“My father is a doctor and at work he handles respirators. Instead, the washing machine doesn’t put it on because she says he doesn’t know how to do it. It is clear that he has the ability to program a washing machine. It is a lack of interest or strategic incompetence, ”says Inés (this is not her real name), 38 years old.

“I think that in my generation this is not the case, but when you have a child, more weight falls on the woman,” says Inés, who is the mother of a five-month-old baby and points out: “I breastfeed and that not only implies feed him, but also relax him and put him to sleep. Many times you find that the minute she cries ‘it’s because she’s hungry or sleepy’, then she returns to your arms.

The term weaponized incompetence, which in Spanish could be translated as strategic incompetence, was already used by Jared Sandberg in an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2007, applied to all areas of life, from family to work. “Strategic incompetence is not having a strategy that fails, but a failure that succeeds. It almost always serves to avoid the work that one does not want to do, without ever having to admit it”, explains the author.

In recent years, this term has become popular on social networks -especially on TikTok-, where several users have used the hashtag

“This is something that occurs especially in heterosexual couples. I have not found it in the couples of women with whom I have worked”, says the couples therapist Eva Perea, who has her practice in Valencia, and indicates: “A topic where strategic incompetence almost always appears is dressing the men. children. Many women say, “If you’re an engineer, how come you put the child in out-of-season or too-large clothes, or put his bodysuit inside out?” They are frustrated that their partner is so capable and willing at work, but at home they don’t dedicate the necessary time to it or they do it wrong and they end up doing it themselves”.

“In our house it happens with everything that is washing, folding and organizing clothes. My boy has a hell of a time. I have realized that he has not installed a washing machine for about two and a half years. With the field of cooking, he is much more aware, ”says Mary Carmen (38) to La Vanguardia.

“For at least the first ten of the fourteen years that we have been in a relationship with my partner, the mental burden of the logistics and operations of our life together fell on me. Not only what has to do strictly with the house, but also with everything that goes through us as a couple, from doing paperwork to remembering a nephew’s birthday and being in charge of bringing him a gift”, explains Guadalupe (40) and adds: “Today we have a very distributed load of housework. But we did it after a lot of therapy, it didn’t happen overnight.”

There was a moment that marked a before and after. “I was away for a week. Before I left, I had removed the sheets and left them in the laundry basket. When I got home, the bed was still without sheets. I asked my partner and he told me that he didn’t know where they were. He had slept a whole week without sheets. We didn’t argue, I just said, “How can you not know where the sheets are in your own house?” From there it clicked”, remembers Guadalupe.

“Although in terms of execution today we have the tasks completely divided, even if he makes the purchase, I am the one who has a record of when it is necessary to do it. I’m the one who knows when the toilet paper runs out, the laundry soap or a light bulb burns out. He depends a lot on a list to go shopping or he writes to ask me what he is missing while he does it ”, she indicates.

“The issue of shopping is something that appears a lot in the consultation,” says the therapist Eva Perea and indicates: “Many women explain that their partners do it, but that they are the ones who have to think about what is missing at home and prepare a list, that this is something that involves a lot of the work. There are situations where, if something is not on the list, they do not buy it, or they buy things that are about to expire, or they spend much more than they would. That is to say, they do not have a strategy for the purchase of the home”.

“A few years ago, I was in partnership with an investor from a leading bank in London. When I went to live with him, I even had to go buy cutlery because I didn’t even have a spoon to turn the coffee. I was used to always ordering food out because I didn’t have time,” explains Annie, a 42-year-old journalist and teacher, adding: “I had to take care of everything, even looking for clothes at the laundry, calling the locksmith to change a wrench or fix a leak. I became a kind of do-it-yourself woman. He was getting used to me doing everything and he didn’t value it either. I got fed up. When you decide to live as a couple, you have to assume that there are things you have to do, that you have to divide tasks”.

Today he is in a very different relationship. “I’ve gotten my partner to do things like, for example, take care of dinner on a day-to-day basis, especially when I’m late from teaching, and iron his things and part of mine,” says Annie, pointing out : “Even so, it is difficult, because I believe that women still carry the greatest weight, even when we are workers just like them”.

“I am much more obsessive with cleaning and there are tasks that I prefer to do myself, either because I told my partner that he doesn’t know how to do it or because he has already settled on that idea. For example, cleaning the shower screen or making the bed”, explains Lucila Pedernera (30) and adds: “In the same way, he is the one who cooks because I supposedly don’t know how to cook, when the truth is that I do. But I don’t like it and he loves it, and I settled for it. I have also told him that I misuse the washing machine -which is not true-, so he is the one who does the laundry at home”.

“We divide up the tasks depending on who is at home the most at the time. For example, if one of the two teleworks, he takes more care of laundry and cleaning. Yes, I am better at everything that is order and cleanliness, and my partner is better at home finances and administrative procedures,” explains Tony (32), who lives with his girlfriend Camila, and adds: “It is also It is true that, by living in an apartment and not in a house, we have fewer maintenance tasks to share. We also do not have children or pets in our care.”

“The change is very noticeable when you have children,” says Núria (this is not her real name), 37, who is the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl and a five-month-old boy, and explains: “When you have children you have to plan a lot more and this takes up a lot of mental space. The mental load is what I have the worst and it is the big difference I see between the two. It is difficult because it is more intangible. My partner puts on the washing machine, makes dinner every night, but the one who plans the menus, the one who checks that there are vegetables in the fridge, the one who knows that the washing machine has to be put on so that the girl has clean pants or shirts for take to the nursery is me”.

A phrase that many patients repeat in the therapist Eva Perea’s office is “He performs very well, but I have to tell him what to do.” Although men are doing more and more housework -says the expert-, “the mental load is of women in a very overwhelming way. To the point that many become burned out and very stressed, even when they do things at home.

According to a Procter study

“Even though there is an equal division in the execution of household tasks, strategy and planning occupy a lot of mental space for women. Many times they say: ‘If you tell me, I’ll do it’. But if they have to tell them, in the end the responsibility is 70/30″, indicates Eva Perea and adds: “They are the ones who normally think about buying the gift for the school friend who has a birthday or who today It’s time to put the washing machine on because it’s going to rain over the weekend and on Monday the clothes have to be dry”.

When they had their son, Inés agreed with her partner that he would take care of the shopping and the food. “That was something that maybe we both did before, but it’s time to redefine the tasks of each one. Now I can’t do it because I’m dedicating that time to the child, ”she says. She also suggested that he be in charge of bathing the baby, “so that this would be her space, because it is something that does her good and they both enjoy it,” she explains. However, for the first few months, that was not a time when she could completely shut down. “I was wondering: Can you come and check that the water temperature is okay? What drawer is the towel in? or Do you remember where the bodysuit is? ”, she indicates.

“I think this is not so much due to strategic incompetence but rather due to a lack of security”, says Inés and adds: “Besides, I am a pediatrician, so one more weight falls on me. But at home I’m a mom, I’m not the pediatrician. In any case, I think this is the case especially at the beginning and then the dynamics change as the child grows, interacts more, has more routines. I am giving ground to my partner and giving him confidence so that, for example, he spends the afternoon playing with the baby. I also think there will be a big change when it’s his turn to take what’s left of his paternity leave and I start working. He has to spend hours with him to strengthen that bond and that the child does not always have me as a reference when he is hungry or sleepy”.

“Man has to go looking for his place”, explains Eva Perea and adds: “Many times he does not find his place and he does not have close paternity roles to follow. They end up doing what they know, which is working more hours and not reducing their hours. The percentage of reductions in men is derisory while that of women is very high. Many do not even consider it or think that if they did they would be fired. But they have to consciously occupy that space. The only way for them to bond with the baby is by spending time with him, the same way the mother does. It is not by a divine condition”.

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