Women deserve partners, not projects
Stop shaming women when calling out male incompetence.
Recently, many heteronormative women have turned to the internet as a place to talk about problems within their relationships. Scrolling long enough on TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and Reddit, you will see it; posts about how their boyfriends cannot book a doctor’s appointment or husbands who only “help” when they are told to. Some posts are funny, others are angry, and most are just tired.
What stands out is not only the number of complaints but also the responses they receive. Instead of sympathy, many women are met with harsh replies from other women. The most common answer is short and harsh: just leave him!
At first, this advice sounds reasonable. Why do some women accept incompetent men in their lives? While this question matters, the response reveals a bigger problem: calling out male incompetence often ends up shaming women rather than holding these men accountable.
The answer isn’t stupidity or low standards. Women stay in these relationships because they are taught that relationships require work, their work. From a young age, women are told that love means patience, compromise, and emotional endurance. Over time, this idea turns into the belief that it is normal to struggle. When men fail to meet basic expectations—what people now call the “bare minimum”—women are told to lower their standards or teach grown men how to behave.
This is not a partnership; this is unpaid labour.
Understanding why women stay does not mean excusing male incompetence. It means recognizing that leaving is not always simple. Emotional attachment, money, shared children, immigration status, and fear of being judged all matter. In a society that still values women being married as a rite of passage in their lives, leaving can feel like failure. That explains why even when unhappy, staying still feels safer for some.
But the cost of staying is high. Women take on the mental load of managing schedules, emotions, and daily life. Over time, frustration turns into exhaustion. When women speak about this online, they are often blamed for choosing the wrong partner and for complaining too much.
At the same time, the “just leave him” response doesn’t come out of nowhere. Many women giving this advice are not cruel; they are tired. They’ve already done the hard work of setting boundaries and rebuilding their lives. They’ve already left relationships like this. Watching the same patterns repeat can be draining, especially in online spaces that show no care.
But exhaustion does not justify turning blame into moral superiority.
Telling women to “just leave” turns complicated lives into moral judgements. It suggests that if a woman stays, she is responsible for her own mistreatment. Instead of holding men accountable, the blame shifts back onto women. Men’s failures become women’s “bad choices.” Language meant to sound empowering ends up being a weapon that attacks women who don’t leave fast enough.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the conversation. In trying to call out male incompetence, we often recreate the same misogyny we claim to be fighting. The words sound feminist, but the outcome is familiar: women are judged, shamed, and told they should have known better, while men fade into the background.
So, where does that leave us? Not in choosing sides between staying or leaving, but in questioning why women are forced to choose at all. Why are women expected to either suffer silently or blow up their lives completely? Why is accountability a burden that women are expected to carry alone?
Calling out male incompetence matters. But when that conversation turns into shaming women for staying, struggling, or not leaving quickly enough, it stops being empowering. Feminism should give women more choices, not leaving them into silence or exile.
There is another option: stop shaming women when calling out male incompetence.
Adult men should be expected to act like adults. Poor behaviour should not be excused as misunderstanding or lack of effort. Stop telling women to be patient when what they need is support. Relationships should involve shared responsibility, not one person carrying the weight of two.
Until accountability reaches men instead of circling back to women, this conversation will keep missing the point, and women will keep paying the price for the problems they do not create.
Women deserve partners, not projects.
