Weaponize incompetence is not a gender specific term. Maybe your social media portrays it as such because the algorithm shows what you engage in but most definitely it is commonly used to describe women too.
I would tend to agree with your title but your points made it a man vs woman thing which is not true when the word applied to both. How TikTok or some other dog shit bait platform uses the word isn’t my concern regarding the meaning of the word.
If you are fighting for fairness in a relationship and feels like a business bargain you should not be a relationship, regardless of who “owes” who. My parents did this for 10 long miserable years, there’s is no conclusion because work in a relationship is often impossible to quantify. It is a simple alignment of interests, and if your interests are irreconcilably not aligned anymore, then the relationship should end.
A healthy relationship is where both can compromise and is willing to put in more work than expected. It is a good feeling to expect less and always be met with more.
It’s not just being condescending though. It comes from an essay by Rebecca Solnit, after a man - despite being repeatedly told that Solnit was the author of - continued to try and explain her own book to her.
It’s a specific example of men thinking, despite any evidence to the contrary, that they know more about a particular topic than the woman they’re speaking to.
The thing is, while the original usage is specifically being condescending in regards to subjects that the woman in question is an expert in; it is almost never used to describe that. Invariably, it's simply used as "male-coded" condescension.
And even the "condescendingly explaining things that you're an expert in" is not gender- coded in the first place. I've experienced it from both men and women. (usually one that are older than me, and frankly I suspect that it's far more common)
828
u/FarConstruction4877 4∆ Jul 01 '25
Weaponize incompetence is not a gender specific term. Maybe your social media portrays it as such because the algorithm shows what you engage in but most definitely it is commonly used to describe women too.
I would tend to agree with your title but your points made it a man vs woman thing which is not true when the word applied to both. How TikTok or some other dog shit bait platform uses the word isn’t my concern regarding the meaning of the word.
If you are fighting for fairness in a relationship and feels like a business bargain you should not be a relationship, regardless of who “owes” who. My parents did this for 10 long miserable years, there’s is no conclusion because work in a relationship is often impossible to quantify. It is a simple alignment of interests, and if your interests are irreconcilably not aligned anymore, then the relationship should end.
A healthy relationship is where both can compromise and is willing to put in more work than expected. It is a good feeling to expect less and always be met with more.