Yes. You read that right. TIYAAAADDD! It’s that next level of “tired” when your tired is tired.
Black women are TIYAAAADDD of toxic endurance! It is highly possible that this sentiment and cry extends to all women, so if any of this resonates, feel free to join the chorus. If you are a man who doesn’t by your words or actions subscribe to, mete out or make lubbish (next level beyond rubbish) apologies for toxic endurance, then you shouldn’t take offence to the rest of this post. Same goes for any woman who is a pickmeisha at heart. I’m not saying there aren’t women who are toxic because that would be a lie, there are. It sucks, isn’t right and to them I say “please heal and do better”. However, a lot of the things I highlight below is observed in far more males than females, so this post is not one where “what about men?” is going to work. I’m asking you to get out of your feels for the duration of this post and just hear me out on these things that happen as a norm for most but which in my view are toxic in nature.
Weaponised incompetence
I said we are what? “We are tiyaaaaddd” of being preached at, cajoled, manipulated to just accept weaponised incompetence as not only okay, but the best that females should expect and hope for. Society and patriarchy, you haven’t helped at all. From the moment we can remember, girls are conditioned to learn how to perform many life skills such as cooking, cleaning, looking after/caring for ourselves and others, reaching out to others, getting and being organised in order to successfully manage a myriad of tasks at one go. Btw this is what is fondly referred to as multi-tasking. The latter is not a bad skill to have, but the problem is it is mostly described as a female trait, and so are those other basic skills. Females are taught these skills not because they are basic life skills that every able bodied, functioning adult should know how to do, but because we are female and mastering these skills is what we are conditioned to believe will make us attractive to future boyfriends, husbands or partners. The end game appears to be for the benefit of the significant males in our lives. So, since the girls are mastering this, the boys are busy doing what? Being excused from, not encouraged and not taught these skills. Afterall, what’s mum, or your sister there for? So skip a few years, boom you’re now an adult male, so after getting away with it for so long, you either don’t bother to learn how to do those things properly, conveniently feign ignorance about how to do them, or stop doing them when there’s another female in your household – ie your girlfriend, wife or daughter to sort it out. The throwaway “you do it better anyway”, “I’m too busy working”, or “fine, I’ll do it later” (except that later becomes never) comments whenever you’re challenged become second nature. Lies! Most women work a paid job full time these days, yet still make time to do these other things, including the majority of the whole gambit of child rearing and care. Any man that runs a department or company but doesn’t know how to properly put on a washing machine, cook a meal or clean up after himself should be embarrassed, not flexing like he’s proud. Females are tired of having the bulk of these tasks fall on us because males just won’t get involved and join in doing them consistently, without complaint, and without requiring a cheerleading squad sing their praises each time they wash a spoon. It’s ridiculous and seriously we’re tired. Mums if you keep expending your last power and might to “train” your daughters, yet leave your sons out of it, “because he is your only son” or some other nonsense excuse, you are part of the problem. Stop it! Fathers, you are supposed to lead by example. If your son grows up not seeing you (his first role model) do this tasks (but it’s only ever a female who is left to do it), who do you think he’s going to copy? Huh?
FYI, Gen-Z girls are not playing, and many are refusing to accept this weaponised incompetence. Hallelujah I’m here for it.
Sabotage
Husband interrupts wife at finish line
We’re also tiyaaaaddd of being sabotaged by the men in our lives. The viral video (click above link for video) a few weeks ago of the husband who placed his little children in the pathway of his wife who was running a marathon, seconds BEFORE the finish line, was a brilliant visual example of this point. From a safety point of view it made zero sense and from an excited, overzealous, lost in the moment viewpoint, it still made no sense for him to station himself BEFORE, instead of after the finish line. Of course, the “no matter how wrong or stupid the words or actions are, as long as it’s a man I will still back him up” committee came out with these lame excuses and others. Some of the excusers claimed they didn’t see anything wrong and if the runner was a good mum she could have picked up the child and still won the race. Okay, because she’s got super powers like WonderWoman right? (my eye roll since those comments haven’t stopped). I thought, BOOM, there it is! He was setting her up to fail! Be a good mum, stop pick up your child and lose the race, or ignore child and continue, which will make her look like a bad mum. SABOTAGE! For the why? She would never have done that to him, except if her intentions were to sabotage him. This type of sabotage comes in so many shapes, sizes and colours, and it was both validating and heart breaking to read so many comments from women sharing their own experiences of sabotage by their husbands or partners. From those men who for whatever reason can never agree to hold the fort down for their wives at home so she can travel for work. Or if they do, she has to write a whole manual for him, organise backup A, B & C to step in and or support with the kids just in case, spend all the hours before she travels cooking every soup, stew and dish for the duration of the time she will be away, and if he calls whilst she’s on the business trip, its to complain and moan about the stress on him because she’s away. If on the other hand he has to travel for work or fun, there is no issue, there’s no labour involved and his wife might even pack his suitcase for him. I.e. she supports and makes life easier for him to be able to do what he needs to do on his trip. Soon enough she’ll turn down and make excuses for work trips because the stress of his sabotage is too much. Another example is those whose wives or partners will step up even more at home with housework and childcare when his job is extra busy or he has exams, but she had to give up her dream of further education (because he can’t look after the kids for her to attend weekend classes) or establish a new business because he will not reciprocate and support her physically, emotionally or financially. There were so many examples so this is obviously a thing. Is it jealousy? Is it the extension of weaponised incompetence? Is it laziness? It just looks like you don’t like your wife or partner and don’t want to support her progress (even though you will benefit from it). It’s sabotage and we’re tiyaaaaddd of it.
Stigmatism of single mothers
Yet another thing we are tiyaaaaddd of is the ongoing stigmatism of single mothers. Single motherhood, is one of the hardest jobs ever because the mum is essentially trying to do two people’s jobs by herself. Yet a lot of men look down on and talk in a derogatory manner about single mums, in the way they subtly or outrightly blame society’s ills on single mums, generally tag majority as “gold diggers” and ascribe a lower societal value to us (I’m a single mum), as if we for the most part deliberately choose to be single mums. If you listen to them (especially the Red pill type group of men and their supporters), the men, and their actions that helped or led to a woman becoming a single mum seemed to have just vanished into thin air, and are not factored at all into the conversation on this subject, as if the women did this to themselves. I’ve included this within the “toxic endurance” banner because majority of single mums are in that position because the fathers of their child(ren) have not done nobly by them in treating them right or fair, yet because single mums have chosen their sanity and lives instead of remaining in toxic situations, they are being labelled black sheep and punished. It truly baffles my mind why a lot of time and effort is expended on shaming, blaming and not supporting many mothers who are today carrying the load of two people, and doing so with grace, tears and strength, the best way she knows how, whilst in most cases having to deal with uninvolved, or toxic fathers, and then society’s stigma on top of everything else. Having the perfect picture of the family unit is desirable, but unfortunately increasingly this is no longer reality for many. Single mothers are however not the problem! If we look beyond the surface we can see that in far too many cases the real elephant in the room is men behaving badly to their wives, partners, girlfriends and children. But no, let’s keep the topic and focus on our chosen black sheep (single mothers), and use the unfair legal and social structures and systems we have to shame them, withdraw and deny support to them, then turn around and blame them for experiencing the challenges you’ve helped put in their way. Make it make sense! As I said at the beginning, if you know you’re not in the men behaving badly camp, this really shouldn’t trigger you. If anything I’m hoping it inspires you to be a stronger and better ally of women and girls, mentor to your sons and nephews, because if truth be told you very likely have sisters, cousins, friends or even your mum who is a single mum whose horror story you know, and you know they’re not all lying.
Okay, I thought this was going to be short, but there’s still so much still to say. These issues are not going away and the tactic many of our mothers applied in their time of enduring the toxic behaviours and systems they were born into, doesn’t work in this current age. I daresay it even facilitated the creation of some of the “monsters” many are living and have had to struggle with today. Did I dare? I guess I did, because I’m tiyaaaaddd.
I’ll make a part two and address other things I think we’re tiyaaaaddd of like being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, being expected to cover up for abuse, the way we’re portrayed in the media and a few other points.
Let me know your thoughts. Sisters what other things are you tiyaaaaddd about? Please share in the comments.