Some men are brilliant everywhere except inside the kitchen. My brother is a perfect example. He is 34. A PhD holder. He can explain quantum physics, fix a car engine, and argue politics for three straight hours without blinking. But ask him to boil rice and suddenly he becomes a confused five-year-old. “Erm…Sis, how many cups of water again? I don’t want to burn it o.” That men can’t cook is a lie we all agreed to tell!
Meanwhile, his wife works a full-time banking job, battles traffic to pick up two children from school, and still enters the kitchen by 7 p.m. because society quietly labelled cooking as “women’s work.” That idea is a lie!
It is not that many men cannot cook. It is that we have collectively agreed to pretend they can’t, so women automatically carry the burden of domestic labour. There is a name for this behaviour: weaponized incompetence. And it is one of the reasons many married women are exhausted before they turn 40.
What Is Weaponized Incompetence?
Weaponized incompetence happens when someone performs a task so badly, so slowly, or with so much drama that nobody asks them to do it again. You already know the examples.
The Kitchen Disaster
He says he “cannot cook.” You allow him to try once. He burns the stew, spends three hours making noodles, and leaves the kitchen looking like a disaster scene. The next time you are tired, you cook anyway because “it’s easier if I do it myself.”
The Baby Excuse
He says, “I don’t know how to carry the baby. She will cry.” Suddenly, every midnight feeding becomes your responsibility, even during weekends.
The Cleaning Performance
He “mops” by pushing dirt from one corner to another. You quietly re-mop after he sleeps. Eventually, you stop asking him entirely. The issue is usually not inability. It is convenience. Being bad at the task protects him from being asked again. And many women unknowingly enable it because we were raised to believe that a “good wife” is one who suffers silently.
The Hidden Cost Women Pay
I once asked 50 married women in Awka how many hours of housework they did daily after finishing their paid jobs. The average answer was 2 to 4 hours every single day. That is a second shift. Unpaid. Unnoticed. Uncelebrated.
The men averaged about 38 minutes, mostly helping with homework or taking out the trash. So when Nigerian women say they are tired, believe them. The “strong woman” narrative in our society often simply means “overworked woman.”
Weaponized incompetence is why many mothers looked older than their age. It is why older women describe marriage as endurance instead of partnership. It is why some wives stare at their sleeping husbands and wonder whether they married a partner or adopted another child.
“But My Husband Provides”. Yes, and many women also provide emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. Women birth children, manage homes, remember school schedules, coordinate family events, pray for everyone, and somehow still remember their husband’s mother’s birthday. Provision should not become an excuse for domestic imbalance. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, not a CEO-and-unpaid-staff arrangement.
If a man can master office software, he can learn to fry plantain. If he can drive from Awka to Lagos, he can learn how to use a washing machine. If he can supervise employees at work, he can learn to bathe his own child. Competence is not gendered. It is learned.
How to End the Pattern Without Turning the House Into a Battlefield
Shouting “you are lazy” rarely solves the problem. Most times, the behaviour simply gets worse. Strategy works better than anger.
- Stop Rescuing
If he burns the rice, let the family eat burnt rice that night — or eat bread. Consequences teach faster than lectures. Resist the urge to immediately take over.
- Lower Perfectionism
The floor may not sparkle the way you clean it. The child’s hair may not look salon-perfect. That is okay. Done by him is still better than destroyed by your exhaustion.
- Retire as Household CEO
Stop being the only person remembering every detail of family life. “What are we eating tonight?” “I don’t know. What are you making?” Let him think. Let him plan. Let him learn.
- Encourage Effort
“Thank you for trying the stew” can go a long way, even if the stew is too salty. People often repeat behaviours that are acknowledged. Corrections can come later and privately.
For Single Women Reading This
Add this question to your relationship checklist: “Can he take care of himself without depending on a woman?” Not luxury cooking. Basic survival. Can he boil water? Fry eggs? Wash clothes? Iron a shirt? Prepare simple meals? Because if a grown man cannot function without a wife acting as his caretaker, then marriage becomes unpaid parenting. And parenting adults is exhausting.
The Truth We Avoid
The truth is men can cook. They cook in the military. They cook while studying abroad. They cook when their mothers are ill. They cook during bachelor years. They cook during holidays when the women travel. Many simply stop cooking once there is a woman available to carry the responsibility. So the real question is not whether men can cook. The real question is:
Why do we keep pretending they cannot? Because as long as society accepts that performance, women will continue returning home from work only to begin a second shift. And many women are simply too young to already be this tired.
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By Sylvia Tochukwu-Ngige
Founder of http://sylviangige.com
Where women’s power meets real life.