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Tell Me About It: Leave gender out of division of housework

 
Published Dec. 6, 2017

Leave gender out of division of housework

Why is it that when a woman cares about the division of labor at home — like her home being a decent level of clean — she is considered to be overreacting?

OK, I'll get down from my soap box now. (I'll also break it down, and put it in the recycling.)

Cares

A: It is not overreacting! Imbalance in the effort at home is a path to divorce.

To suggest otherwise is to tell women, essentially, that their only chance at harmony is to acquiesce to doing more work than their partners because that's what we've been socialized to do. Total cop out. People make their deals in marriage, yes — and we're all free to agree to the arrangements that suit us, even if they involve resignation to one stereotype or another.

But pointing out an injustice of long standing — and one often of default vs. examination — is not hysteria or an -ism run amok. It's how we progress as a society toward fairness.

Men suffer from the rigid gender expectations, too; it's like wearing clothes tailored to someone else. Never feels quite right.

People who are allowed to be themselves starting in childhood, gender roles be damned, grow up to feel better in their own skin, choose better partners and are happier in those relationships for it.

Zero Interest: My grandmother could never understand that I had (and have) zero interest in cooking, so she would sniff and sigh disapprovingly whenever I would respond, "Oh, [husband] is cooking something." Eventually I stopped responding as though it were a real question: "[Husband]'s grilling the neighbor's cat!" "Oreos and wine! I bought them all by myself!" I mean, if she's going to disapprove of my answers, I might as well give her something to disapprove of, right?

Carolyn: Outrageous. Milanos with wine, OK, or Lorna Doones.