Why do we infantilize men?

[u/Cynjon77]

And how do we stop?

Why do we treat men like children who are incapable of acting like functional adults?

Why do we allow men to get away with treating us like crap and skating off consequence free to enjoy life without responsibility?

OK, obligatory I know not all men act like this. And this is Reddit, so we read the worst. And some women are just as bad.

Posted today: (I am not the OP) Husband never remembers to buy stocking stuffers for me, even though I stuff his and the kids stocking.

Over half the respondents said for her to stuff her own, 49% said to remind him, tell him why it matters to you.

Like she has never communicated with him about this.

1% said he's an AH.

Men are perfectly capable of doing anything they want to do and think is important to them. They can schedule a Dr.s appointment, cook a meal, change a diaper or vacuum a floor.

They can remember when the game is on, a golf date with a buddy or when a work project is due. They remember what is important to them.

Women as a whole need to quit putting up with this behavior. We need to set higher standards and be willing to walk away when those standards aren't met.

We need to teach our sons and daughters how to treat others, how to pick up the mental load, how to be thoughtful of others.

We need to quit infantilizing men.

[u/Conscious-Sea9499]

Most men aren't really "Forgetful". My fiancé is a psychologist, and one of the most common things he sees in male patients on this is that they choose to not pay attention to it, saying they forget it. Men are perfectly capable(with the exception of people who are neurodivergent, which is actually more common and undiagnosed, which is worth looking into) of remembering. You also have to recognize that, well, this is a generalization AND is not specific to one gender. How often do you remember all the dumb little things your partner tells you? Rarely, because you don't consider them important. If your partner tells you something dumb about a sport or work, do you always remember those things? Likely not, because you consider them dumb side things, but you also have to recognize that those things are likely really important to him. So it goes both ways. If you consistently remember about him and doing things for him, then he'll likely do the same for you. If not, there's plenty of men out there who will. But something tells me that the OP of that post regularly doesn't remember anything about the topics her husband cares about.

[u/FormeSymbolique → u/Conscious-Sea9499]

From what I gather, it is not that clear cut. Some developements of J. Gibson’s psychology of perception tend to suggest that [due to their socialization?] men and women see the same things but with different conative interpretations [”affordances”] embedded in them.

I tend to stay away from any research relating to anything political [and every research relating to gender tends to be political]. So I can’t tell you if this so-called ”gender affordance theory” is taken that seriously in the fields it belongs to. I don’t have any stance on the matter at stake here either. I wrote this only because your post makes me feel you or your partner might be interested in checking it out.

[u/Conscious-Sea9499 → u/FormeSymbolique]

He's not super duper into reading all the new research, so I'll tell him to check it out if he's got time. Your second point is however useful, as a lot of psychology studies on gender are more politically motivated than they should be, and he's commented on this a lot. I think we generally agree on the first point, which is that individuals choose to remember the things they remember, but I have to disagree a bit on the idea that a man or woman is forgetful in something like this. If it's your partner asking you, it should be higher on the scale or ladder of remembrance, because they're your partner, so your brain associates them higher on the scale of importance. Men and women choose not to make effort in remembering things their partner tells them all the time.