Educator explains how weaponized incompetence is more oppressive than funny and she's got receipts

People on the internet have had many discourses about how men attempt "weaponized incompetence" when their partners ask for help with household chores. An educator, Laura Danger–who goes by @thatdarnchat on TikTok–touched upon the same when she reacted to a video where a husband does a basic task so poorly that it would make his wife think twice before seeking his help again.

Danger plays the video of another creator in the background with the overlay text reading, "How to not be asked to help do things!" A visibly busy wife asks her husband to wash the potatoes and he complies at first. "That Palmolive soap is good for the potatoes, right?" the husband asks while pouring the liquid soap on the potatoes. The wife is frustrated with his actions and decides to do the job on her own instead of trusting him with it. The husband departs from the kitchen while looking at the camera, indicating that he has succeeded in his goals.

"Weaponized incompetence," Danger starts her commentary on the video she showed. "Trying to call this comedy is making light of an issue that is serious. There is a stress gap between men and women. Compared to men, women are twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and anxiety. Married women do more housework than married men. Even if there are no kids in the picture, women do more housework than their partners." She continues to explain that even if women earn the same or more than their male partners, the workload at home still doesn't change.

The only time situations are a tad bit different is when women are the sole providers in a family. "Men have more free time than their wives, even among teenagers. Boys are spending more time on leisure than girls. Why isn't weaponized incompetence funny? Because it's oppressive. Because failing to do a good job on purpose makes you seem unreliable. Failing to do a good job on purpose is opting into breaking their trust. It's setting up a situation without their consent to demand their time and energy," Danger continues.

She remarks that weaponizing incompetence leaves women with no choice but to overcompensate for their partners. "When you use weaponized incompetence, you put your needs and interests above theirs. You remove their autonomy and choice. You take their time and energy and access to opportunities without their consent is not funny," Danger concludes. The TikTok community has raised its voice against the problematic behavior of these men and how women are ultimately forced to follow the gender norm of doing housework.

@superhotloser1234 wrote, "The way my brother constantly got out of putting the dishes away because he 'Didn't know where the dishes went' in the house he lived in his entire life." @literally_a_nightmare noted, "Recently, I saw that when a woman gets married, she starts to do seven hours more work each week. It's not just regular housekeeping. Men objectively add seven hours of work. I know you know this, but this specific form of this statistic hit home more with me." @thathikerchick joked, "The way I would just act like nothing was wrong and continue letting him do that and then ask him to cook them and then make sure he ate all of them."

You can follow Laura Danger (@thatdarnchat) on TikTok for more content on life and social awareness.