is something sad about the framing here. A woman is entitled to more than just “help” or “support” from a male partner. And she is entitled to as much rest and leisure time as he is for her own sake, not just for the sake of becoming a better caregiver.

I believe that mansplaining typically stems from an unwarranted sense of entitlement on the part of the mansplainer to occupy the conversational position of the knower by default: to be the one who dispenses information, offers corrections, and authoritatively issues explanations. This is objectionable when and partly because he is not so entitled: when others, namely women, happen to know more than he does—and he ought to anticipate this possibility, rather than assuming his own epistemic superiority from the get-go.

she may self-silence because it is unsafe or risky for a speaker like her to venture to say anything at all, or to interrupt the relentless flow of a man’s pontificating. A mansplainer may be nigh on uninterruptable.

mansplaining is systemic; it is part of a (much) broader system. Solnit aptly describes this system as a male “archipelago of arrogance”—and, I would add, entitlement.

She was forced to apologize to him for impugning his good name by reporting his abuses to her parents. Who forced her to apologize? Her parents. Her parents. It’s not just that they didn’t believe her (which would be bad enough, in this context). They also punished her for coming forward, and regarded her as having wronged the good doctor—whose narrative about what transpired became effectively unimpeachable. And, like many victims of such gaslighting, Stephens subsequently came to doubt her own memory.

There is a certain kind of man who is unable or unwilling to cope with others expressing views that threaten his own sense of what has happened, or ought to happen. Such men cannot abide girls and women, in particular, evincing their own, legitimate sense of epistemic entitlement to state what is happening in the world, or what has to change, going forward. They do not react merely by strenuously disagreeing with a girl or woman in this position. Indeed, they often seem to lack the wherewithal—or, again, the willingness—to disagree with her whatsoever. They instead want to shut her up, or to head off the very possibility of disagreement, by denying that her word has any meaning or merit whatsoever (she’s crazy, or she’s evil—so, either way, anything she says is beneath consideration). Or such a man instead imaginatively conjures up a world in which he and his ilk have the power to make her eat her words—in this case, by shoving something down her throat, thus silencing her forever. Strikingly, he is liable throughout this to feel like the justified, or even aggrieved, party.

regardless of their own gender, people tend to assume that men in historically male-dominated positions of power are more competent than women, unless this assumption is explicitly contradicted by further information. And when it is so contradicted, women are liable to be disliked and regarded, in particular, as “interpersonally hostile,” a measure that, in this study, encompassed being perceived as conniving, pushy, selfish, abrasive, manipulative, and untrustworthy. The researchers described this effect as “dramatic”—and, they might well have added, depressing. How could a woman win, given the prevalence of these biases?

hypothetical female politicians who were described as running for the Senate experienced little gender bias until they were explicitly portrayed as power-seeking—in which case the gendered backlash effects were striking. Further, as the researchers note, it doesn’t take much to be perceived as power-seeking: It may be enough simply to run for the presidency.

They speculate that similar penalties may apply to women seeking more humdrum positions of power—for example, as a boss or a manager—that are also perceived as highly masculine-coded.

Perceived communality made an enormous difference for female but not male applicants. When it comes to demonstrable niceness, it’s an imperative for powerful women—and seemingly inconsequential for their male rivals.

Compared with the reports about Klobuchar’s treatment of her staff, such stories about Biden, Sanders, and O’Rourke have attracted little interest, and even less consternation. This jibes well with the finding that a perceived lack of communality in a powerful woman will tend to be harshly punished, while the same trait in her male counterparts will remain a matter of relative indifference.

And we must not let our vision of a communal leader devolve into a vision of bland niceness. There is a genuine entitlement under some circumstances to exhibit anger or even rage, as has been persuasively argued by the philosophers Myisha Cherry and Amia Srinivasan, the political theorist Brittney Cooper, and the political commentators and writers Soraya Chemaly and Rebecca Traister.

In light of the injustices occurring in the wealthiest country in the world, we ought to be incensed, she wrote. Yet “over and over we are told that women are not allowed to be angry,” she pointed out. “It makes us unattractive to powerful men who want us to be quiet.”

This was despite the fact that, in addition to her communal virtues, Warren was arguably the most experienced, prepared, poised, and smartest of any of the Democratic candidates. She was famous for her comprehensive plans, from tackling climate change to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fact that it was a perceived failure vis-à-vis care that cost her so dearly does not seem likely to have been accidental. People tend to unwittingly demand caring perfection from a female leader—while forgiving similar and worse lapses in her male counterparts.

We expect too much from women. And when a woman we like or respect disappoints us, even in minor and forgivable ways, she is liable to be punished—often by people who think they have the moral high ground, and are merely reacting to her as she deserves, rather than helping to enact misogyny via moralism.

This.

All of this reflects the widespread—and, yes—misogynistic sense that, unlike their male rivals, women are not entitled to make mistakes, especially when it comes to supposed communal values. They are not entitled to accept money. They are not entitled to challenge the narrative put forward by their male counterparts. And while they may be entitled to have power under certain conditions, they are not entitled to actively seek it, nor to take it away from the men they’re up against. Until we face these facts, we will not have a female president.

So concerns about electability plausibly led some people to give up on Warren prematurely, despite her being their favored Democratic candidate. This was especially true for women. As Nate Silver of the election forecasting website 538 put it, “There are a lot of women who might not vote for a woman because they’re worried that other voters won’t vote for her. But if everyone just voted for who they actually wanted to be president, the woman would win!”

Either way, this is a recipe for conservatism writ large. And hence, as such, it constitutes a collective action problem. If we all give up on women prematurely under such conditions, because they are women, then they will never get anywhere. Effectively, moreover, they will be subject to misogyny: a barrier they face as women in a man’s world, whatever the good intentions of at least some of those killing their prospects.

thoughts about what I want our daughter to feel entitled to. These are goods that all people are entitled to, whatever their gender; yet girls and women are often socialized to feel not only less important than or inferior to boys and men, but also less entitled to certain forms of basic humanity and common decency. Entitlement, as I’ve written about it in these pages, has most often referred to some people’s undue sense of what they deserve or are owed by others. But, for all that, entitlement is not a dirty word: entitlements can be genuine, valid, justified.

One is that when it comes to what women truly deserve or are owed, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of victim blaming. In the unjust social world we occupy, I will rarely fault a woman for not being in touch with what she is morally entitled to, or for being reticent about claiming it. But there’s a difference between stating—retrospectively, and often judgmentally—that a woman ought to have asserted herself in some way, versus hoping that my daughter and her cohort will be empowered to do so in a forward-looking manner.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that it will always be feasible or safe for her to lay claim to what she has a right to: that’s part of what misogyny polices and prohibits. But I want her to at least be clear about her entitlements, and to be prepared to assert them when conditions make that possible. And when they do not, I want her to feel lucid anger, and to push for structural changes, on behalf of herself as well as those who are less privileged.

I want her to know that she is entitled to bodily autonomy—to choose whether, when, and how she is touched by anyone who expresses a desire to do so (and yes, they must ask for, rather than just assuming, her consent). I want her to know that hugs and kisses, however well-meaning, are always optional. I want her to feel no guilt or shame in saying “no” to anyone’s potential encroachment upon her body. When the time comes, I want her to know that she is entitled to full control over her reproductive capacities, and that the decision about whether or not to bear children is her own and no one else’s.

I have not yet figured out how, or how much, to tell her about the realities of male sexual entitlement and violence that have so occupied my consciousness over the past several years, including while pregnant with her, in writing the book you’ve been reading. Here, words fail me.