A Woman Doesn’t Cook Dinner Just To See What Her Husband Will Do

A mom fed up with the patriarchy (Aren’t we all?) decided to put her husband to the test by conducting a little experiment to help prove her theory that women do everything, and men are just as incompetent as she thinks they are.

Author, content creator, and mom, Victoria Emes, went viral on TikTok after her experiment showed that men would literally rather starve than make their own meals — or even ask what the plan is.

In her video, Emes decides that she’s not even going to mention dinner to see just how long it will take her her husband to 1) Notice that she hasn’t done anything or 2) Actually take the initiative to make something himself instead.

“Sometimes, when I've absolutely f*cking had enough of being a woman, I like to conduct a sort of gender-based social experiment in my own home just to prove to myself that women do in fact do everything, that men have no fucking initiative, and that the patriarchy is a f*cking hot bag of d**ks,” she begins.

She checks in around dinnertime, 6:30 p.m., and her husband is clueless.

“He has opened the fridge and looked inside sort of vaguely twice, but still, he has not made any of the dishes,” she says twenty minutes later.

She also notes that by this point, the entire family would have been fed if she was doing what she normally does.

Another 30 minutes later, she and her husband are still unfed. Instead of asking her what she’d like to do for dinner, he’s chatting with her about some butterfly chrysalis he found in the garden. He is totally and completely oblivious to the fact that dinner is not made yet. Meanwhile, Emes notes that she is extremely hungry.

Despite her grumbling stomach, she sticks to her plan.

“I've got to do this for the sake of women kind. I've got to prove a point.”

After putting their song to bed, around 9 p.m., Emes’ husband finally offers to make them the gourmet meal of fish fingers and chips.

“So, here you have it. I'm eating at 9 P.M. Three hours later then we normally eat. I hate men,” she concludes.

In the video’s caption, Emes warns that conducting this kind of experiment will likely end up in disappoint and/or rage.

“Come on, who else plays this game with their other half?? I like to call it : 'Will he/won't he uphold the patriarchy by being a feckless twat?' Just as a warning, this game will leave you full of rage but empty of dinner,” she joked.

Emes’ video — which received over half a million views — resonated with so many overworked and under appreciated partners, many of whom shared their own stories of husbands completely dropped the ball.

“I have gone...’I'm not hungry so I'm not cooking tonight’ and then my husband is suddenly not hungry either. He'd rather starve than cook,” one user admitted.

“Mine says 'tell me what to cook and I'll do it' like, the decision is 90% of the labour,” one said.

Another commented, “Thinking about what to prepare for food 3 times a day every day is exhausting. sometimes I just want someone else to make a decision.🥺”

“Thank you for your sacrifice in conducting this experiment to which we all knew the outcome would be but still needed confirmation of,” one user wrote.

“😂😂 doing my bit for society,” Emes replied.

While Emes does a fantastic job of finding the humor in the frustration and rage that can come from having a husband who doesn’t pull their weight, there is something to be said about so many women posting on social media about their husbands’ lack of initiative.

Recent data revealed that, yes, most women are still carrying the mental, physical and emotional loads for their entire family.

Fifty-eight percent of moms surveyed reported they are the primary parent, responsible for the duties of running a household and family management. That result is up 2% from 2022.

51% of working moms (that’s moms who are working jobs just as much as their partners) are also managing the majority of the household chores — like cooking dinner. Even when moms are the breadwinners, they still do more of the household labor than their husbands.

If this seems mind boggling, take Emes’ experiment as the perfect case study. If women decided to stop handling the majority of the household tasks, they simply would not be done, or dinner would consist of frozen fish sticks at 9 p.m.