Using Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play to challenge weaponised incompetence

Have you heard this term yet? Weaponised incompetence labels the way people intentionally do a task badly or they pretend they can’t do it, as a way of avoiding responsibility. It’s a way to manipulate other people into doing the task instead.

We see it used a lot to justify why, in general, women are doing so much more unpaid labour than men. It’s also common in coercive control situations.

“She’s just better at it than me” is one version of this. So is “I just don’t notice when the floor needs vacuuming”. Or “The kids just scream when I do it, they want you.” (This last one might absolutely be true, but the answer is not to put it all on her. The answer is to learn how to do it in a way that actually meets your kids’ needs in the same way she’s learned to. Or recognise that’s how it is for now and do more of the cooking/cleaning/organising instead).

The Fair Play cards are an excellent tool for challenging weaponised incompetence. They lay out what’s involved in a task, but even more than that, they give you a minimum standard of care. You don’t have to spend hours arguing over what “good enough” looks like. If you can mutually agree on what “good enough” looks like already, great. But if you can’t, check out the minimum standard of care for each task. That’s what’s reasonable to expect each other to achieve at a minimum. That’s what needs to be achieved to meet your needs, each others’ needs and your children’s needs. The minimum standard of care is what adulting looks like.

If either of you consistently doesn’t meet that standard, even after you’ve both talked about it, that’s weaponised incompetence. It’s manipulative behaviour, deliberately chosen to avoid being an adult. Once you see that clearly, you can think about what that means for you and your family.

The Fair Play cards are freely available as an electronic version here.

Click on each card on the Fair Play site to see the minimum standard of care.