Cross posted at Troppo.
A little post to get the year off to an uncontroversial start!
I mentioned a book I’ve read - “Children of the Lucky Country� below. Here is a quote from it relating to the division of labour at home between the genders (p. 83).
In the past, the way society arranged for the care of children was to ensure that women had little choice but to take on almost the whole of this work. They could not be financially independent, so they had to rely on their husbands for their income. In return, their husbands expected them to take full responsibility for the domestic work and caring for the children (whether or not they actually liked this role). Now women can earn their own incomes, and a majority choose to do so. Who, then takes care of the children? At present the assumption is that this responsibility still rests largely with women.
There’s a particular barrow being pushed here. Note how the expectations (and I guess the collusive power) of men shape the first world. No doubt there’s some truth to that. But there’s some truth to lots of presentations of complex phenomena. Undoubtedly some women actively resisted the institutions in the way the past was organised. No doubt many resented requirements for women to give up many respectable professional jobs once they married. But plenty of women wouldn’t have resented the rules – and would have accepted the way things were set up. So why put the point in such a loaded way? Especially when it’s not necessary to point of the book which is a heartfelt plea for children’s interests to be more fully represented in our social thinking and our institutions. (a cause with which I could not agree more by the way – hence my reading the book).
Most women and men agree today that the kinds of rules that came under attack in the 1960s and 70s and which have been swept away are unacceptable. So it seems to be adding gratuitous (gender political) baggage to one’s cause to set out ‘the past’ as rigged by one side.
Now read the description of the state of the world today. I assume what everyone reports, namely that women do substantially more work around the house – even when they do as much work as their male partners. Why is that? The authors say its ‘an assumption’ that the responsibility still largely rests with women. I read (between the lines and perhaps conditioned by the earlier content of the para) that these assumptions are being made by men. (It seems odd that they’d be made by women, because it seems to be a – pretty understandable – bugbear of women that men don’t do more of that work.) So the problem is being driven by men’s ‘assumptions’.
I wonder what readers think of an alternative cause for the same phenomenon. (Note: as is the way with such things, the two explanations are unlikely to be mutually exclusive – I suspect they each reinforce the other). In my experience women are generally more fastidious about the state of a house than men are. (Since writing this I’ve road tested it on about five people and they all agree – though no doubt some wouldn’t and like all such generalisations, there will be plenty of exceptions). There’s an explanation for why they do more housework right there! Men might be trenchant about it “if she wants a tidy house she can damn well tidy it herself, I’d rather watch the Rugby or read�. Or it might simply evolve from least resistances. Women are prompted by the discomfort of dirt and untidiness before men are, and as a result they end up addressing their own discomfort. In this explanation men are not ‘expecting’ their partners to do it. But their partners do end up spending more time of these tasks.
I don’t know whether one would characterise this as unfair or as some dereliction of duty by men. I expect men spend more time on organising the financial affairs of the family. I doubt that in most cases this counterbalances the additional work women do, but if it is true, it illustrates my point (or rather the assertion I’m tentatively offering) that to some substantial extent work follows temperament and that as experienced, the division of labour emerges from temperamental choices by both parties.
The situation regarding children can be explained in a similar way although many men would be more loath to let themselves off quite as lightly from some obligation of equal participation. My own observation is that men are less patient with kids, more quickly and easily bored by them especially younger ones. They enjoy playing with their kids but at some stage reach for the paper. I don’t particularly want to defend this – though to the extent that it emerges from temperamental dispositions that are genetic, it would be well to try to discuss the issue with that in mind. And to the extent that it is culturally driven men may not be much easier to change at least in this generation.
Wanting men to share equally in the upbringing of their kids seems like a good idea. But if we are going against preferences that are fairly deeply ingrained, it must surely be worth keeping that in mind. And the words of the authors of the book are of relevance. Their comment that the unfortunate situation where women looked after the kids “whether or not they actually liked this role� is a reminder that, though fairness between adult partners is important, another issue of great importance is that parenting roles are also responsive to the respective temperament and inclinations of each of the parents. This is of importance for fairness between the parents, but it also goes to something of greater importance again – the welfare of the kids.
Being fastidious about tidiness is probably not an innate tendency. Girls are brought up with expectations to be cleaner and tidier than boys and to help out with cleaning tasks more. Also, women probably feel more concern about having an untidy house because it is more likely to reflect negatively only on the woman, since I think there is an assumption that it’s her responsibility to keep it presentable (even if the man isn’t interested), or even just to live up to the expectation that women are neater.
That’s a good comment, because I was going to say some of it myself.
Women have a neater brain, they want order; everything in it’s place - including whatever bloke they’re on with. That’s the truth.
During my time at at Mont park psych hospital it was decided to have one of the female staff make a regular appearance in the male dorm, just to boost a bit of tidiness among some of the dirty old buggars there. And it worked, seeing some neat clean fem coming through was like showing Dracula the cross.
Mothers are like that, you never forget.
My emminently more fastidious half tells me my problem with untidiness stems from my mother’s insistence that she do everything about the house, and never trained us boys to fold stuff, put stuff away or clean stuff, and she’s probably right. Over the years I have learned, under my good wife’s guidance, many of these skills, and try hard to be better at them, but I notice that things still come far more naturally for her than for me, not neccessarily because she is female, but more probably because I didn’t have a grounding as a child, which seems to reveal that training children, boys and girls, from an early age to be more domestically literate is an advantage to them and their future spouses.
It’s always mum who fixes your collar as you go out the door. Dad might see it’s not right but wouldn’t bother. Still, with women around, you know to watch out.
The Army is one huge matriarch. You get punished for not being neat. With your weapons, uniform, and boots especially. Everything is strict. You learn some good habits, and all about cleanliness. Then you go on manoeuvres and roll in the mud.
Naomi,
You say that you don’t know what my point is. It’s a pretty simple point. The gender division of labour in the household is presented by many - including the authors of the book in the quote I cited as a travesty of justice. Now the facts seem to be that women do indeed do more housework than men.
So it’s fairly straightforward to present this as men oppressing women. That’s the style of the quote I cited and as I read more of the literature on the issue, I discover that that is typically the way it is presented.
There are various theories around as to why the gender division of labour at home hasn’t changed faster than it has with the revolution in gender roles. There’s theories of economic exchange (men get paid more) and power. You’d be a mug if you thought these were completely irrelevant. I expect there’s some truth to them. But if they’re you’re only theories the data don’t really support them. For instance unemployed men don’t do more housework - they seem to do less. And the division of household labour is not strongly correlated with relative earnings of the partners. These are paradoxes.
There’s a further fact. In study after study a majority of women reckon it’s not a problem - they don’t think it’s unsatisfactory or unfair. The amazing thing is that in the light of all this, and after about a day of looking around, I cant find a single article that poses the naive suggestion - that maybe at least in a substantial number of cases, women and men choose their division of labour relatively amicably around what they prefer, and that if that leaves one of them with more to do than the other, well that’s not such a big deal.
In my own marriage all told I think I do more total ‘work’ than my wife counting both earning money and housework (given that I earn the money and she does not). She does more housework and childcare but I do some of that too. She might think she does more than me. Maybe she does. But neither of us think it’s a big deal. We’re really happy to do so much of what we want to do. And we both know there’s stuff that isn’t particularly fun and we do it.
It is only if the woman is getting upset that the division is not equal, and if she is also the one who has decided what constitutes ‘necessary’ and ‘adequate’, that the issue is worth exploring.
This ‘if’ being in my observation a frequent contingency then there is probably merit in proceeding.
I think many people, a bulk of women but not exclusively so, have carried over a particular expectation of how clean a place should be and how much domestic work MUST be done from the previous era. That is, from when there was someone full time in the house doing it.
It is that expectation that needs to be lost, to create better domestic harmony. Or else people need to (a) get a cleaner or (b) do what you want done yourself.
“In the past, the way society arranged for the care of children was to ensure that women had little choice but to take on almost the whole of this work. They could not be financially independent, so they had to rely on their husbands for their income. In return, their husbands expected them to take full responsibility for the domestic work and caring for the children (whether or not they actually liked this role).”
Of course, this statement is totally historically rigged. What do the authors mean by “in the past”? This has the rank smell of an appeal to a mythical Golden Age. In the past, there was not necessarily a gender division of labour in the modern sense, since everyone worked at home, and child care was integrated with production. Even in the modern period, children were more often expected to work than just go to school and university until after the second-world war. In other words, even the idea that mothers must work for children, rather than the reverse, is relatively new. Your argument would be more reputable if you dropped the self-serving constitutional appeal to a mythical antiquity.
Conrad,
I think the ‘past’ they’re referring to is a generation or two ago - the world that Betty Friedan hopped into - and rightly so.
There are a couple of economics papers that argue that it is precisely men’s expectations and preferences that drive household labour sharing and therefore the ability of women to go to work.
From “Marrying Your Mom: Preference Transmission and Women’s Labor and Education Choices” (Fernandez, Fogli, Olivetti. NBER Working Paper # 9234):
” … the evolution of male preferences contributed to the dramatic increase in the proportion of working and educated women in the population over time. Male preferences evolved because some men experienced a different family model in which their mother was skilled and/or worked [This was, they argue, due to WWII - ed.]. These men … were more inclined to marry women who themselves were skilled or worked.”
Personally, I find the argument a bit offensive (women in this view just do whatever they’re ‘told’ by men; lucky us that men have been ‘evolving’
).
On the other hand, I think it’s better than the argument that women just like a cleaner house. The differences between male and female housework - and I mean among two-income households - are so big that I can’t see how preferences can explain everything. I’d be interested in a survey that asked about time spent on housework and preferences. ‘Coz I bet there’d be households (like mine) where the bloke is the neat freak but refuses to do the work to get it.
There’s a big difference between “man tidiness” and “woman tidiness”. As long as it is functional, doesn’t smell and poses no immediate danger to personal and public health, it’s cool in my books.
I live alone and the house is neat but not spotless.Vacuuming gets done once every two months, socks get washed when I run out, fingermarks on the fridge ar no big deal. In a previous (married) life this was part of a WEEKLY ritual by my S.O.
I covered this in a post I did some time ago The landlord’s agent cometh. Which was about tidying the pad up before the (female) rental agent came around for an inspection.
Thanks Naomi,
Naturally I appreciate advice. On the other hand not being on the hook I don’t need to let myself off.
Cut the cackle, Real women like Real men. Real men don’t like housework.
If you don’t like housework sweetiepie, don’t do it.
But you won’t stay married long.
I think it stems from how you are brought up as immunokid mentions which results in us developing the same behaviour.
I take great amusement in just waiting to see tasks done by the two males in my household - it can be 8pm and they look to me or the other female when dinner isn’t there. Washing can be left on the line well into the evening/night without a passing thought or action to take it in. The ironing basket can fill up with no action to iron the clothes in there. These are just my experiences though.
Whilst I agree that the mentality exists and don’t mean to disregard your own experience, I think this is just the socially acceptable behaviour but not a reflection of the reality.
I teach children to swim and probably only 10% (if that) of the instructors are male. But I have no issue with noting that the best teachers to develop the connection with their kids are these males. The kids all love them and to watch the interactions between the guys and the kids is really sweet. They are incredibly patient and calm with them. However, a large amount of parents, when they find out their child’s instructor is male, will pull out or request to be swapped to a female.
We need to change this mentality. I don’t know the best way to go about this, especially with the prevalent ‘macho man is the only type of male’ ideals in Australian society.
When I lived on my own here the washing stayed on the line for days. Mind you, I often thought of taking it off. Then it would rain and it all got wet again.
There’s two women here now and they wash clothes non stop. And they get it off the line pretty quick to put more on. But when it comes to washing the dishes no one wants to do it. It’s always a stand off. Yes.
And I’m always the winner.
If you gotta say it baye, it just ain’t so.
Baby, babe, you get it.
Having to amend is never good.
PBRH,
You forgot to tell us who did the cooking that caused the dishes to need to be cleaned!
Naomi: I was in your situation until 6 months ago, when I got a job. Nothing much has changed on the housework front. Also agree with you and Elizajoey that men don’t seem to find it more difficult to relate to/play with kids in my experience (but it’s just my experience).
PBRH: I’m playing battle of the dishes now. Any hints on how I might be able to win this round? Or am I doomed to eternal failure? Any advice much appreciated.
Christine, some suggestions,
1) Only clean the plates you use, when you next serve a meal, make sure his food goes on the dirty plates, likewise for knives and forks, tell him to use his hands, he will soon get the message.
2) Use paper plates
Who does the cooking? We take it in turns. They do it all week, then I do it Friday and Saturday nights.
I have to, they’re always out.
Miss Christine, thanks for your enquiry.
And be assured, no one is doomed to eternal failure. Failure is always studded with occasional success. That’s been my experience anyway. And (may I say) my successes have all been accidents. Happy surprises. And enormous surprises to others.
Now then, you want to know about the dishes. This could be difficult - for you. Because it’s a matter of attitude really. And upbringing. Yes, that most of all. Because I’m a bit of a pig, you see. A dirty lowdown bum. I can eat straight out of the frying pan, give it a rinse, and it’s right for next time. I’m not fussy, that’s what I want to say. My word yes. Because if I were, I’d have starved to death long ago.
Yours (most sincerely)
Pretty Boy.
Nick, I am wary of suggesting women have any innate tendencies towards cleanliness. I do believe much of our behaviour is a result of cultural pressure, much of it is unconcious as well. I think you’re right: (some) women do care more about having a clean & tidy home than (some) men. However, behind that simple statement is the question of why?
‘Tidy brains’ isn’t much of an answer. For us women who don’t have ‘tidy’ brains, it suggests we’re somehow deficient in the ‘being female’ department.
My point is: what about socialisation? To what extent are children socialised from a very young age to behave in a certain manner? I was staying at my BIL’s house last week and his son has all manner of sporting toys, trucks and so on. His daughter has ovens and dolls and so on.
Nor does socialisation/acculturation end when you turn 18.
Anyway, just more fuel for the fire…
Both my partner and I grew up in households where both parents worked outside the home and neither home had a recognised division of labour on the housework front, though I think both our mothers probably did somewhat more around the house than our fathers.
We and many of our cohort can’t be said to have imbibed clear gender-differentiated attitudes to who does what at home.
This might be why neither of us does much housework. We clean if we know somebody’s coming to visit us or when one or the other of us just can’t take it any more.
Speaking anecdotally still, I think temperament probably does come in on the question of who has the highest tolerance for dust and confusion, and on who will clean the most thoroughly once cleaning is set in motion.
It’s civilisation. Goes back a long way. Women have always wanted to look clean. And not live in dirt.
But here’s what Quentin Crisp - “One of Britain’s stately homos” - said about house work:
“After seven years the dust gets no worse.”
-Quentin Crisp. The Naked Civil Servant.
Read it. It’s a funny book.
Pretty Boy R.H
Just wanted to let you know that if you do get married, it probably wont be long either.
Although you may not be satisfied with ALL the work that we do around the house, we are not satisfied with male attention. Come on, honestly, if she is screaming, she is faking.
Get over yourself and start doing the dishes to at least TRY and make her stay.
Im afraid a defense of the injustice coming froma aman holds little weight….talk to the millions of women who dofeel oppressed by societies and mainly mens expectations , those of us who work outside the home as many ours as ur husbands and often in more challenging roles and still end up with the lions share of the work…then you have the whole story…I guess what Im saying is dont make any assumptions about what this reality is like for women until you have walked a mile in our shoes..