#chore gap

“Can we all agree that cooking & cleaning is a basic life skill and not a gender role??????” 

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From Becky Vieira | Witty Otter

"Society started referring to moms as superheroes because it was easier to sit back and let us do everything while making it seem like a compliment rather than taking things off our plates, or actually stepping up and helping us."

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“The results come from a University of Utah study aimed to show the impacts of COVID-19 on American households by surveying 1,060 heterosexual couples with children and analyzing changes in routine housework and care of children.

The report reads:

Mothers are less likely than fathers to report that fathers have increased their time in housework or care of older children. There was no such disagreement regarding mother’s time.

According to findings, fathers reported a 45 percent increase in amounts of time grocery shopping, 36 percent in dishwashing, and 35 percent house cleaning—but homeschooling responsibilities show a very imbalanced relationship between men and women.

Half of couples said education was the sole responsibility of the mother, while 28 percent said both parents are responsible. Only 12 percent of men say it is their sole responsibility as a father.

And in 73 percent of cases, mothers who do the majority of childcare are also solely responsible for educational content.”

“Men who consider themselves Super Right On allies to women. If your workplace has a bring a plate Christmas party, make sure you bring one (don’t get your wife to organise it) and actually take charge of the clean up. It ain’t women’s job to feed you and wipe up your crumbs.”

“Need to make your husband understand just how much of the physical, mental, and emotional labor you do in your marriage? Staging your own death is the key. Here’s a step-by-step guide featuring a totally hypothetical husband named Alex who will no doubt finally step up to the plate when you make your miraculous return from the dead.

1. Deep-Clean Your Home

The detectives will be going through your house with a fine-tooth comb hours after you’re reported missing. If your home isn’t in perfect order, they’ll judge you, not your husband. In fact, they’ll praise Alex for holding down the fort and “babysitting” his own goddamn children during this terrible time.”

Read the full piece here

"Women still spend way more time than men, up to 10 times as much, on unpaid tasks like child care and senior care, as well as on volunteer work and domestic chores.

In order to tip the scales toward parity in the homes of heterosexual couples, the report says that men would need to spend at least 50 more minutes a day caring for children and households — and women, 50 minutes less.”

“My husband does not do laundry because he wants to have sex. He does the laundry for the same reason I imagine most people do: because the clothes are dirty.

So I find myself a bit baffled by Lean In’s latest campaign to convince men to do more at home by promising them it will make their wives more likely to sleep with them. Men should be actively involved in achieving work and domestic equality for women because it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s way past time that they do so – not because it might get them laid.

Sheryl Sandberg’s latest endeavor, Lean In Together, is otherwise mostly very smart. The newly-launched website provides some excellent prompts and tips for men: don’t give your daughters less allowance than your sons and make sure their chores are equally valued; be a hands-on father to increase your daughter’s self-esteem; pay attention to gender stereotypes in toys and children’s media; encourage your daughter to lead rather than label her a “know-it-all”.

But the incentive for men to be 50/50 domestic partners with their wives leaves me cold:

When men share household responsibilities, their wives are happier and their marriages are stronger. Not only does marital satisfaction go up, but couples have more sex – “choreplay” is real!

Leaving the unfortunate coinage of “choreplay”, do we really want to live in a world where men are only cleaning up around the house to get some? In a New York Times op-ed touting the new campaign, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant tell the story of a woman who asked her husband to do the laundry. They write, “He picked up the basket and asked hopefully, ‘Is this Lean In laundry?’” I understand that the anecdote is meant to be charming, but in a culture where men are already taught to feel entitled to women sexually, I don’t find it cute in the least.

It also paints a fairly inaccurate - and transactional - picture of female desire. Despite terrible gift books to the contrary, most women don’t get off on men vacuuming or picking up socks (not that there’s anything wrong with those that do). What turns women on is what turns men on: good sex.”

Read the full essay here