Note: I agree with your sentiment 100%.

I screw up and work on it, but I don't see the dishes, laundry, and general cleanup I do as anything special. I suck at cooking (my skills aren't good, but I will try), so the preference in my household is she cooks because to laughingly state ... Alan I don't know how you make eggs so rubbery :) ), but there is balance. BTW: I can't stand how my wife does laundry, for whom she doesn't understand the "ritual" requires sorting by color and type, and folding the clothes and putting them away :)

Additional Discussion:

I wonder what it will really take to take the "bar" of basic partnership and lift it from the one inch hole in the ground society has setup with men and masculinity.

The discussions that happen appear consistently to be going on deaf ears if we look at media based articles. Furthermore, by action, it appears men in modern society don't place value in it. So how does one incentivize it or educate to make it more the norm?

I don't have the answer, all I know is what I did for me. One tactic is as you suggest, but in a way it caters to men who benefit by the silence, and then with women dealing with the lion share of the relationship "shit" show, who then speak their frustration out.

On my side, I see my wife as a human being, and I attempt to do as much as I can. The problem is the extra work, means there is little to nothing left for intimacy and other aspects by the time I deal with a crazy work schedule, helping where I can and doing my part, all I can do is just crash into bed with a book and go to sleep. I am the sole bread winner in my household (if that helps folks draw a picture), and my wife she works hard doing the farm work, but at the end agriculture doesn't pay :)

I am glad to do it and help, but as women feel here too at some point one wonders why ...