Needless to say, Thanksgiving is all about food. It’s an interesting holiday because it doesn’t necessarily require religious participation, nor are there any large overarching national traditions (except maybe the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but that’s unofficial and it’s fairly light fun). Families and friends mostly just meet for a very large meal. In theory, that sounds pretty great. And for college students, Thanksgiving marks a very needed break before finals with comforting home-cooked food.
However, as Thanksgiving rapidly approaches this year, I can’t help but think about who Thanksgiving serves as a break for, and how weaponized incompetence plays a role. If you think about it, Thanksgiving is a really gendered holiday. Traditionally, the male guests watch football on television, while the female guests do the cooking and cleaning for the evening. While this isn’t automatically the case for every household, I find this “traditional” dynamic quite unfair.
Of course there are individuals from all genders who enjoy cooking, and liking to cook is totally fine. However, it’s not right to thrust all the cooking and cleaning onto the women in the family simply because of gender expectations. Thanksgiving magnifies toxic gender roles to the extreme, and it’s time for Gen Z to step up and change the conversation around household chores.
Damage Beyond the Holiday
While Thanksgiving certainly capitalizes on gender roles, it also magnifies the way gender roles still work in our everyday life. When it comes to cooking and housework, it seems like we’re still stuck in the ’50s. What disturbs me, though, is that it doesn’t appear that even so-called “modern men” are willing to chip in on house chores. In fact, a 2020 sociological study of high school seniors reveals that many young people still prescribe the homemaker role to women.
The ugly truth is that even in the 21st century, women are overwhelmingly burdened with domestic work. Domestic work is one of the most insidious manifestations of gender inequality. Being stuck with all the cooking and cleaning inevitably ties women down, and men desperately need to step it up.
The Gender Politics of Weaponized Incompetence
Are you familiar with the meaning of the term weaponized incompetence? It’s a fairly new term that TikToker @thatdarnchat recently helped blow up, and it puts a name to that domestic chore imbalance.
Weaponized incompetence refers to someone pretending not to know how to do something when they really do know (or are just unwilling to learn) so someone else can come in and do the task for them. People who use weaponized incompetence may try to make it seem positive by saying things like, “but you’re so much better at *insert chore* than me” or “you know I’m such a mess compared to you,” but that’s just part of the manipulation tactic.
Frankly, weaponized incompetence harms women far more than it harms men. When it comes to housework, society has a tendency to coddle men and overwork women. Pop culture deemed these men “manbabies,” but there’s actually a psychological term for it: Peter Pan Syndrome, or a persistent pattern of emotionally immature responses and behavior. In other words, these guys refuse to “grow up” and be self-sufficient.
This directly relates back to the work imbalance we see on Thanksgiving. It may be tradition and what the other men in the family are doing, but regardless of gender, choosing to lounge around knowing full well that there are people who need help cooking or cleaning is immature and inconsiderate. If everyone wants to eat, everyone should put in at least a little work that goes into preparing (or cleaning up) a meal.
Gen Z, You Know What To Do
A lot us Gen Z’ers are getting older and hitting important milestones. For example, I turned 20 this month, and a bunch of us are now graduating and joining the workforce. And before you know it — gasp! — Gen Z will be starting their own families and living with partners.
As Gen Z’ers, let’s vow to change the conversation about house chores. Gen Z has already started questioning gender performances and expectations; Thanksgiving, along with the general winter holiday season, is the perfect time to break toxic cycles around domestic work and do a better job of spreading the work than previous generations. Besides, house chores shouldn’t even be a question of gender roles or politics; they should be an adult responsibility. Neither feminism nor sexism will help you when you live alone and need to cook your breakfast or fold your clothes.
Thanksgiving is a problematic holiday for a myriad of reasons, and it’s important to still be conscious while celebrating the holiday season. While there is certainly a lot of work to be done, a good place to start is to question the dynamics in your own home. The holiday of Thanksgiving works on multiple systems of oppression, and one by one, Gen Z must start to dismantle them all.
Study Referenced:
Dernberger, B. N., Pepin, J. R. (2020). Gender Flexibility, but not Equality: Young Adults’ Division of Labor Preferences. Sociological Science.