“Chuckdarwin,” while criticizing the Male Privilege Checklist, wrote:
5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.
Anecdotal. Unprovable. As a manager, I have fired people for sexually harassing men at work.
I looked into this after reading Chuck’s post, and I think he has a point. #5 is too strongly worded; in the US, according to Federal EEOC statistics, the proportion of sexual harassment charges filed by women has dropped from about 90% to about 85% over the last decade. Therefore, I’ve rewritten #5 to say “I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are.”
27. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car.
Salesmen just want your money, no matter who you are. While it may still happen in rare cases, this is just neurotic tinfoil hattery and an unimportant concern in the grand scheme of women’s issues.
That this happens – and doesn’t appear to be a matter of “rare cases” – has been documented by sending male and female negotiators, trained to use identical negotiating techniques, to car lots to negotiate for cars. The initial offers made to men are simply better. (This doesn’t mean that women will always pay more, just that they’ll have to negotiate harder to reach the same price.) (References at bottom of post).
Admittedly, the academic research I’ve read only applies to the US. However, a November 2005 story in The Guardian reported that a non-academic British study had found similar results.
What Car? magazine sent men and women into 45 dealerships across England, and used hidden cameras and microphones to track their progress.
The team found the women were quoted up to £1,800 more to buy a BMW 320i, Ford Focus 1.6, Nissan X-Trail 2.2 dCi, Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 and Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet 1.6. On average they were asked to pay a premium of £534. [That’s $1,005 U.S. -Amp]
Less than half the staff were happy to cut prices for female customers, compared with more than four-fifths for men.
More women thought their inquiry had not been taken seriously by the dealer, and complained that finance packages had not been explained. Even the presence of a man appeared to cut prices, with couples offered a better deal even if the woman took the lead.
In general, the theory that the free market prevents market-based discrimination from happening – “Salesmen just want your money, no matter who you are,” as Chuck puts it – has not been supported by the experiences of discriminated-against groups, or by empirical testing.
37. If I have a wife or girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.
This one is just plain old insulting.
#37 is well-supported by tons of research, from a large number of countries (I’ve included a handful of citations at the bottom of this post). Women do more household chores, and in particular are more likely to scrub the toilet, wash dishes, change the diapers, etc – tasks that must be repeated again and again, day after day.
I don’t see why any man should find this insulting. Some men do as much or more housework than the women they live with (I live with such a man), but statistically these men are a minority; why be insulted because I point this fact out?
41. I am not expected to spend my entire life 20-40 pounds underweight.
Come on, now. This is all based on ‘target weight’, which is in no way an exact science (and that’s as nice as I can be about the ‘subject’). No one EXPECTS any woman to be 40 pounds underweight. Some famous models and actresses may try this, but most people actually say it’s a BAD thing (reading the tabloids whilst in line to purchase groceries).
41. Probably I could have phrased this better – in particular, including a particular poundage was a mistake. So point well taken. I’ll have to reword this item.
But I feel that Chuck is focusing on the trees and ignoring the forest. Is there any serious doubt that women as a group face much more pressure than men to be thin?
(This is one of a number of posts responding to Chuck’s critique. You can use the category archive to see all posts related to the Male Privilege Checklist.)
References
Ayres, Ian, “Fair Driving: Gender and Race Discrimination in Retail Car Negotiations,” Harvard Law Review, volume 104 (4), February 1991, pages 817-872.
Ayres, Ian and Siegelman, Peter. “Race and Gender Discrimination in Bargaining for a New
Car.” American Economic Review, June 1995, 85(3), pp. 304″“21.
Batalova J.A.1, Cohen P.N., Premarital Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross-National Perspective, Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 64, Number 3, August 2002, pp. 743-755.
Harless D.W., Hoffer G.E., Do Women Pay More for New Vehicles? Evidence from Transaction Price Data, The American Economic Review, Volume 92, Number 1, 1 March 2002, pp. 270-279.
Joni Hersch, Leslie S. Stratton, Housework and Wages, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 37, No. 1. (Winter, 2002), pp. 217-229.
Lee, Yun-Suk & Waite, Linda J. (2005), Husbands’ and wives’ time spent on housework: A comparison of measures. Journal of Marriage and Family 67 (2), 328-336.
Fiona Scott Morton, Florian Zettelmeyer, Jorge Silva-Risso, Consumer Information and Discrimination: Does the Internet Affect the Pricing of New Cars to Women and Minorities?, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, Volume 1, Issue 1, Mar 2003, Pages 65 – 92
Scott J. South, Glenna Spitze, Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households, American Sociological Review, Vol. 59, No. 3. (Jun., 1994), pp. 327-347..
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While you’re looking up references for nitpicks missing the forest for the trees… What’s your evidence for 28? I was under the impression the for say shortness in males the affects on dating options and income are very strong. I’d have imagined that other measures of unattractiveness in men would also have had large affects. Anyway, from experience you tend to be more knowledgeable about this sort of thing than I, so I look forward to any evidence on the matter that you might have.
And again, this question has no bearing on the general importance or accuracy of the list. Just curiousity on this one point.
#37 doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with discrimination or expectations. Most women are simply cleaner than men, and want things to be cleaner than men do.
I could happily go for years without caring how clean the inside of the toilet bowl is — but I’ve never had a girlfriend who would let it go more than a month or two without scrubbing. Am I opressing them by not giving a damn what the inside of a toilet looks like? I don’t ask them to do it, and if they didn’t do it, I’d never even notice. But they do, and according to your logic it’s because of gender inequality? That just doesn’t pass the common sense test.
Nathaniel, do you think you’d never notice if years went by and neither of you ever washed a dish or washed clothes?
Anecdotally (so take it for what it’s worth – but your post was anecdotal too, after all), I’ve known multiple men who could go for years without ever washing a toilet or cleaning their stovetop – but only because they’d complain to their female partner if things get too dirty.
And Natheniel, WHY do you think women care about the inside of a toilet? Do you think there’s a toilet-cleaning gene that just magically appears in women? Or do you think perhaps there is pressure for women to keep an organized house?
Antigone – it’s entirely possible that women have to one degree or another been selected during evolution for better hygiene than men.
Male reproductive organs are not particularly susceptible to functional damage except in the most extreme cases of poor hygiene. Perfectly healthy women, unfortunately, deal with yeast infections, vaginitis, etc on a regular basis, and any one of those dozens of common bacteria can cause sterility. For women, cleaning the genitals and underclothes on a regular basis is about more than just smelling nice.
Ampersand — division of labor has as much to do with personal priorities as any societal pressure. Most guys I have known are perfectly happy to wear dirty clothes or use dishes 2 or 3 times before cleaning them thoroughly. We all did it just fine for ourselves when we were single, contrary to the stereotypes of incompetent men in the home. When we join households with a woman, if she finds we aren’t doing it frequently enough or has higher standards for what she’d like, it only makes sense for her to do it to her own standards.
Hahaha. Okay, now I’ve heard it all. Why yes, Virginia, there -is- a toilet cleaning gene.
Thank you Nathaniel, for such a wonderful laugh.
Frequency and severity of diseases to male and female genitalia, relation to overall health, percentage of each resulting in sterility, and tracing of each to hygiene–got stats?? How can you prove the hygiene part?
Might there not be cultural/mythical factors in the way that deodorant sprays and so on for guys are just sort of all-purpose, but women are told that they need special sprays for a part that only they have? It sounds like the modern version of the old taboos. You’d think the deodorant companies would decide they could make twice as much money if they insulted each sex equally, but no, when it comes ot private parts, they gotta pick on women.
One of these days I’m gonna come up with a unisex genital deodorant. When I do, I’ll call it The Pit And The Pendulum.
When we join households with a woman, if she finds we aren’t doing it frequently enough or has higher standards for what she’d like, it only makes sense for her to do it to her own standards.
Case in point: A few years ago, I had a girlfriend who lived out-of-state. Before she came to visit me for the first time, I gave my apartment what I thought was a thorough cleaning. I was quite proud of the results, but upon her arrival she immediately pronounced it inadequate and insisted, to my mortification, on doing the job herself.
I have known both men and women who are scrupulous about their personal appearance but who are total slobs at home. I have known men and women who are slovenly, just as I have known those who are neat freaks. Overall, it seems women are socialized more to see the dirt. Further, women are socialized to clean it up because no one else is going to do it. Men are just as capable of sweeping the floor or picking up cat barf as women, but many of them are socialized that it’s not their responsibility. True story: Years ago, I was visiting my now-ex’s parents’ house and his cat barfed in his room after Mom had gone to bed. This able-bodied young man (who professed to be a feminist) did not ask me (his female guest), “Can you tell me how to clean this up?” but “Could you clean it for me?”
My wife (who is at least as conservative as I am) thinks it’s all socialization. She notes (accurately) that there are a lot of men who are trained/spoiled by their mothers and later their wives to never pick up after themselves. I recognize the existence of the socialization, but…
I have a spoon in my office. I use it to eat canned fruit, or ice cream, or sometimes cereal. It’s too much bother to walk up and down the stairs for a lousy spoon, so I use the same one over and over again. I just wipe it on my shirt to clean it off before each use. I think the spoon was last washed in a dishwasher or sink, oh, six months ago. In our discussion of this question, I mentioned the spoon and said that I didn’t think that many women would do that, and I certainly hadn’t been socialized into not caring about clean cutlery. She said “I think I took that spoon back to the kitchen – it was on the floor.”
My honest response: “What?!? The one on the floor was my backup spoon!”
I gotta think that some of this is in the bone.
Angiportus — excellent questions, all. I certainly don’t have stats in front of me and don’t profess to, I’m just going off of what my ob/gyn friends have shared over the years. I’m just suggesting that there are potentially more fundamental factors that could be coming into play on that specific topic, so Ampersand saying correlation=causation is unlikely to convince anyone who isn’t already convinced.
At a basic level, just ask yourself how often young, healthy men have to go to the doctor to make sure their genitals are in good health? I can’t recall any of the hundreds of doctors I’ve worked with suggesting that it was necessary until the age of 40 or 50 when prostate and testicular cancers become more common.
Women, on the other hand, have to do many little preventative tasks on a regular basis, from peeing after sex to changing and cleaning underclothes even more frequently during menstruation. No, it’s not fair that guys can just roll over and go to sleep covered in all sorts of foreign fluids and remain perfectly healthy, or that we can wear the same underwear for 30 days without washing them (though you might get some nasty dermatitis, which wouldn’t be comfortable on the penis but isn’t going to make you sterile).
Denise — sorry about the guy, sounds like a jerk. I should think if he grew up around cats, cleaning up their hairballs would be an unconscious activity by adulthood!
Bunk, bunk and more bunk. The bottom line is that cleaning has been tied up with personal worth far more with women, than it has with men. People are inclined to give men a pass on cleaning ‘oh, boys will be boys’ ‘oh he’s such a guy when it comes to cleaning’, whereas women are far more likely to hear scathing judgements upon her as a person if she partakes in the same habits. That is male priviledge, not fucking rocket science.
Personal hygiene is a completely other subject.
Kim –
Surely. I accept the existence of the social pressure/character formation, and with the differential in judgement that is implied.
That doesn’t make it inconceivable that there is an inborn component as well. In fact, it’s immaterial to that question.
I’m female and not much for house cleaning. I can relate to Robert’s spoon, although mine was a coffee cup. But I feel weird about not caring; I feel like I’m lacking some urge I am supposed to have. I think that’s the result of socialization that women and girls receive. The men who commented here appear not to have received this socialization insofar as they seem to feel it’s perfectly natural for them not to care about cleaning.
I might argue therefore that it’s a male privilege not to be constantly assaulted by messages about how it’s your responsibility to keep your environment clean and tidy.
The men who commented here appear not to have received this socialization insofar as they seem to feel it’s perfectly natural for them not to care about cleaning.
See, here’s the thing. We got the socialization. “Pick that up. This isn’t a pigsty. When you clean something, you wash it.” And on and on and on and on. And the socialization basically worked; I wash my clothes. I clean off the toilet every once in a while. When I take my plate to the sink, I scrape it and rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. I empty the dishwasher when it’s my turn. If a dog or a baby shits on the floor, I clean it up.
But I don’t dust every individual slat of the Venetian blinds. I don’t change the sheets every two days. I’ll make a bed, but I don’t put it in hospital corners and arrange five layers of freaking shams and comforters and dingelhoppers and Buddha alone knows what else. I wipe the crud off the toilets, but I don’t go down on all fours with a toothbrush and play Apocalypse Now with individual microbes. If my baby blows a booger on the furniture, I pick it up with a tissue and throw it out, I don’t call in the EPA Hazmat team for a detox.
In short, I’m decently clean (thanks entirely to socialization – my natural inclination is Porcinus Maximus), but I’m not freaking nuts.
When guys talk about women wanting things cleaner than men, that’s what we’re talking about. The Nut Zone. The “let’s spend 30 hours a week on housework” zone. The zone where Martha Stewart isn’t held in an ironic light.
And it seems to be a largely female preserve, and it seems to be pretty much a voluntary entrance kind of deal. There’s lots of social pressure to wash your kids and not have needles in the front yard. There’s not that much pressure to have perfectly aligned toast points at your daily garden soiree.
Every woman I have ever known or been involved with, a not inconsiderable population (albeit, n
I, for one, tend to be quite messy but no matter how much anecdotal evidence we bring out, it cannot be questioned that women are much more socialised to be neat and cleanly. I know I get judged on my neatness and always feel obligated to clean up if others will see or use an area.
As for women’s genital problems, the risk factors for those are: having intercourse without being sufficiently lubricated and/or turned on, wearing tightfitting underwear in artificial materials, shaving, and washing too regularly or using too much soap. So being obsessed with hygiene is actually a disadvantage for women – not the opposite.
Here’s the thing that I think often flies under the radar of most people when considering ingrained sexism when it comes to housekeeping and cleaning. My family is a great example of the sexist cleaning dynamic. My mother and father both work full-time, but my mother has always accepted that cleaning is her responsibility. My father does some cleaning duties, but they really don’t stack up to the day to day housekeeping that my mother does.
In so much as the whole home stuff is my mothers domain (or yolk), she has at times inadvertantly tried to pass that on to me. We would have family dinners and my mother would then expect me to help clean up afterwards as my father, brother and she assumed husband would go into the other room have coffee and chat, or watch tv. Upon her asking, I would immediatly respond with ‘Sure, Matt and I would be happy to help’. She would literally get upset and insist I was trying to make a statement, to which I’d respond, well to an extent I am. It’s taken several years for her to accept that after dinner help is a team dynamic with Matt and I, and we are committed to continuing this so our daughters will not make similar distinctions. I have to say one of the funniest attempts my mother made at trying to circumvent my actions was by saying that this time was a time for female bonding – I responded, well why don’t they clean and we can go into the other room and have coffee and chat. When I’ve really tried to dig in and ask her why she does this, she has acknowledged that she sees it as her job. Granted my dad is pretty good about doing things when asked, but that it needs to be asked is where I always end up getting irritated with them.
So let me say it one more time – the vagina does not endow women with super powers of housekeeping.
Ahh. Cleaning. It’s socialization. (Let’s see if I can do this without stepping into any gender boots.) A good number of my female friends are socialization-resisters, the kind of people who assume role mores don’t apply to them. This correlates both with male role traits (desire to be the breadwinner, the driver, etc.) and with how much of a “bachelor” they are in their housekeeping. I know likewise resistant males.
Due to my brain chemistry (personal, not gender-related) I get badly frustrated by repetition. Therefore, if I think I can get away with not cleaning something, I’ll fob it off on someone who has less of a passionate hatred for the task than I do, and do some kind of nice thing for them later. The recipient of this fobbing-off is not usually female. When I lived by myself, it was usually “me some hours later.”, but I was very recognizably living in a bachelor pad.
Regarding sales, I’d say, as a long-time salesperson, that “Salesmen just want your money, no matter who you are” is truer than you think — but it’s more likely to lead to discrimination than prevent it. Demographic-izing is a sad reality of the business. There are these “men are” and “women are” statements that run around in people’s heads, and one of them is “Women are interested in luxury shopping, and less frugal than men.” It’s a perception that probably swings in from the fashion industry and advertising.
in 1999, I bought a vw diesel. Because the 1998 diesels had sold so poorly (not because they weren’t great cars) and because California’s import restrictions on cars without 3-stage catalytic converters, there were no 1999 vw diesels available in my area. However, there were five 1998s within 50 miles, still sitting unsold.
Everything about dealing with the salesman was a total hassle. But when it came time to talk about the price, he quoted me $400 less than the sticker price for 1999. For a car that was a year old and had significantly fewer features and had even been advertised for less.
I blinked at him. “Is this a joke?” Why was he making fun of me? Was this funny in some way I was missing?
I wish that I had just left at that point, but alas I did not. Although, given that sales guys work on commission and there were so few of this model of car, if I had simply walked out, I could have easily been blacklisted such that I would have to deal with that guy or deal with nobody.
I got my car, but I know paid too much for it. I’d bet money that his negotiation style with men was completely different.
I am never buying a new car again. Way too much hassle.
Since we’re trading anecdotal stories —
My mom’s a neat freak. Saturday is her cleaning day and she takes it seriously. Toilets get scrubbed, sheets get washed, floors get mopped, rugs get vaccuumed, etc etc etc. Seeing a lone dirty glass or plate sitting after use anywhere other than the dishwasher drives her mad, no matter how recently said dirty food receptacle had been emptied. When my brother and I were growing up, her incessant nagging to bring the plates to the kitchen, to pick up the dirty towels, to wash the dishes immediately after using them, etc etc etc drove *us* mad.
Growing up, my dad certainly contributed to the household chores, although I will admit that my mom usually took care of the toilet scrubbing. But my dad regularly cooked dinner and washed up afterwards, vaccuumed the rugs, etc etc. He also took care of all the stuff like mucking out the eaves, taking the garbage to the curb, household repairs, stuff like that.
Neither my brother nor I are particularly prone to tidiness, which meant that we were nagged a lot. I’m one of those people mentioned above who is obsessive about the cleanliness of her person and likes always to look “put together” in social situations. I can’t stand not showering or washing my hair for more than 2 days, which is why camping and I have never gotten on particularly well. But if you were to visit my home unannounced on a typical day, you’d more than likely find dirty dishes on my counter or in my sink, clothes on my bedroom floor, grooming products strewn across my bathroom counter and a less-than-pristinely-scrubbed toilet.
When I first moved out of my mom’s house, I loved never having anyone harass me about the cleanliness level of my residence. Sometimes I would seriously use every single plate, glass and piece of cutlery until finally, 3 weeks later, I was forced to wash dishes simply to have something to eat off of and because I could literally no longer see the top of my counter or move anything without a mountain of dirty dishes crashing down on my head. I would clean up if I knew someone was coming over, but that usually had more to do with my concern over how they would perceive me when they saw what a slob I truly was or my concern over someone else being uncomfortable in my mess than any real desire on my part to be clean. Of course, when things began to reach critical mass, I’d go on an all-day cleaning spree. Rinse, repeat. I could go for months without cleaning the bathroom.
When my brother and I bought a townhouse and took up housekeeping together, it was amazing how much my level of tolerance for general slobbery decreased. When you have two slobs making a mess, things reach critical mass far more quickly. 90% of all the arguments between my brother and I in the first year we lived together have been about division of labour in household chores. Mostly because I get tired of cleaning up after him if I want the house to stay even semi-decent. I can’t force him to clean up after himself, so a lot of times it’s either leave it alone and suffer or do it myself. It’s frustrating to do a pile of dishes, go to my boyfriend’s house for the weekend and then return to a pile of dirty dishes, none of which I have even used, that I have to wash if I would like to cook myself dinner.
Amp’s point in the list about how women end up doing the more repetitive, mind-numbing tasks disproprotionately often really hit home for me, because when my brother and I get into it over these issues, his defense is usually that he contributes in other ways like taking out the garbage or taking the empty bottles from the temporary storage cupboard into the basement — things that need to get done far less often. My argument is that walking a bag of trash that I have gathered up or scraped from plates into the bag and then tied up and left by the door out to the dumpster once every couple days or moving the bottles from the cupboard to the basement once every three months or dusting the coffee table once a week is hardly equivalent to taking care of washing the dishes day in and day out, week in and week out. Often times, he’s said “if you want me to do something all you have to do is ask.” The thing is that he’s a grown man and it’s not my job to nag him into taking care of his share. Though I will say that after a few brutal screaming fights, things have evened out more now.
I have a male cousin who washed the drapes in his bedroom every two weeks of his own volition when he was 15 years old, vaccuumed daily and dusted daily. He’s a neat freak type and his parents never ever had to ask him to clean up. My boyfriend is far tidier than I am and if he and I ever move in together I’m going to have to change my slovenly ways even more so than I already have just so we can both be comfortable in our mutual environment.
If there is some kind of evolutionary biological imperative that provides women with an innate desire to clean up, I’m obviously missing it. If there is some kind of evolutionary biological imperative that prompts men sit on their ass and live blissfully in a dirty house unless there is a woman around who wants it clean, my cousin and my boyfriend are obviously missing it. I’m really tired of this argument that social or cultural norms which place unfair burden on women should not be analyzed or challenged and should be excused because “it’s evolution.” What a load of crap. Even if it *is* (which I, like Kim, think is laughable), there are plenty of ways that humans in civilized society circumvent their supposed evolutionary traits for a greater social or moral good. Proclaiming that women are just hardwired to want to clean more and we should therefore shut up, scrub and accept our genetic lot is beyond ridiculous.
The cleaning thing came up just a few months ago; discussions of it were on Pandagon, Feministe, and other places. A few threads included Internalized sexism and invisibility of privillege and the vacuum myth. The Hirschman article also prompted a post from Bitch PhD about the drive required for the woman to get an even split on chores.
I wish you had walked out too, because you just reinforced in him that his behavior was reasonable. As long as women buy cars for too much money, there is no reason for salesmen not to give women higher starting prices in the negotiation. If their experience tells them that men are more willing to haggle, why not do this? Saying “it’s not fair” doesn’t help their bottom line any.
I have to say, that, as a man, I find this sort of behavior annoying. You are annoyed at your mother for assuming that you would help, but then you assume that your husband will help. Give him a chance to volunteer. Even if he is expected to volunteer, it’s nice to have a choice.
Also, I’ve observed that with older folks like mothers, grandmothers, etc…sometimes they are not comfortable if the roles are challenged. My wife’s family is like that. They don’t _want_ any men in the kitchen. If men go in to help with dishes, it causes conversations to stop and so on. It’s different than my family, but there’s something to be said for respecting these sorts of things.
I can’t clean. (I’m a woman) The thing that gets me about cleaning is that nothing ever seems to get done. You do an hour of housework one day, and the next day, you have to do another hour of housework. And it never ends. Add a load of higher priority tasks on top of that, and you get a pigsty. My theory for other people is that they internalize the social approval they got for cleaniing and that reinforces them, but my parents are neat freaks, so nothing was ever clean enough- they mop the ceiling(ok, my mom does, but my dad complains about it) and put plates on tables that no one ever uses. The fact that I wash dishes every 18 hours or so can’t compare.
Ampersand:
In general, the theory that the free market prevents market-based discrimination from happening – “Salesmen just want your money, no matter who you are,” as Chuck puts it – has not been supported by the experiences of discriminated-against groups, or by empirical testing.
The theory works just fine. The problem is that if you’re not prepared to take your money elsewhere, you’re basically dealing with a monopolist. Salesmen will try to charge you as much as they think they can get away with. If men are, in general, significantly better at bargaining than women, or if they’re more likely to walk away if quoted an excessively high price, then the optimal first offer is higher for women than for men.
This is just speculation, but it seems like a woman should be able to overcome the stereotype of women as bad bargainers by providing additional information, e.g., by responding to an insulting offer with “I’ll give you one more chance to quote me a serious price, and then I’m leaving,” or just leaving without giving him a second chance and then mentioning this to the salesman at the next place. Of course, if you don’t know what you should expect to pay, this is a bit harder.
Les:
Are you sure that the fact that you were trying to buy a hard-to-find vehicle wasn’t a at least as important a factor in the price you were quoted as the fact that you were a woman? You say yourself that you were afraid to leave because you didn’t have many options—maybe he knew that, too.
plunky said:
It sounded to me like Kim and her husband were in agreement about what they wanted to do. As that is the case, it seems like there’s a big difference.
On the one hand, her mother was making an assumption based on sexist ideas about division of labour which resulted in people being divided along gender lines into a male group doing leisure activities and a female group doing housework EVERY TIME they get together for dinner.
On the other hand, Kim was making an assumption that, based on her husband’s voluntary agreement that this was an important example to set in raising feminist children, he would be helping with dishes.
The idea that “it sure would be nice to be allowed to volunteer” assumes that somehow, getting the dishes done is a voluntary and optional activity for him, but not necessarily for her. Clearly it’s a mandatory activity for somebody, unless they constantly eat off of disposable dishes.
Are you saying it’s not fair to assume her husband would help? Why?
Oh well, if we’re going to speak anecdotally, my family is the precise opposite of the norm. My mother is a slob. My father is a neat freak. Anything that was more than desultory cleaning was done by my father. My brother is much neater than I am and was at a relatively young age.
Now that I’m an adult, I pay a man to clean my apartment every week so as to avoid doing the major tasks, as I hate them. Really, all of them. He does the laundry, the vacuuming, the mopping, and even grocery shopping and picking up/dropping off my dry cleaning. I do like to live in a clean apartment, but there is no nut zone in mine. Things are not spotless and papers are not terribly organized. Even if I were so inclined, which I am absolutely not, I work full-time and really don’t want to spend my free time doing massive amounts of housework.
In my limited experience, people who spend massive amounts of time house-cleaning are generally trying to keep their surroundings organized to make up for what they feel is a lack of control in the rest of their lives. There’s nothing scientific about that and it may well not apply beyond the boundaries of my family. However, when I think of all the neat freaks in my family (including my extended family), that dynamic certainly applies. It’s not genetic.
And Natheniel, WHY do you think women care about the inside of a toilet? Do you think there’s a toilet-cleaning gene that just magically appears in women? Or do you think perhaps there is pressure for women to keep an organized house?
Amusingly, the husband is the one who complains about the hard water stains (we get those pink deposits due to hard water) in the toilet bowl.
Of course, he complains to me, and then I point out there’s a bottle of bleach under the sink and he knows what to do with it.
(dumping about half a cup of bleach into a bowl with hard water stains and shutting the lid for about 30 minutes will eliminate those stains)
No, what I said doesn’t assume that dishes are voluntary for him, and not for her.
I am merely saying that I’ve run into this firm pushing way of getting people to do things, and it annoys me. Kim’s post makes it clear that she doesn’t like it either (when her mother assumes that Kim will help clean up and the men will go away). If she and her husband have an agreement, she can assume that he will volunteer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it when people tell me to do something that I’m already going to do. Thanks, but I’ll decide myself.
I would never dream of talking to my wife in a similar manner.
Weird, weird thread.
Really weird.
I think the cleaning thing is largely socialization. Anecdotal evidence: when my husband (at that time, my boyfriend) was in graduate school, he and 5 of his fellow graduate students rented a house together. Every one of these men had a girlfriend, but the space was too small and cramped for any of the girlfriends to become a permanent resident, although we were all frequent visitors. There were also two cats, who nominally belonged to one of my husband’s housemates. You would think that the women would have done all the cleaning, or that the house was a total pigsty, but not so. Occasionally, one of the women would do some housework (usually the grocery shopping, and as there was a receipt system for reimbursement, so we usually got some money back), but over time each of the men adopted a specific part of the housework as his thing to take care of, and everybody picked up after themselves (including in the kitchen). My husband and one other of the men were the ones who usually cleaned the bathrooms, and to this day, my husband generally does a much better job of it than I do, as well as being somewhat neater than I am. I’m not a total slob, but I am a “piler,” so unless I have a significant block of time or energy, I tend to have little piles all over the place, although I usually know exactly where everything is. He likes having everything picked up and put away, except for his socks, for some reason.
I’m another one of those women who is not particularly neat. My mother isn’t either, although my dad does a lot of “the floor is dirty” and expecting my mom to hop right to it and clean it up. My boyfriend is a neat freak compared to me, largly due to his mother. His parent’s house is immaculate, and at family gatherings it is always the women who do everything. Cook, set the table, serve, sit down last, first ones up to clear the table for the next course. But my boyfriend is one of 3 brothers and he is the only one that helps the women clean up or do the dishes. Is it because she spoils the other two by doing everything for them? Or is it because he’s 24 and the other two are still teenagers?
So is this all gender orientated, social, or a matter of maturity? It’s a little bit of all of that. This is a nature vs. nurture argument in some ways, and the two can’t be seperated. Some of it we teach, some of it is innate. For women however, this particular issue is definitely taught and emphasized more than it is for men. As a woman, I get some pretty weird looks and am sometimes excluded from conversations because, for example, I don’t think the sheets will get dirty if I don’t make my bed every morning. But that could depend on the women you are talking to. Is cleaning something men discuss? Do they talk about the best way to get out stains?
Do they talk about the best way to get out stains?
Only Democratic members of the executive branch.
I should probably have clarified that somewhat, but since I didn’t I will now. Matt is completely in agreement with me about taking on these sorts of issues as a team in a highly visible manner to combat the very quiet message that is being sent. In saying ‘Matt and I would be happy to help’, we are affirming to our daughters that Matt isn’t just helping out Kim who has a responsiblity, but instead Matt and Kim both helping as a responsibility of people partaking in the dinner, regardless of gender.
As for older women not wanting men in the kitchen, well, that’s the point my mother has made. That conversations are had, and it’s a time of female bonding. Again, I reiterate, bullshit and not acceptible. Playing along with an antiquated sexist dynamic for the comfort of my older female relatives is not worth the message sent to my daughters.
The message you’d rather send to your daughters is that you know better than all your older relatives?
The message you’d rather send to your daughters is that you know better than all your older relatives?
And, if you see people making a transaction that you wouldn’t make, be sure to break that up. Making statements is more important than letting other adults live their own lives.
That “clean dishes/cutlery” socialization seems to have been reversed in my family. Back when we washed dishes by hand, I would regularly find food residue on dishes my wife had washed (I was drying them, not checking up on her). When I commented, she said that in her family it was the job of the person who was drying the dishes to wipe that off. In my family, the person drying the dishes would hand back any dish with food still on it to the washer to re-clean it. I should note that I had regular practice at this; I had two older brothers and no sisters, and we all shared duty.
Now that we have a dishwasher, she never looks at the condition of the dishes; she just pulls them out and puts them away when she does it. That means that I regularly find dishes in drawers and cabinets with food residue baked on them (especially the cutlery). When I do the dishes, I rinse off everything before it goes in the dishwasher, or at least soak it to loosen stuff like spaghetti pots, etc. Part of that could be the fact that I’m a biology major and spent a fair amount of time in the lab. I’ve cleaned my fair share of biology and chemistry glassware, and it’s second nature to look at a glass and look for the smallest spot.
Mom taught us how to wash dishes, clothes, floors and toilets. I was taught how to use a sewing machine and how to repair a seam by hand (I still sew all the patches on my Scout uniforms, and I have 5 uniform sets). I also learned to cook. And we all got plenty of opportunity to exercise these skills. Mom said, “I don’t want my boys to have to depend on a woman to take care of themselves.”
God bless my late mother-in-law; she was a wonderful woman, but no domestic engineer. I remember when I would be over at their house when we were dating and my father-in-law would complain that his underwear always had holes in it. I found out why the first time I was in the basement and saw my wife load the underwear in the washing machine. She threw in the detergent, and then, just like her mother had shown her, poured straight bleach in on top of the clothes and start the machine filling with water.
No, I’d have to say that if there is such a socialization, it’s definitely not universal.
Kim, I think you and Matt’s “statement” is a good idea. It’s quite true that many women, and not just older ones, have this expectation. That expectation also applies before the meal, when the cooking is being done. Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc., men are chased out of the kitchen, regardless of any skills they may have.
The exception, of course, is when cooking is done over an open flame or charcoal. Barbecue/grilling seems to be a male domain. Not that I have any objection to standing outside drinking whiskey and beer while cooking up a bunch of meat and bullshitting with the guys, but there are definitely some assumptions being made.
This socialization, and recently societial changes, have been causing me some problems in the BSA. Female leaders are becoming more and more common in Scouting. What I find during and after meal times are two issues:
1) The boys have no cooking or cleaning skills. They don’t even know how to wipe down a table, dabbing at it with a wet sponge instead of wiping it across the surface, rinsing it out, etc.
2) About 1/2 of the female leaders seem to think that their title is “Troop Mom” instead of “Assistant Scoutmaster” and keep stepping in to cook, clean, etc.
I have had to step in and tell women, “Please set that down and step away. That’s your son’s job.” I have had to tell this to some of them several times. And I’ve seen a lot of resistance from boys about learning how to cook and clean, never mind doing it. I’ve seen boys quit over the idea that they would actually be expected to cook their own food and clean up afterwards.
BTW; I say “Assistant Scoutmaster” because our Scoutmaster is male. I have seen some fine female Scoutmasters. I’ve also seen some not-so-fine ones, but then I’ve seen some not-so-fine male SMs as well.
Interesting thread. I’ve always stated that there are some things that biology or “nature” explains and some things that socialization or “nurture” explains. Anecdotally, I am not that neat a person. I’ve never really been overly neat, but can’t stand dirt. So though my desk is a mess and there are clothes on the floor, the bathroom and kitchen are spotless. My husband is exactly opposite of me, and is a neat freak and a clean freak.
I believe this is because my Mother was fanatical about cleaning as was her Mother and I’m still rebelling against that “What will people think if you’re house is dirty” mantra I heard my whole life. I mean my mother used to iron the towels and sheets on a daily basis. My husband grew up in a military household, and was the only one of three children without some form of learning or developmental disorder. This meant that my husband was taught the mantra that I had heard all my life, but unlike me he finds a clean and tidy environment to be more relaxing than I do. I don’t give much thought to my environment unless something is broken. This means that in our marriage, I do most of the cooking, but my husband does most of the boring housework that I can’t stand.
Some people think that this situation isn’t fair because the tasks aren’t divided evenly, but it works for us. That’s not to say that I leave things for him. We have three children and laundry waits for noone. So our agreement is that whomever is here when it needs to be done does it. This has worked very well for us.
Plunky and Robert, you can attempt to spin what I’m saying if you like as some meaningless message at the expense of respect, but that simply isn’t the case. What we’re discussing here is the indoctrination of little girls and young women into a mode of thought or action that is subservient to men. Do I want my children to feel that my family is not correct in how they have dealt with this? Yes I want my children to understand exactly that. I’ve been extremely open about my reasoning with my family, and am more than happy to discuss the subject at any point they want to. Like I said initially, it’s taken a while but at this point we have reached a rather grumpy understanding where my mother gets the help cleaning that she rightly deserves, and our daughters get the message we feel is best about the sharing of household duties among men and women (or partners, or roomates etc).
Kim, I think the explicit lesson you’re teaching your children is admirable. It’s the same lesson we’re modeling for our kids – everybody works, everybody shares, everybody contributes, there’s no such thing as “women’s work” or “men’s work”. It just seems like your implementation of the principle is adolescent. You’re requiring your elders to redesign their flow of life to accommodate your choices and preferences. That’s justifiable – if your elders are practicing forced polygamy or suttee or something. For dishes, not so much.
It seems to me that you could get your message across with more effectiveness and less downstream backlash by letting your mother run her household the way she wants to, and then talking with your kids about it. “Sydney bean, did you notice what happened after dinner at gramma’s house?” “People watched TV!” “Well, grampa and daddy watched TV. What did you and me and gramma and auntie Flo do?” “We did dishes and put away the food.” “Why do you think it happened that way, that all the girls went into the kitchen?” “I dunno.” “Is that what we do at our house?” “No, at our house daddy helps.” “Which do you think is better?” and so on. With a bit of luck, you’ll have adorable Sydney pestering Grandma to stop being a tool of the patriarchy and possibly eliciting her active conversion – as opposed to the grumpy status quo you’ve personally managed, which is probably the best you can hope for doing it adversarially through challenge.
Doing it the way you’re doing it is implicitly teaching your kid that she can override your values in your house at her discretion. Just my $0.02; she’s not my kid. (But I’ll take her if you get bored.)
The thing is, Robert, I believe there very likely will be a point where Sydney and Maddox might do just that, and hopefully I’ll be open to discussing with them why they are doing it. By engaging as you stated, I see a complicity in indoctrination that is simply unacceptible for me, and while I can’t speak for him, Matt as well (I’ll have him peak at the thread and perhaps he’ll offer his own view).
Ultimately my mother and father’s home is not one of permanent redesign, but one where if they want for Matt and I to actively participate in the dynamic while we are there, it has to be in a way that is not sending out mixed or confusing messages to our daughters. Also, I don’t think that adolescent is correct simply because there is a bit of a challenge associated with what I’m doing. I’m not expecting their views or lives to change, but instead for them to understand that our views and lifestyle is very different, and that unfortunately I see their practice (and my own indoctrination in that regard, which was considerably hard work sorting out into a system that made sense to me – ultimately feminism) as unacceptible to pass along to my daughters. Even though my mother at times has felt that I’m directly challenging her in this regard, the challenge is very much directed at the indoctrination that I’m being asked (despite adamant views to the opposition) to be complicit in. Sure it’s little, but the little things pile up and mean something. The little things are the things that ultimately help preserve the very backbone of male priviledge.
Argh – and one last point. I believe that in order for it to be adolescent or along the lines that Plunky has described it, I would have to be insisting that my father or brother join in the cleaning process (sometimes they do just because, but it’s always done in a manner that implies it is a gracious favor to my mother).
I’m still reeling from the suggestion that women somehow evolved to be more cleanly than men because we have to change our underwear more often due to menstruation (Hmm, didn’t realize underwear–probably a recent invention, no?–could play such a role in the evolution…a process which surely has been going on long, long, long before underwear was invented).
Also exactly what sources on female reproductive health have you been reading? Throw them out!!!!! Yeast infections have nothing to do with cleanliness–they are not caused by the spread of bacteria or viruses and they are usually not caught from someone else. It’s the vagina itself that produces the infection by producing more yeast than normal. Cleaning the vagina won’t do a damn thing to prevent yeast infections.
In fact, “cleaning” the vagina is BAD for it. Soap and water never need to go inside the vagina because the vagina is SELF-cleaning. So evolutionarily it would make sense for women to be LESS cleanly than men, not more cleanly.
Do you think that sexual harassment of men has increased by 50% in the period, or do you think it more likely that men are more likely to complain then they were a decade ago? If the latter, what makes you think that the current 85% figure more reflective of reality than the previous 90% figure?
More generally, given that sexual harassment is generally perceived to be committed by men against women, do you not think that a man being harassed by a woman might not make a complaint through fear that if he does, he will be subject to a devastating counter-accusation?
Well, Kim, I hope didn’t annoy you too much. It sounds like you and your husband have a system that works for you. It wouldn’t work for me, but that’s fine, of course. Talked to my wife about this last night, and she mostly agrees with your stance. Maybe I’m just a whackjob.
But it may also be that this is not how my family works. My mom tends to cook, because she’s by far the best at it, then my stepdad or I do the dishes. I’ve been in households where it is divided along gender lines, and it really doesn’t bother me. I don’t necessarily think that just because a system has different roles for men and women, that it must be destroyed. But then, I took a lot of anthropology in college, so I don’t think that my way is necessarily the ONLY way. There’s a lot of different ways out there, and people are OK with their own systems.
Are there any studies out there showing whether websites such as CarsDirect have helped reduce the discrimination against women in pricing cars? I would think that they should.
I think my husband does more housework than some other guys his age who live with women probably do. I do get on his case often to do more, however. I think that I was socialized to think of housekeeping as an ongoing thing, exactly like personal grooming. Whereas he, and a lot of other guys, were socialized to think of housekeeping as something that they didn’t have to think about. The woman would think about it and direct you. This point came up a few times on the Pandagon thread about housework as being a huge aggravation to more than one woman because home upkeep is our job to the world at large whether we think so or not. That is, I feel as if I’m thinking about housework all the time. Why should I be the only one who spends gray matter thinking about it every day ?
That being said, I used to have a female co-tenant who was both a neat freak and a clutter fiend. We had huge arguements about housekeeping because I resented that it was impossible to clean anything in our house without moving tons of superfluous crap first. So I blew off much of the stuff she wanted cleaned because I resented all the things that had to be gotten out of the way first. Crap that I was forbidden to ever throw out. After I moved out, though, she ended up with a male tenant who was even neater than she was. He put her stuff away in places where she could never find it and drove her nuts. After he left, she had a female co-tenant who was even more of a packrat than she was. It was all almost enough to make me belive in God.
Nathaniel:
I am putting on my Actual Degree in Evolutionary Biology Hat here, to say:
“back that puppy up with studies of non-human species or take it back.”
Your argument is based on issues of personal hygiene, which in my experience is a completely different issue than house cleanliness, which we biologists call “nest site maintenance”. Nest site maintenance is about parasite control. Most primates do not have regular nest sites, but move around every few days. This means that as an order primates tend to be messy, because why bother when you’re not going to be there when the flea eggs hatch (2-3 weeks).
The human flea (Pulex irritans) is not human-specific, but is a pig flea that expanded its range. I was actually surprised to find this out, because as a rule animal parasites (& diseases) move to humans after domestication, so I expected human fleas would be related to dog fleas, since dogs were domesticated 100,000 years ago, pigs no more than 10,000 ya. The flea evidence suggests that most humans did not have semi-permanent nest sites — and the need to keep them clean — before the Agricultural Revolution.
(side note: this means that when we say someone’s messy home is “a pig sty”, we are being accurate. fleas included!)
So, we’ve got: a) chimpanzees don’t do housekeeping, so evolution wouldn’t have much genetic material to “work with”, b) humans have needed “housekeeping genes” for only about 500 generations (remember, humans don’t have a distinctive flea species even though we’ve had fleas for at least 300,000 flea generations), and c) housekeeping normally has to be taught, and with difficulty.
Conclusion with Actual Science Content™: there is no scientific need to suppose that humans have evolved “housecleaning genes”, much less that they differ by sex.
So why does Nathaniel immediately suggest them as a possibility? Because he hates housekeeping (see above, under “primates”), and he can’t believe that the women he knows are willing to do it unless they feel biologically compelled, and so he lets them. And then he doesn’t have to keep his own parasites at bay.
Sorry Nathaniel, I’m a woman (*waves XX chromosomes, offspring*) and I’m a typical primate, too, i.e. a slob. You gotta learn to clean your own nest site — and both you and the women in your life have to learn when you really need to just let the mess go, and say “it’s clean enough, really”.
Just a big MY GOODNESS! The issue here, in my opinion, is that the mundane, the everyday, and the VALUE placed on cetain tasks…rather than the division of labor, is the issue. It is essential to process the value system in order to change the priviledge model we know so well. Cleaning a toilet has to happen from time to time, laundry, food preparation, the awesome and enduring work and pleasure derrived from caring for a child, and such…the issue is that somehow those who assume these responsibilities in a disproportionate fashion, are traditionally women. Yup, things are changing it is true. So it goes…now that women are accessing education and actively working outside the home, we continue to see that the majority of the housework reamins as theirs! The fundamental tasks and whoever it may be who is assuming them, regardless of gender, must be perceived as valuable. The more overt work such as making a buck, getting an education, etc…are traditionally thought of as more important than the more covert and behind the scenes activities. WRONG! Until we see that nurturing a child, painting a room, mopping a floor and preparing a meal are essential, necessary and valuable, we will have a problem. Seems like we get caught up in placing tremendous importance on what is most apparent on an elementary basis. What we see, the apparent, gets higher stature.
The person scrubbing the toilet is as important as the fat cat! My own action is working toward the fair distribution of labor while understanding that we must have things taken care of in order to expand our minds. Soooooooo Scrub toilets one week, push pencil the next, then trade. Until we experience the trenches so to speak, we will continue to misunderstand the reality of what it is like to be there, and continue the to participate in the disparity generated by most of the “housework” getting done by women, and hence the whole male priviledge therein.
Evolution is uncomfortable at times. Personally, I require the intellectual stimulation that comes from something besides planning a dinner. My hope is that we can collectively move toward the understanding that activities are not borne of gender and that roles can be changed. It is about fairness and human value. Let us all roll up our proverbial sleeves!
So why does Nathaniel immediately suggest them as a possibility?
Because “it’s genetic, honey” sounds so much better than “I just feel like letting you do all the housework.”
Sheezelbub wrote: And Natheniel, WHY do you think women care about the inside of a toilet? Do you think there’s a toilet-cleaning gene that just magically appears in women?
Not a gene, but a genie. I used to believe that all the animated mascots for cleaning products would clean the house, like Mr. Clean, the White Tornado, Scrubbing Bubbles, etc…(ms_xeno probably thinks I believe they still do.)
When I had my bachelor pad, it wasn’t filthy – I did clean it when I felt necessary. But it wasn’t a regular thing. (Dirty dishes didn’t pile up because I had this thing called a “dishwasher” in my two-ass kitchen. )
And I do clean up after *your cat* who decides to poop next to (not in) the litterbox. :P
Hi, I’m a male, and I have the privledge of being a guy.
One of my privledges is a value system that includes about 2 hours of housework a week. I don’t really understand cleaning the toilet (its more efficient to just NOT clean it). I would be more than happy to split the difference, with each member of the household performing 1 hour of this work. In fact, I’ll do both hours. . . I did it when I lived alone, and I’d be happy to do it now. . . if it woud make my spouse happy.
Unfortuately, my significant other has a value system that requires about 10 hours of work each week. For instance, she thinks the dishes should be done as we use them, as opposed to piled up in the sink and done once a week (hey – it’s much more efficient that way). To support this value system, she would like to split the difference with me, giving us each 5 hours of work a week.
Now. . . remember, under my value system, I have no requirements from her. I am not asking her to do anything.
Under her system. . . I am nagged until I comply with her values. When I fail to do so, we argue about it. Remember, I am not asking her to do anything.
Am I realy off base here? Why?
I don’t really understand cleaning the toilet (its more efficient to just NOT clean it).
Which is to say, it’s more efficient for you to ignore the need to clean the toilet, because eventually your spouse will.
If you’re not just trolling, Chris, then it might occur to you that things do not magically become clean if you ignore them long enough.
But mythago, he’s not complaining that things aren’t getting clean. He’s saying that his house is clean enough for his values with 2 hours of work a week. His wife is saying that her house is clean enough for her values with 10 hours of work a week.
Chris’ examples seems to be a classic example of men and women simply having different expectations. Chris’ failure to do 5 hours a week of housework might be an instance of he and his wife not adequately negotiating their differing preferences, but it isn’t a failure to do his share of the housework. It’s a conflict over what the total labor level should be, not how it should be divided.
Mark that one under female privilege; women (broadly) seem to feel that their level of housework preference is the objectively correct level, and male failure to embrace their values is intrinsically problematic.
He’s saying that his house is clean enough for his values with 2 hours of work a week.
He’s saying that his house is clean enough for his values with 2 hours of his work a week and his wife’s 10 hours of work a week. The latter enables the former. Nobody believes toilets clean themselves unless somebody else is cleaning the toilets for them.
Mark this one under male privilege: it’s easy to see housework as ‘unnecessary’ when you don’t understand how much of it needs to be done.
Chris’ examples seems to be a classic example of men and women simply having different expectations. Chris’ failure to do 5 hours a week of housework might be an instance of he and his wife not adequately negotiating their differing preferences, but it isn’t a failure to do his share of the housework. It’s a conflict over what the total labor level should be, not how it should be divided.
Funny, where do you think these differing expectations on what’s an appropriate total amount of housework come from?
Mark that one under female privilege; women (broadly) seem to feel that their level of housework preference is the objectively correct level, and male failure to embrace their values is intrinsically problematic.
Hahahahaha! Privilege to have people tell you you’re a failure as a woman because you failed the white glove test? Robert, this is silly. The expectation is that women have to maintain a higher standard of cleanliness, hence the need for more housework.
It seems like many women are making assumtions that “who cleans the toilet” is some kind of battle of wills, where the male is stubborn enough to “outlast” his spouse and effectively make her clean it. It’s not. . . Really. A man such as myself, just doesn’t care. . . why would a woman care?
I certainly don’t expect anyone to put up with ten hours a week of housework, for me, for their kids, for their paretns, or for themselves. In my life, I do what I think is necessary, and I certainly don’t impose anything on another human being.
Also, whoever decided that a household requires, for example, 10 hours of housework a week is silly. The only stardard you should be working from is your own. If you don’t want to do it. . . don’t do it. I personally find that 2 hours a week is plently to feel comfortable in my environment. I was single for years after college, and somehow, I survived on about 2 hours a week without getting dysentery. To be fair, I remember doing a half-cocked job of cleaning the toilet once or twice. . . when company came over. Did they think it was good enough. I dunno. . . I don’t care.
Blame it on psychology, genetics, social conditioning, 1,000s of years of male oppression, or whatever. . . in the end, women still have control over their own value systems. If you don’t want to clean it, then just don’t do it! Expectations be damned, right?
Are you going to let society/the government/your significant other/your kids/your mother tell you how to run your life? It seems to me that you are wanting to rid yourself of one set of expectations (doing more than your fair share of the housework), but embracing another set of expectations (women should have x level of cleanliness in their homes). Pick one, pick both, pick neither. . . and accept teh consequences. The point is. . . it’s up to you.
I was single for years after college, and somehow, I survived on about 2 hours a week without getting dysentery.
So the excuse is that a single man living alone generates as much laundry, dirty dishes, and other need for housecleaning as a family with children?
Eh… I suspect I have about the same standards for cleanliness as you do, Chris. (I’m female.) Well, without knowing more about your style I can’t say that unequivocally, because I have been in some men’s apartments where they don’t clean the toilet ever (or the bath, or the towels, or the urine lying in little puddles) and… yes. Squalor.
I think you’re making the assumption that your 2 hours is a right and correct number, though, which is amusing to me because it also sounds like you’re also assuming that your wife’s 10 hours is wrong. Why can’t you both be wrong?
I have no idea what numbers are appropriate, or what standards are appropriate, etc. But I do think it’s probably appropriate for men (and/or the slovenly partner, in my household: me) to point out that passing the white glove test is not necessarily something a couple should strive for – or at least set as a mutual goal.
High standards of cleanliness may be trained into women (primarily), but that doesn’t mean they have to be embraced. Low standards may be permitted in men, but that doesn’t mean they have to be embraced either. If we can acknowledge that some women’s need for extreme cleanliness – to pass the white glove test – is socialized – then we can acknowledge that it’s not necessarily something that should be indulged or enforced.
I can see the point that agreeing on a mutual standard is important. Also, if we want subsequent generations *not* socialize women into feeling they have to be super-clean to be good, then maybe relaxing white glove standards to a certain extent isn’t a bad thing.
I would be hesitant, though, to say that Chris’s partner is striving for an unreasonable standard with 10 hours a week. I really have no idea about their particular situation, of course. But I fear the white glove standard may be a strawman. I do know some women (and some men) who have standards for cleanliness which, to me, seem completely unreasonable (bearing in mind that my feelings aren’t totally unbiased – I do, after all, trend to the sloppy). But I have a feeling that most of the time, the cleanly partner’s standards *aren’t* completely unreasonable. Equating the cleanly partner’s standards with, say, Adrian Monk’s, is an effective way to silence discussion… but I doubt it’s an accurate portrayal of most situations.
Of course, the real work of this — as everyone has been pointing out for posts and posts — consists of making sure that whatever standards are agreed on, the couple divvies them out in a way that is comfortable to the couple, rather than based on arbitrary sex roles, and making sure that blame and burden for housework doesn’t fall disproportionately on women so that they are seen as failures for an unclean environment when the other household members are equally at fault.
And the other point, which others have made but I kind of want to reiterate in this context, is that one’s identity as clean/sloppy is heavily influenced by their gender. I think of myself as a sloppy person, but my standards of cleanliness aren’t actually that different from my boyfriend’s – compared to, say, my mother. He’s much more likely to spontaneously clean the toilet and give the oven that scrubbing it oh-so-desperately needs. I’m much more likely to organize all our bookshelves by author, genre, title, and color, and then go on a rampage to make sure our files are organized and that all my skirts and his pants are hung in ascending order of length. Neither of us panics if we get busy for a week and the clutter piles up while the bathroom goes uncleaned. If we get busy for more than a week, I’m likely to be the partner who holds my head in my hands and wails, “But we can’t LIVE this way anymore.” Yet I self-identify and am identified by others as a relatively sloppy female, and he self-identifies and is identified by others as a relatively clean male.
Mandolin, I tend to agree with you. Chris is clearly making the assumption that his two hours should be the default because he’s willing to live at that base level. The problem is, his wife isn’t, and that isn’t about her being a woman, it’s about her being the person he has chosen to live with, presumably with the intent of compromise. So why then should she compromise so completely to meet his standard? Two hours of him doing all the work isn’t a genuine compromise, a genuine compromise is 6+ish hours a week (the middle ground between the two) being split evenly down the middle. Bottom line is Chris and his wife are really failing at communication and respect in their marriage if they aren’t willing and capable of coming up with a system that reflects both sets of housecleaning values that doesn’t result in either one of them taking on an unfair burden of the housework to come to at least a median level of cleanliness for the both of them.
But I fear the white glove standard may be a strawman.
Bingo–because housework isn’t merely about scrubbing toilets, especially when you have children in the picture.
Mythago,
That’s a great point about a larger family, where children would generate mess while unable to contribute to the cleanup. I don’t have kids yet, and my current situation is based on just the two of us. In this, I think you’re absoultely right that my standards, and the division of labor, would have to change with a child or two in the mix. When i comes to rearing the kids, I’d want the work to be 50/50. If that day ever comes, I hope I can live up to being the father I’d want to be (and hope this doesn’t turn out to be a bunch of hot air).
I also appreciate the general concern from everyone about the state of my marriage. Thanks!
Regarding the original point. . . Most issues in a marriage DO require compromise, but I don’t think that housework is one of them. If we add up my ideal 2 hours + her ideal 10 hours and divide by two to get 6. . . well, I gain absoultely nothing, except the addition of an extra couple of hours of work. My wife gains the benefits of acheiving something closer to her ideal state, while doing less work. I dont see how this is a compromise.
Remember, my low standards don’t actually require my wife to do anything. At no point am I asking her to give up any of her time, her energy, or her passions. Believe me, in most circumstances, I’d think that we’d both rather do something fun with each other, or reading a book, or surfing the web, etc. But for some reason, she believes that both of us should be giving up some of that “good” time to Swiffer the hardwood floors every other day. I just wish I could make her understand that I’d be happy with once every few weeks. I’ll even do it all, if it would just be enough to make her happy!
If only she’d let me leave the dishes for a full extra day, I could kill many birds with one stone. It’s so much easier for me to do the dishes all at once. . . plus, I tend to overeat, and I sometimes feel tired after a good meal. On my own, I would do them every few days, in the morning. . . but. . . she feels guilty about going to bed with dishes in the sink at all, so that’s out. I still try to do them half the time, but my whining causes problems.
If only her clothes were as easy as mine to clean. Mine = everything in one pile, cold cycle, then dryer, then sift through the “clean” basket as needed when you need underwear, socks, and a shirt. Hers = four seperate piles, some things get gentle cycle, some are hung up while wet to avoid shriking, Some are ironed after they’re dry, everythign is ultimately hung up or folded in a “proper” way, don’t forget bleach with whites, make sure you take the skirt to the dry cleaners because it’ll get ruined, and so on.
Apologies for being ranty on this point, and I’m sure it all comes off as someone’s idea of a sterotypically insesitive lout, but that’s not the case. I love my wife, and I want her to be happy. But when it comes to housework. . . It’s not ONLY that I don’t care (which I don’t), I don’t even understand it. Why does she go through all of that stuff? What does she gain? More importantly, why does she continually insist that I have to go through it all too?
well, I gain absoultely nothing, except the addition of an extra couple of hours of work
Here are some things you gain: Your wife’s appreciation. The habit of doing extra work, instead of ‘hoping’ that you will magically become an equal partner upon fatherhood. A cleaner house (which you may find you actually like). A better understanding of what all that housework really does.
You know, there are things that drive my husband up a wall that I couldn’t care less about–like folding underwear, fercryinoutloud. And I suppose I could whine about how that means I might have to do extra work, and I don’t care or even comprehend why one would fold underwear. But it’s really not all that big a deal, and it makes him happy. Both because the underwear is folded, and because it makes him happy to know that I’ll bother to put myself to a little trouble for his sake. And he does the same for things that don’t matter to him but matter greatly to me. It sure beats bickering about housework.
What you’re doing is insisting that your standards are the only ones that matter. Instead of trying to see her point of view, and meet her partway, you’re whining that you might have to get up off your ass and do more than two hours of housework a week. Do you think your wife is optimistic that you’ll become an equal, thoughtful partner when a baby’s born?
Remember, my low standards don’t actually require my wife to do anything. At no point am I asking her to give up any of her time, her energy, or her passions.
But you are asking her to compromise on what she thinks is an acceptable standard of cleanliness. Either she capitulates, does the extra eight hours of cleaning, or accepts your standards. How is opting for the lowest common denominator an actual compromise?
I don’t even understand it. Why does she go through all of that stuff? What does she gain? More importantly, why does she continually insist that I have to go through it all too?
Did you read Amp’s #37? I’d be willing to presume that no one would ever tell you that pulling stuff as needed out of the laundry basket wasn’t an acceptable way to do things. But they’d certainly feel free to tell your wife.
But they’d certainly feel free to tell your wife.
And “they” equals women. Women set the standards, women do the socializing, women perform the emotional hit jobs on people who don’t live up to the standards, women complain about the oppression of housework…I blame the patriarchy.
Maybe if women stopped burning cycles trying to guilt men into sharing the cleaning psychosis, they’d have enough energy left to tell their sisters to piss off about how often the laundry gets folded.
Mythago,
Okay, I’ll buy that. I do want to be a good father, and if, in your experience as a parent, doing that extra work will help me in that endeavor, then I’ll give it a shot. She’s out of town right now, but I’ll talk to her when she gets back.
I think being snarky about my optimism for fatherhood is a little harsh, though. I am trying to be as honest as possible about my relationships and my abilities. Right now, I just don’t know whether I’ll be good at it, no one can until it happens, and to presume otherwise is just BS.
In my mind, the best way for me to express that desire is with Hope.
Thanks for sharing.
– Chris
And men, Robert. Men make comments about women not fulfilling their womenly obligations as well. Perhaps not the ones you hang out with, but it’s certainly by no means out of the ordinary.
Remember, my low standards don’t actually require my wife to do anything. At no point am I asking her to give up any of her time, her energy, or her passions.
You are asking her to give up her comfort level for you to main yours.
As for the whole children thing, think of this as practice, because you are seriously deluding yourself if you think that having children will entail the same sort of housework that you experience now. My two year old thinks nothing of taste testing brown remnants giving a bare two second warning with the utterance “Chocolate?” Sadly her ‘clean gene’ hasn’t kicked in yet it seems, and my spouse and I are constantly taking things away from her in a manner that she perceives as arbitrary and unusual cruelty. Sort of like what it sounds like your wife has to do with you.
Also, dishes for over a week are a breeding ground for bacteria. This is how food poisoning happens. Cleaning ‘psychosis’ might well have protected you from many levels of food poisoning, meningococcal… the list unfortunately goes on and on.
So ultimately, you are saying that if your wife wants to live in a sanitary home, that’s up to her. Nice.
Some men; not many.
Dishes over a week probably ARE a breeding ground for bacteria. What does it say about your position that you feel the need to incorrectly characterize “leave the dishes for a full extra day” as “dishes for over a week”? Or maybe it says something about cleaning psychosis; I can’t read your mind.
ultimately, you are saying that if your wife wants to live in a sanitary home, that’s up to her
Well, yeah. If you want “X” in your life, it is up to you to get it. You can get it by doing it yourself, or by bargaining with other people, trading goods for services or services for goods, or whatever. If someone wants to live in a sanitary environment, they need to either do the work necessary for that to happen, or choose a mate who also desires that and cooperatively work toward the goal, or negotiate with a mate who doesn’t care about that and trade for something that heshe DOES care about. If I want a Twinkie, I can get in the car and go to Safeway. It isn’t my wife’s job to make Twinkies rain from the sky just because that’s what I want.
How is that unreasonable? That’s how life works. That’s how relationships work.
Robert, I’m not incorrectly catagorizing full extra day as a week. Here’s a direct quote from Chris:
For instance, she thinks the dishes should be done as we use them, as opposed to piled up in the sink and done once a week (hey – it’s much more efficient that way).
Beyond that I don’t advocate for lives that are not equitable. While it isn’t my job to fix it for people, I sure as heck don’t feel an obligation to not say it’s a crock of horseshit when I see it. Clearly from what Chris has said, his wife isn’t happy with the situation, and clearly it isn’t a compromise, but instead an imposition on Chris’s part to contribute only what he would as if he wasn’t living with someone else.
And the twinkies from the sky is a stupid analogy Robert. Quit trolling me before I pull out the mountain dew bottles =P.
Ah, sorry, that was an older slice I guess, or one I missed. My bad.
“Some men; not many.”
Augh, we’ve reached anecdotal now, right? ‘Cuz I really don’t feel comfortable with this statement, but I certainly can’t prove it’s incorrect.
To some extent, it may be true… certainly fewer men are rabid about their wife’s housekeeping than men were in the past. But we know that cultures hold on to relics long past the time they lose their usefulness, much like vestigial tails. It’s going to take a lot of time for the generations upon generations of men who did expect excellent standards of housework from their wives (whether working poor or wealthy home administrators) to fade from the way our culture works.
But that’s ducking the issue to an extent. It is true that women probably castigate other women about cleanliness and appearance more than men — at least, this is my experience. (Most of the heterosexual men I know don’t really see the difference between a hairdo that took an hour, and one that took ten minutes — although they may appreciate the result in the back of their brains, they don’t tend to be able to articulate it in the same way most of the women I know can.)
Women are used to police the behavior of other women in many contexts — but the result still benefits men . This isn’t a unique situation. People from disempowered demographics are often used to police other people in disempowered demographics.
Consider the way that poor white southerners (oppressed) were used as overseers for enslaved Africans (also oppressed). Or the way that Indian nationals under the thumb of Britain (oppressed) were used as a middle class to oppress colonial Africans (also oppressed).
Obviously, I’m not comparing the way that women police other women’s standards of housework to the way that overseers kept enslaved Africans under the lash in terms of scope. But the principal is similar — people who are disempowered oppress other people who are disempowered.
Though I may be wrong, it seems to me that your aim in pointing this out was to suggest that women’s enforcement of housework standards means that housework standards are not part of the patriarchy, but I think this ignores the fact that they still feed masculine privelege.
I’m all for women changing their behaviors when they find themselves acting out as enforcement for the patriarchy. For instance, I’ve been trying to find ways to politely call my mother on her behavior when she makes depricating remarks about women on television or acquaintances based on their appearance – finding ways to guide any conversation about their accomplishments back to their “funny teeth” or whatever. In doing these things, my mother both supports the patriarchy and reveals her own very sad body image issues to which I am sympathetic. But I can still call it out for what it is – negative behavior that reinforces the idea that it’s okay to judge women on their appearance. IBTP.
Kim,
I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I think what you’re saying makes sense. I can do more around the house. . . not because I agree that it needs to be done. . . but because it pleases my wife.
When the kids come, they’re going to require complete selflessness from both of us. It makes perfect sense that this can’t be turned off and on. I have to clean and do 50-50 NOW. . . because those habits have to be automatic and prelearned when the baby finally arrives.
There is going to be SO MUCH that I won’t want to do with a child. . . and when it comes to the baby, you can’t afford to make compromises. If I pull a “well, the baby can probably go three hours without a diaper change in stead of two hours” BS, well. . . that’s just not going to fly. That’s abuse.
Thinking about it this way, it makes a heck of alot more sense. Most of my previous arguments, which I still think are true logically, should be trumped by the fact that I need to give as much as I can to enhance my relationship with my wife, and allow me to be primed for fatherhood.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my comments.
just a small point on the efficiency thing. Its not more efficient to leave dishes in the sink. Food crusts on harder, dishes break, it makes it hard to cook/fill the brita/water the plants when dishes are in the sink. Its actually more effiecient to clean dishes after every meal and put them away befor making new ones, and in general to put things back where they belong after using them.
This isn’t some gene i have, or even an ideology I learned from my mom, its the conclusion I drew after living the Chris efficiency method for a while. But the problem is that once I figured it out, nobody else had to; they just lived in a magically clean home.
I think being snarky about my optimism for fatherhood is a little harsh, though.
Well, Chris, I’m being snarky because “I hope I’ll be better” is a cop-out. Your behavior is something you do, not something that happens to you. By phrasing it as ‘hope’ rather than what you plan or have decided to do, you’re leaving yourself an out. That, on top of the attitude that your comfort is the most important factor in doing additional work, is not exactly a recipe for optimism. It’s one thing not to want to bullshit (good) but another to pretend that anything might ever change just because you’re wishing it will (bad).
Robert’s correct that most gender policing is same-sex. He’s full of crap when he pretends that, within a marriage, the male partner really wouldn’t notice if the wife or live-in girlfriend said “Bite me, you can wash your own clothes from now on.” It’s very easy to wash dishes once a week if you’re not the one who does all the cooking, and therefore doesn’t trip over the dirty dishes. It’s easy not to care what your friends think of the house when all your friends will blame somebody else for its condition.
I find it interesting that the older definition of “slut” is a woman who’s a bad housekeeper (dust bunnies = slut’s wool). Now, we don’t have a slur for a slovenly woman today, but the judging tendancies still persist.
I don’t really care what other people think of the cleanliness of our place. I’m more in the “let’s make it livable” camp. And my husband and I definitely have different standards there. I thought when your feet stick to the crud in the bottom of the bathtub, that would be a pretty universal sign that it needs cleaning. Apparently not.
I hate housework. So does my husband. We’ve divided up tasks pretty evenly, but the frequency of doing them seems to be at issue. One example is that I do all the cooking, and hence need counter space to feed us. He doesn’t think about this, and so lets the dishes pile up longer than they should (and they do take over the kitchen). One solution we’ve found is to declare a housework day (or morning), and we both work at the same time to tidy up. So we’re doing the exact same amount of work, and we both find it easier to do it when we’re both working toward the same goal.
But I must say, despite my sluttish ways, I don’t understand the idea that toilets don’t *ever* need cleaning. Things *grow* in there. Smelly things. And brushing your teeth next to a large fecal colliform assay just isn’t appealling.
Wow, someone changed their mind in an internet discussion. Is there a blue moon in the sky?
Seriously, Chris, good for you.
Chris, that’s great news and you’ll be happy you kicked yourself in the pants before (and not after) you and your wife have kids. My husband and I are by no means clean freaks, but we too reside in the ‘liveable’ camp, and trying to do that as a couple is pretty darn easy – add in a 2 year old and a 7 month old and suddenly you feel like a comedy troupe on parade marching to the beat of an arbitrary two year old who thinks laundry decorating plants, tv’s and the floor is much nicer than this whole neat and tidy business.
Matt and I clean at the same time (designated cleaning times) for the most part, which makes it much easier for both of us to feel good about the effort. I honestly think the advent of the nuclear family and the woman bearing the brunt of all housework and child-rearing with no support network was probably a huge kick in the ass for feminism to get started full speed ahead. Every time I try to think about juggling child rearing, cleaning and working to support the family my respect and incredulousness at single parents abounds.
Thanks Amperstand,
However, I’m not off the hook yet.
While I was mowing the lawn today, I tried to brainstorm about what I can do to improve things with my wife. I know there are some who don’t like me, or any man, to dissemble about he future the way I’ve been doing. However, I am being honest. It’s like quitting smoking, going on a diet, or starting an exercise program to improve your health. You have an expectation, but realistically . . . you can’t guarantee your effectiveness over the long term. All you can do is be hopeful that you have the internal will to make the change permanent. You can’t know exactly how you will respond until your start working at it.
Anyway, while I still believe in many of my ideas (posted above). . . I’ve been convinced that they should placed in the background. I want my marriage to work as best it can, and I want to be a good father more than anything else in the world. This means giving up that system of beliefs in deference to my wife’s. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy for a man to do. We think differently . . . we aren’t as giving, and don’t ask a lot of others (we often expect a lot from others . . . but that’s a different post). So, based on this. . . I’ve outlined three of the strategies I have come up with to make sure that I follow through with what I want to accomplish in equally sharing my wife’s idea of housework.
Also, after reareading some of the comments to my previous posts. . . I want to let you guys know that I DO clean. C’mon . . . do you actually think I only do dishes once a week? I’d be single in a heartbeat. Granted, that’s what I want to happen . . . but that’s not what I do. I am already somewhat conforming to my wife’s expectations (but not 50/50). Our main problem is that I whine about it, and make her initiate my actions instead of volunteering them myself. This is bad. . . and below is how I’m going to fix it.
1. Competition ““ Housecleaning seems like a thankless job that holds no direct benefit for you. Unfortunately, this is completely false. There are great benefits, and they are never lost on your spouse! How? You get to complete with other men regarding THEIR housecleaning. You stand out! You don’t have to worry that this will become another thankless expectation, like replacing the car battery, taking time to put together the new kitchen table and chairs that came in from JC Penny’s (or the grill, for that matter), or putting a pile of your money into the joint account every single week. Too many men already do that stuff . . . so you won’t stand out from the pack when your spouse is conversing with her friends. However, a man giving a higher standard 50/50 with housework is rare. In her friendships and conversations, your spouse will be continuously reminded from everyone else about how good you are every time she talks about husbands that don’t pull their weight. Unlike most other contributions you make to the relationship, THIS one will always in the forefront of her mind because of how unusual it is. Just make sure she spends lots of time with her married female friends, and you can’t lose. You get to be a weekly hero, just for performing your fair share of routine tasks. What’s the downside?
2. Observation ““ When things are dirty, it’s hard to notice them. It’s nearly impossible to care. Hence, every single time that “cleaning time” is decreed, your wife will be ahead of the game, calling the shots while you continuously lag behind. As a result, instead of executing proactive responses to trouble in the household, you have to be reactive, and essentially “accept her orders” passively. This is grating to your male ego, and it becomes difficult not to respond negatively when you are continuously given orders that you don’t care about. However, there are many ways to overcome this . . . instead of cleaning on a “need to clean” basis, do your share on a set schedule. Toilet every two weeks, dusting windowsills once a month, make sure that the dishes are done exactly a half an hour after eating, etc. Instead of being told what to do every time, you gain efficacy because you get to “own” the process without trying to be a dirt detective, without giving up anything, and without deferring to anyone but yourself.
3. Venting ““ Now, when I clean the toilet, it’s usually because my wife has noticed that it’s dirty, and she says that it’s my turn to clean it. Sometimes I do it happily, and sometimes I start to rant about. . .well, just read my above posts and you’ll get the idea. She responds . . . well, the same way ya’ll did. I still do almost everything she tells me to do, but I don’t like it and I let her KNOW that I don’t like it. I do this because I’m expressing my feelings, and want to be empowered about how decisions are made. Initially satisfying, it ends up sours the whole day, and we have to have some kind of come-to-jesus meeting about our relationship. Again. It’s a bad way to approach it, and she’s always going to think that it’s a bunch of BS and laziness . . . i.e. you’re “shirking” what you should automatically care about. The bottom line, when it comes to your feelings about household matters, it’s best to just to keep it to yourself. Her mindset and perspective on the situation is different than yours. She will see the argument, not as a hypothetical as you do, but as a comment on your love for her and your respect of the relationship. While this isn’t fair and fails to take into account how you think and feel as a man, you have to find an outlet for your set of ideas that doesn’t involve her. After all, she doesn’t always need to know how you feel. Start a blog, post on other blogs (like this one), test out your ideas, become more literate, vent to your buddies about how “unfair” it is (even if it’s not), get feedback, and so on . . . essentially, just leave her out of the process as much as possible. She is blissfully unaware that you hate her standard of cleanliness, as you aren’t harboring any more resentment that she will notice. In the end, you’ll have a chance to explore your ideas without rocking the boat, and your commitment to her system of values becomes more like a voluntary sacrifice, and less like an imposition that restricts your freedom or sense of masculine independence.
Anyway, those are some initial strategies that I am taking to fix the problem. Remember, that these are written from a male perspective. They represent ways of thinking about the problem as a man would think about them. I can definitely get behind them, and I think that they make a lot of sense . . . for men. No one sees eye-to-eye exactly, but I think that effectively following through will make everyone happy, and protect my fragile male ego.
Men, can you think of any other ways to improve upon this list?
Chris, I think you have some good ideas, but I believe a change in how you approach this will help. It’s not about deferring to your wife or bottling up your feelings. You’re still treating this as her having a silly and unreasonable standard of housework, which you’re nonetheless going to meet in order to feel better.
Hey Chris,
I think your idea of a schedule is good. Another good idea is to put up a list of everything that needs doing, like vacuuming, watering plants, cooking, toiletcleaning et.c. on the fridge or someplace where you see it everyday.
Everytime you’ve done something you mark it on the list at the date you did it,and your wife does the same thing. Pretty soon you will have a good overview of what is being done and what needs doing as well as who is doing it. This way you can be proactive and mark off things before your wife notice it needs doing. And you get to compete with yourself (and possibly your wife) like you wanted. Hopefully you’ll find your mindset changing meanwhile.
This is a method we’ve used in the collectives where I’ve lived and it works pretty well. Best of luck!
I need to ask: what is it about cleaning the toilet? Bar none, this is the fastest chore I have, perhaps a few minutes every week or two. It’s up there in my favourite chores just because of how fast it is.
I don’t know what it is about cleaning the toilet that causes most people to break out into hives, but with all the modern cleaning products on the market to make this job easier… I just don’t understand.
I’ve taken to using chlorine tabs in the toilet tanks to help keep them clean between scrubbings. Not only does this reduce odors but it also makes the job of scrubbing easier and increases the time between needed scrubbings. They’ve now created automatic shower cleaners that work almost as well. My Mom swears by them, and I’ve just started using that particular product.
I’m all about making housework easier and faster, not for the sake of efficiency but more because there are other things my husband and I would rather spend our time on – the kids, eachother, or a good book.
Chris – hurray for the brainstorm. My husband gets MAJOR Brownie points every time we are at social events because I get to boast about how he (choose any three): a) prepared at least part of the meal; b) gets the kids up and out the door most mornings; c) takes the kids to the doctor about half the time; d) takes his lunch hour to volunteer at the school at least once a month; e) selected, shopped for, bought, and hung about half the window treatments; f) cleans the bathroom better than I do. It can be a very rewarding competition to win, and I’m proud of you for figuring it out.
Chris – Here’s another traditionally manly approach: your house is a) a machine for living and b) a major capital investment. Which maintenance tasks pay off in greater durability? (Surprisingly, sweeping hard floors may have a good payoff. Grit wears through the finish, and then the floors are more susceptible to water damage, which can pass beyond cosmetic to structural damage.)
If you rent, well, it’s practice; or your damage deposit.
Back to the points on genetic/social aspects “why women want to clean more”.
Does it matter? Women clean more, yes? This is unfair, yes? Hence we _need_ to socialise men to do equal shares in the cleaning, sufficient to keep a house up to a socially acceptable standard (easy check – if you rented a house for a week, and when you turned up it was as messy as your house is now would you be happy? What would your complaints be?). We need to socialise women to not obsess over housework, and encourage everyone to take an equal share in keeping their living space tidy and clean.
Even if your wife if magically genetically programmed to do housework, you shouldn’t be taking advantage of her. You should be offering to help.
Lee, I’m glad for your husband, but why on earth the boasting about doing things that you routinely do without any special fanfare? Is the fact that he is a man enough to madly applaud him for bothering to do about half of the work?
mythago,
One way to look at the boasting some do when their mates do roughly half the housework is to look at it as positive reinforcement. There is a reson that I tell people that my husband’s mother “trained” him properly. Socialization is after all a form of training, and the most effective way of training is to use positive reinforcement and correction. So, in this sense the boasting and praise can be seen as the positive reinforcement for her mate’s compliance with the training. It offers an incentive for him to wish to continue to do those things.
I realize that this makes it sound rather like training dogs or horses, but in the most simple of terms the principles are the same.
I have to chime in here… It’s fine and dandy to say that 2 hours of housecleaning a week is “good enough” if you or another adult are the only people living in that particular environment. Before we had a baby, and even while we had a baby, but before that baby was mobile, our house was well, kinda dirty. Not disgusting, but I wouldn’t have wanted to have people come over. And you know what? Despite the fact that I would have liked a cleaner house, it was ok. Now, we have this precious little person toddling around our house, who likes to play with the toilet handle, and crawls around on the floor, and eats, well, anything in sight. We don’t have the luxury of being dirty anymore – it’s not safe for our daughter, and that is something we BOTH agree on.
My situation is unique in that my partner and I have “switched roles” I’m working full time (and then some) and he is in school 3 days a week and right now, out for the summer, which means he is home with our daughter all day. As a result, he is beginning to NOTICE the dangers and need for cleaning more than he did before. He’s actually in the trenches as one poster above stated and it has changed his outlook on the degree of cleanliness we should live in. It’s not about a toilet or tub scrubbing gene – it’s about common freaking sense if that’s what you live in day in and day out…
Lee, I’m glad for your husband, but why on earth the boasting about doing things that you routinely do without any special fanfare? Is the fact that he is a man enough to madly applaud him for bothering to do about half of the work?
If the standard is bad, that which breaks the standard should be applauded, not because it is a special thing in its own right, but because praise encourages a new standard.
IMHO, this is a general principle of relationship maintenance.
In my household, the usual negotiation goes:
“I hate hate hate cleaning the bat guano out of the belfry.”
“Okay, I’ll do it next time.” *promptly forgets*
“Yargh! You didn’t clean the bat guano out of the belfry!”
“Mea culpa, sheepish face, etc.” *goes and does it* “Look, I cleaned the bat guano out of the belfry! See? Good?”
“Yes good! Mucho squeezes and kisses!”
It’s a sort of enthusiastic, willful-participant Pavlovian scheme. We also encourage bribes.