A woman who has to keep pestering her man to get off his butt and do some necessary domestic chores is seen as a nag, while a man who pesters a woman to look sexier or be stricter with the kids is just the voice of common sense.
Well, that's the popular stereotype anyway. But have you ever heard of a nagging husband? A husband who's demanding maybe, or fussy or pedantic. But not one who's a "nag", with all the insulting overtones that implies.
It struck me that one reason Jenny and I still get along so well is that neither of us nags. If there's something about the other person that bugs us, we'll mention it but we won't bang on about it. Either the other person responds or they don't, and that's that. Or we don't mention it at all because it's not that important, or it's purely a question of personal taste.
Nagging is usually counter-productive anyway. The more you nag someone about something, the more you get their back up and the less likely you are to achieve anything.
To my mind, if a woman "nags", there's often a very good reason for it. Like a man who always "forgets" to do the food shopping, or is forever "running late" for everything, or "doesn't have the time" to get the leaky tap fixed. But he has plenty of time to update Facebook or read the sports news. She's not "nagging", she just wants him to pull his weight and not keep taking the piss.
Not so much nagging as getting a grip.
