I was at work, the kind of place where you need an appointment just to walk through the door, when a lovely woman arrived for hers. Mid‑conversation, her phone rang. She apologised and declined the call. Then it rang again. And again. And again.
Finally, flustered, she said, “It’s my husband. I usually have dinner on the table by now. He’s probably wondering where I am and why it’s not ready.”
At that moment, I felt something between shock and disbelief. Were women still living like this? Still tethered to a man’s expectations because, on one out of 365 days, he couldn’t make his own dinner?
Ironically, later that same day, another customer came in — a man deliberating over a purchase. He seemed to know what he wanted, until his wife walked in.
“No, I think you should get this one,” she said.
When he tried it on, I pointed him toward the mirror. He turned away from his partner, looked at me, and said, “Her opinion matters most, so it doesn’t really matter.”
And just like that, I found myself walking to my car that evening in awe — and not the good kind. And I wondered — can there ever really be balance?
As a woman in a relationship, I try to live as gender‑neutral a life as possible. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m destined to be a housewife — kids or no kids. And just because I might have a better eye for fashion doesn’t mean I get to dictate what my partner wears.
Let me be clear: choosing to stay home, raise children, cook, clean — that is a deeply respectable choice. I admire anyone who does it. When I say “housewife,” I’m talking about the forced role, the one so many women I know have been handed without consent. Women who chase demanding careers while also raising children, feeding their families, doing the housework, studying — all with little or no help from their partners. As if women entered the workforce, but men never entered the kitchen.
It’s unmanageable. It’s unfair. And it’s exhausting.
So I started to wonder: is there such a thing as perfect balance between partners? Or does someone always end up with the final say?
Historically, women have been treated as second‑class citizens — not an opinion, just a fact. And while the past two decades have brought real progress, the echoes of those old roles still linger. Now that women finally have a voice, we’re using it. Calling out the nonsense is easier than ever. But in trying so hard not to fall into the roles designed for us, is there a danger of swinging too far the other way?
Because that man in the fitting room — the way he deferred to his partner — it didn’t feel like equality. It felt like control. And it made me think about the razor‑thin line between avoiding subservience and accidentally becoming the dictator.
We can fight sexism in the workplace, online, in the streets — but it’s a very different battle when it sleeps beside us at night.
I know I’m speaking from a woman’s perspective, because that’s the life I live. But I don’t want history to flip. I don’t want men to become the new “housewives,” told what they can and can’t do. In any relationship — gay, straight, bi, whatever — there should be an understanding. A tone. A mutual agreement about what roles you are and aren’t willing to play.
In my own relationship, I’m not a great cook. I can make a decent chicken pie and a passable chilli, but that’s about it. My partner, on the other hand, loves cooking. So naturally, he cooks and handles the kitchen. I prefer cleaning the bathroom and keeping things organised. It just… fits.
That’s balance. Not rigid 50/50, but fluid. Some days it’s 60/40. Some days 70/30. When one of us is tired or struggling, the other steps in. Because that’s what a healthy partnership does. There are no expectations based on gender, no fear of falling into stereotypes, no overcompensation. Just two people meeting in the middle.
And isn’t that what we’re all really fighting for?
Not perfection.
Not dominance.
Just choice.
Because you can’t walk hand‑in‑hand through life if one person is carrying the entire load.