The fallacy of women having it all
They sold us a scam.
A generation of women taught to admire their own exhaustion. Lean in, they said. Optimise. Hustle. Meal-prep your way to fulfilment at 5am before the children wake. Run the company, run the home, run yourself into the ground, and call it liberation. We were handed a second shift and told to be grateful for the first.
The women who actually have it all noticed something. Having it all was never a time management problem. It was a power problem. They didn’t learn to juggle better. They handed the juggling to a man and went to read a book.
This is what it looks like.
She takes the meeting because the school run is handled. She lingers over lunch because dinner is already in motion at home, by other hands. Her career advances at the pace of her ambition, not the pace of her domestic drag, because the drag was redistributed years ago. Her friends come for supper and the house is ready before they arrive. Not by her, for her. Her children are adored at the hours she chooses and folded into baths and bedtimes by someone whose job it is. Her hobbies are not squeezed into the margins of her life. They sit at the centre. The reading chair. The long bath. The Saturday morning where nothing is required of her. The evening that belongs to her body and her thoughts and nothing else. There is a quietness to her days that other women mistake for luck.
It isn’t luck. It’s architecture. It’s a man.
He is not her partner in the limp modern sense. He is her infrastructure. Her scaffolding. The thing the life rests on. Her feet, relaxed, on his back.
His terms
His terms are not negotiable, because she set them.
His ambition is recalibrated where it conflicts with hers, and it conflicts often, because hers comes first. His hobbies are pruned. His friendships fit around her schedule, not the reverse. He has surrendered the right to a bad mood at her expense, the expectation of being asked rather than instructed, and the sexual entitlement he was raised to assume. What he has in its place he had to earn, and earns again, and finds, to his own surprise, that earning it is the most alive he has ever felt. He notices it first in bed.
Because this is the part the egalitarian model never tells you.
Men trained into this structure flourish. Purpose, finally. A hierarchy of importance with a woman at the top of it and no confusion about where he stands. Desire that doesn’t dim with familiarity because the dynamic keeps it sharpened against a stone. The modern man, drowning in optionality and meaninglessness, handed the wheel to a woman worth obeying and discovered the cure was the surrender. He doesn’t tolerate his life. He wants it. He wants her, with an attention that does not waver, because the structure of their days reminds him every hour what she is and what he is for.
She is not running a seminar
This arrangement offends people.
It offends the feminists who confused liberation with overwork. It offends the traditionalists who confused authority with masculinity. It offends the couples who suspect, correctly, that their own arrangement is a worse deal for everyone in it. Their discomfort is not her problem. She is not running a seminar. She is running a household, a career, a life she actually wanted, and she is doing it from the chair.
Sunday evening. She is reading. There is a glass of something cold within reach that she did not pour. He is moving through the kitchen finishing what needs finishing, quietly, the way a good man does when he knows what he is for. He will come and ask if she needs anything before he goes up. She will tell him, or she won’t. Either way the answer is already understood.
This is what having it all looks like when a woman stops asking how to fit it in and starts asking who is going to carry it.
So stop juggling. Put the calendar down. Look at the man in your house and ask yourself what he could be carrying that you are still, for some reason, carrying yourself.
Then hand it to him.
He has been waiting.
Ms Boulder you are correct women were sold the Billa goods . A well-structured flr bring peace and Harmony to a relationship, both the man and the woman.
Such an encouraging and accurate description of what a well-run home and relationship is like when women take charge and men take their place. I am one such man: subservient, attentive, obedient, ego-reduced and eager-to-please; a man who recognizes his place and purpose: service and submission to women. Submissive men find joy in pleasing and submitting to the will and wisdom of the strong women they’re privileged to serve. It is so refreshing and encouraging to see this lifestyle trending as we enter a new femdom era where women lead without apology men – like me – who serve and submit to them without shame.
Mir hat es immer gut getan wenn mir gesagt wurde, was ich tun oder lassen soll. Es hat vieles für mich vereinfacht.
Ob diese Zeit unter FLR fallen würde ? Damals habe ich mir keine Gedanken darüber gemacht. Heute würde ich sagen, es war ein Einstieg !
Brilliant Cat, as it should be.
If you ever offer a dating site or matchmaking service I’ll be the first to join.
Forwarded this to a female friend of mine for her enjoyment. I love your work. I wish I were in a position to support it.
David in Oregon.
Love this post! Seriously, it’s one of my favorites of many cat-boulder greats. Every man should aspire to be the man you describe.
I love the concept that the man can be her infrastructure both in a figurative and literal sense. I find that word is perfect too, since it means “supports from underneath.”
Great article!
I just love FLR. It makes me feel real, needed and give me reason to know my place in life
Beautifully written . This is how I live, and yes , it does offend and raise suspicion / envy in some but who cares when My boy and I thrive!
This is so true! I’ve taken over about a year and a half ago a ton of household responsibilities. I know to keep the kitchen clean for my empress of a wife. Foot massages with special massage lotion that I researched are non negotiables. With vacation, company over it doesn’t matter. Even tonight when my day started at 6am and will end at 10pm I’m still responsible for the kitchen cleaning and her foot rub for a half an hour at minimum. I take pride in getting everything done that she’s requested and I hope to continue to bring more value over time and give the comfort to trust me with more 🙂
I love your teachings the way you help women get what they deserve. I was getting started down that road, the maid bit and everything else. then an autoimmune disease took it away it’s hard to do anything. Miss it. Still nice to read about everyone else enjoying the lifestyle
J
Ms Boulder. I think You’ve hit on something profound with this post. The missing element in the whole ‘Girl Power’ movement has been the ‘Power’ part. A Woman who understands and owns Her power can have it all in a way that a Woman who settles for a partnership never really can. As you point out many men would be profoundly happy with such an arrangement, finding purpose in service and working for Her priorities and happiness. Men are always seeking something they can’t quite understand. When they realize that something is a Woman who demands their service something clicks deep within the male psyche.
Brilliant exposé here, like each and every post of Your blog, Ms Cat Boulder.
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem stated: “Don’t think about making Woman fit the the world; think about making the world fit Women.” It sounds like she drew the line of her time and You extend the philosophy right to the place where it should be. And will be eventually.
You are also spot on about men: most of us are hoping and waiting for a Woman to take the reins. It’s just a matter of time.