Helpless Men vs Hateful Men

Weaponized incompetence is misnamed

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I remember as a teenager being taken aside by my grandmother while she was cooking. She told me that my brother happened to like a squash dish, so she wanted to make sure I knew how to cook it.

My confusion must have shown on my face because she just stared at me. Why should I learn to cook a meal for my brother? Yes, he was three years younger than me, but he was old enough to cook for himself. He also had two functioning hands.

This was back in the 80s. I attributed my grandmother’s attitude to being born in a different time where it was just normalized to only teach the vagina-having offspring to perform all the domestic labor.

This practice would lead to little boys growing into men who didn’t know how to do anything because they weren’t taught.

But now, in 2025, social media is rife with stories of men feigning helplessness to get out of doing housework. Those stories are beyond troubling.

Weaponized Incompetence vs Trained Helplessness

Weaponized incompetence (in the context of a domestic situation) is when someone claims ignorance of how to perform a task or does it incorrectly on purpose to force their partner to perform those tasks instead. This…