There has been a lot of robust conversation about gender roles lately.  I LOVE it.  The Barbie Movie has been an incredible mirror held up to reflect our society’s misogyny.  Even though I haven’t managed to get to see it yet, I am very excited about the message and have America Ferrara’s “It is literally impossible to be a woman” monologue committed to memory.  It is tattooed on my tired, overly mansplained to, consistently underestimated, thrown under the bus, definitely broken heart.  

I’ve married a man who was born, raised and surrounded by strong women.  Interestingly, long before we started dating he was nicknamed the “Kiwi Ken Doll of Sustainability” by some of my then acquaintances.  I am not going to mince words here, my life partner is a total snack.  He’s got cheeky blue eyes, beautiful chiseled features, broad shoulders and big biceps.  He’s a smidge over 6 foot tall and spends a decent amount of time ensuring he looks pretty dapper. This human chops wood and cooks good and is incredible at countless things in between these traditionally opposed gender specific activities.  

Here’s a selection of pictures from the past year that illustrate my point here:

And THAT is what I want to discuss with you today.  Gender roles.

Some months ago I made a rare appearance in public to meet with the leader of the Green party at a lunch.  As is custom for me, I gravitated to the women in the room and sparked up confronting and meaningful conversations with a group of goddesses at one end of the table.  I asked many questions, but the one that really stuck was this:

Q: What do you as a woman need to succeed right now?

Now, I was expecting to hear things like; Respect, less mansplaining, seats at the table where decisions are made, more strong female role models and leaders, pay equity… or any number of answers that I’d have probably given.

The answer that came and absolutely floored me and haunts me with its clarity was this:

“I need a wife.”

It took several days for this to sink in.  But yes.  We need wives.  Wives throughout history have been conditioned to nurture, support, cook, clean, provide, forgive, satisfy in the bedroom, entertain, raise kids, look good, lift others, and have and perform a never-ending list of other activities and qualities.

Here’s the thing.  A traditional western nuclear family will produce a dad who, if he changes a diaper, takes the kids to the movie, cooks or cleans the house is then offered applause from society and all his family and friends that is deafening.  What a good sport (we HATE the term “sport” and find it patronising if anyone calls us sport) for doing all that. 

If women in the same family fold are doing the same… crickets.  That’s their job.  That’s what moms do.

The one thing this woman said she needed to succeed was a wife, presumably like herself, to be supportive, super-human almost.  To create and nurture a safe, pleasant and supportive family and household culture that would allow her to go out there and slay every day she needed to.  A wife who helped feed and clothe and nurture the whole family.  A wife who would rest assured get the kids to and from sport and music practices and appointments if work or other commitments called.  A wife who would be cheering and encouraging their partner to find, follow and BE in their POWER.  

Wives and mothers are amazing.  It is a thankless space in so many ways as we are so often just expected to not only do all the heavy lifting in the home and with the family but these days also have the time, energy and bandwidth to slay all day in our careers – apparently because our fore-mothers and the witches that were burned paved the way for us to work.  We ought to be grateful!  We can have careers now too.

Our long-time (way over a decade now) housekeeper and nanny Lou pointed a thing out that further illustrates my point.

She was on the sidelines watching my youngest son (her kid too basically) play rugby when one of the dads was about to leave. Lou asked if he wasn’t going to watch the match, and he replied (to her horror) “Nah, I can’t stay I have to babysit.”

Babysit in this case apparently meant to go and look after his own kids. Can I just state the blindingly obvious to this dad, ahhh, that’s not babysitting that’s called being a parent.

Do you think a woman would ever refer to having to pick up the kids or take care of them as babysitting? I’d hazard a guess not. And perhaps men do see it as a job that they have to do outside the norm as their partner does do most of the heavy lifting.

When I am at a conference nobody asks a man who takes care of the kids when they travel for work, but rest assured they almost always ask me.  Double standards we need to quash.  

After these conversation I realized, that I do, indeed, currently have a wife.  Not only a wife, the most beautiful, best wife.  

Damon fusses over me.  He does most of the cleaning and we both love to cook and entertain our friends and family.  He’s a fierce and brave champion for myself and all the women in his world.  He will take any of our many kids where they need to be if I am presenting or facilitating at an event, or have some work to do.  He balances our cheque books and does all of the scheduling in our lives.  He encourages me to be in my power whenever and however I can and he even used to make lovely nibble platters when I’d host goddesses for networking and catch ups.  He often asks me “how can I improve myself to show up more fully for you?”… He keeps his curly silver locks a little long because that’s how I prefer them and he’s adopted a beard after being clean shaven for decades, also because I’d told him how much I like that.  He’s a beautiful, supportive and incredibly fun partner.  He is honoured that I call him my beautiful wife because he has spent 50 years on this earth surrounded by fierce, amazing and uber-capable women who are often wives and mothers so it is not emasculating.

In our household’s culture I am certainly the more masculine and un-refined energy.  He has an undeniably feminine energy and he manscapes gleefully. He has even been known to go on the odd shopping and brunch adventure with our goddess friends while I do other (traditionally manly?) things. We both cry at so many things. Repair Shop reveals, for example, when people see their beloved memories restored always make us well up.  

My daughter (she’s 16) is horrified that we call Damon my wife. She said it is perpetuating archaic stereotypes and lessening the power of the position by making fun. Are we making fun? A little. I genuinely think traditional gender roles instead of being the best version of yourself and contributing whatever sparks joy because you want to and/or you’re good at it is what we all gotta get behind.

Since I started referring to Damon as my wife, it came to our attention that a few of my friends (who identify as women) also have wives. Their marriages function best when the goddess in the relationship is in her power and smashing glass ceilings and bringing home that bacon while they do. Their partners (could be men, could be women, could also be trans or non-binary, felt it was important to put that point in) feather their nest, and are incredibly supportive of their careers and journey. They do most of the heavy lifting on a day to day with their kids (or pets, or plants if the couple has not decided to procreate) and report to me that they’re pretty chuffed with their role.

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this. Damon pointed out as he read through this article that we started this all as a bit of a lighthearted in-joke, but it’s kinda become how we feel and are since we’ve both become more comfortable using the terminology. He is my beautiful wife. Is it wrong or worse disrespectful to use this term? Or is it a badge of honour acknowledging his skills, strengths and contributions to our marriage and life?

What do you think?

Thanks for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts I put this out there for feedback, so come at me if you have any.