The Case For Making Men Pay For Everything

What is 50/50 in a relationship? What does gender equity in romance between a woman and man look like in 2020? Contemporarily, women have been taught more and more to be equal financial contributors. Have men, conversely, been taught to equally share in the non-financial aspects of a relationship? A 2018 report from the United Nations estimates that women do 2.6 times the amount of unpaid work that men do. Should she be asked to pay even more?  Here is the case for making men pay for everything.

The case for making men pay for everything 

The female contribution cannot be monetized 

1. The glass ceiling. In 2018, white women earned just 80% of what white men earned, while black women earned only 66% and Hispanic women earned 58% as compared to white men.  
2. The emotional tax of being in a relationship with you. Men generally do not put in the emotional labor necessary to equally pull their weight for an emotionally healthy relationship. This includes, for instance: managing your health (married men are expected to live 2.5 years longer than single men), reminding you of your mother’s birthday, being the one to initiate emotional conversations, cheering you on. 
3. The free education you will receive from her regarding #2 among other things. 
4. Therapy. You will probably send her to therapy and therapy is expensive. (See #2-3)
5. She has to pay to get her hair did, nails did, everything did– in response to societal pressure of how she is expected to look. 
6. Her life expectancy literally drops just by being with you. More than a third (30,000) of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by their current or former intimate partner. 
7. Having sex with women has a measurable market value. Google it. Actually, don’t.  
8. If you are having sex: She is at greater risk for health conditions such as UTIs and HPV. When she has to go to the doctor due to pleasures you benefit from- who should pay for this? Additionally, women take unique risk by trusting their bodies with you. Due to anatomy, women are at higher risk of contracting STDs than men. There is also a higher probability of transmission from men to women than the reverse.  
9. If she is using birth control: this is a financial, mental, and physical toll. Why should she bear it alone?
10. Labor that women generally end up carrying the load for, don’t get paid for, and you cannot live without such as cooking, cleaning and household administration. The aforementioned United Nations report further solidifies this.
11. If you want children: You need her for this. She does not need you for this. As of 2018, the number of women choosing to start a family without a father (by sperm donation) skyrocketed by a third in just two years. Why do so many women believe they are better off having families without men? 
12. There is no greater gift, no work more valuable, no work that is harder or more important than creating human life and nurturing a human life. No matter how much you may try to split everything equally, if she has birthed the child from her body, then it is only natural and unavoidable that the labor to nurture that child will fall on the body who birthed the baby. This work is severely undervalued and taken for granted. 
13. If you want children, there will be times that she physically cannot work, or it would be particularly strenuous for her to work. 
14. This is the way the Creator made it.
15. Time is money. The older you get as a man, the more you are seen by society as more distinguished and more valuable. The older a woman gets, she is seen by society as less valuable.
16. Shouldn’t you want to? 
17. There are men who will do so happily and lovingly. 
18. Y’all cause every war and degrade the planet, further decreasing the quality of life for women.
19. Reparations. 
20. Women need a rest. We are tired. Especially Black women.

I once dated a guy who had the nerve to tell me to my face – “I don’t want to financially take care of a woman.”

Basically, he just told me that his pockets are dry. You know what that means? She (she, being my WAP) is also dry – to him anyways.

More importantly, he is telling me that his love is dry. When you are in a relationship, the standard should be generosity. And that means generosity in all forms: Spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially. This should flow naturally. You don’t want to take care of me in a certain way? Why not? The answer to the question reveals some deep wound within you. We all have them and it is our responsibility to heal ourselves. I would want to take care of you abundantly. That is the natural course when you are in love. I never have and never will need a man to take care of me financially. However, I do need a man who wants to. Because likewise, my love is and will always be wanting to take care of him in all things.

The audacity of a man to proclaim that he will not financially provide for a woman signals such a severe disrespect of women and everything that women inherently provide yet do not charge for because it cannot be monetized. 

The words of my late, great, mother come to mind: “Do not start at a deficit.”

The idea within mainstream feminism that demands an even division of finances in a relationship is tragically flawed. This train of thought does not account for the irreplaceable, invisible and indivisible, non-financial contributions that a woman typically brings to the relationship that are often just as costly as breadwinning, and oftentimes more costly. While genders are equal, we do bring different fruits to the table. To calculate those contributions strictly financially is not in service of true gender equity.

Secure the bag, sis. Just don’t forget that you are the bag. 

Image Credit: Samantha Sophia via nappy.co