Two things I don't understand.

First, are the women depicted in this comic stay at home moms? If so then yes, I would expect them to take care of the house. Regardless of gender. If they both have jobs, then the workload should be shared. It's not about gender. It's about distributing the work. If he goes to work 8 hours a day, she can work 8 hours a day. Staying at home and not doing anything is nothing short of disrespectful.

Second, the "mental load" of having to remember all those things isn't a herculean task. A calendar, a TODO list, a shopping list on the fridge are simple solutions which greatly reduce the load.

Honestly, as far as that aspect goes, I found the comic helped me understand it better than the article did. While I think I understand the general concept of emotional labor, the example of the gift wrapping left out seemed kind of petty in that an item being out of place in a closet seems fairly easy for even an attentive person to miss and forget about. What I gatherer from the comic, is that it's more about situations in which one partner assumes that they don't need to do anything unless specifically asked.

Humans are not telepaths.

Two humans won't have the same expectations for things.

Yes you should not have simply asked. You should have communicated your expectations about household work and discussed with your partner. And if you're not compatible split-up. You don't have to be part of a couple to be happy.

It's funny, my wife cooks, and I do the dishes. That is our agreement. However, often she will make dishes throughout the day that are not a result of cooking (coffee mugs, plates for small snacks she makes for herself, etc). Sometimes I will get yelled at for "not doing the dishes" when I neither a) created them or b) enjoyed the spoils the dishes were used to create/consume. How's that for gendered?

Another thing: when I do the dishes, the drying rack looks like a well-engineered marvel. Everything is stacked perfectly and efficiently to dry as quick as possible. The things we use most often are the most accessible on the drying rack. When my wife happens to do the dishes (if I'm out of town), the drying rack looks like a shantytown in a post-apocalyptic futurescape...things are piled up with no rhyme or reason, you have to dig through a bunch of wet tupperware to find plates or cups, the silverware is mixed in with the sharp knives. Yikes.

There are times when she does a household task, such as fixing a door or something, I come back when she's done to find the tools strewn everywhere and I have to put them away. I guess that makes me the woman.

My point is: there are divisions of labor. It's important to decide what those divisions are, where they begin, and where they end. I don't get angry at my wife when the dish rack looks like a scene from Mad Max because she hasn't had all the time I've had to perfect the skill (and I'm just glad she did the dishes at all). But conversely, I ask her not to get mad at me because I didn't put a gift bag back in the exact place it was supposed to go after she re-organized our closet and I lost track of which box is for what.

That said, we've both discussed, ad nauseam, the above issues and worked out or differences. This usually happens when resentment builds to the point of one speaking harshly to the other, at which point we cool off, dissect what we're feeling, and both attempt to change our behavior.

I think that's the real point here: it's not so much about gender (am I woman for doing the dishes?), it's more about dividing the tasks, setting the boundaries for those tasks, and talking to each other when something needs to change.

I find that comic sexist; many men are house managers. Not all, but to assume that men are passive parents is insulting.

I have issues with the following line in that comic:

> when a man asks his partner to ask him to do things, He's viewing her as the manager of household chores

I disagree heavily with this comic. There's many reasons why he might've not helped by himself. In fact there's a good chance I would've acted like he had and not because I see females as household managers, but because I've been snapped at plenty of times for helping when it wasn't desired, and not helping when it is desired. Unless I'm a perfect mind reader the only winning move is not to play, so I refuse to play.

If you need my help you can very well ask for it. The only thing she would've needed to do in this comic to defuse in the entire situation is go "hey guy, help?".

Tell a man to fish, feed him for a day.