I feel like this is another topic that is based on situations. See I lived in a role as the man of the house, the bread winner, the cook, the handy man, the child care provider and the cleaner. I took up work from home full time as an office worker and my responsibilities have outweighed many others. As far as people who are critized for homes being dirty this is something I feel is equally done on both parts. For the men, our friends and family will judge as much as the women deal with it, most of us just choose not to speak of it, you know we do that thing called bottling*man up* anyways still a good read.
1
NO ONE EVER SAYS what the husbands are doing while the wives are doing the domestic work. It's silly. What's wrong with everyone????
1
some people say that women's house are more messy than men's house. I don't agree that some people say that people should have equal opinions
I tell my sons on a regular basis that wives are not "mommies with benefits" and they need to do their share.
When boys still live at home with their parents. Before they grow up and move out. They are expected to do house hold chores. Their parents expect them to do them. Like clean up their room, do dishes, take out the garbage, put laundry in the hamper, pick up their clothes off the floor, change the tp roll, cut the grass, etc. So why is it when they grow up and get married they don’t have to do any chores anymore? They dump them on the wife?
1
Let's remember; it's women who set those standards that invite judgement on women.
In some respects I can really relate to this article--when my boyfriend and I host people in our apartment, I always stress about how welcoming the guest bedroom looks and go out of my way to put together a 'welcome basket' filled with (hopefully) thoughtful things like toiletries, a toothbrush, facial cream, etc, and I tend to go a bit overboard--the bf is not fussed about this at all, lord bless him. In day to day life though, I feel pretty good about where we are. I am little messy, but I cook 6 out of 7 days and bake fresh bread on the weekends--and my cooking is very good.
I also organize groceries and pantry supplies, as well as household necessities. The bf is excellent at laundry and meticulous about the state of the apartment. His cooking, though. :) He's very good at roasting vegetables.
I would hate to be wasting my life cleaning up after someone all the time, so I try quite hard not to be a burden though I am hard work occasionally. especially when he comes in from the gym to find a whirlwind of flour, and frantic assurances brioche will soon emerge from this chaos.
I have never seen a mess in any of my gay male friend homes.
It’s NOT all males.
It’s not even all straight males either.
Some males are just slobs who don’t care if they live in squalor.
2
I married a French scientist/professor in Paris while I was lecturing on post-grad cultural history and pursuing my Ph.D. However, I had a decade of life seniority over my husband. We both worked full-time (and overtime at home reading and preparing lectures and research). We shared equally in housework, cooking, and shopping. This is due to two reasons.
My husband was raised in a house in central France where both parents worked outside the home and cooked. Both parents also shopped and cleaned although most of the grocery shopping fell to his father and most of the house cleaning to his mother. While his father drove to outdoor markets and speciality stores all Saturday morning his mother seemed quite content cleaning house and laundering clothes at home. My husband learned from this childhood experience.
I was raised in a tradition and choice of radical feminism so I made it clear to my husband that the personal was political and non-negotiable, and household work was equally shared labor, didn't he agree? He did truly agree, with his family upbringing as training and example.
My husband and I shared housework in our small Parisian studio although I love to wash windows and to garden balconies, and he weekly walked the laundry down the street. We both love to food shop and cook. Some weeks he cleaned more and I cooked more due to scheduling, then vice versa.
Both reasons were necessary for an equitable, peaceful household of love and labor.
3
What I found in the "New York Times" that interested me this week was an article called "Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House" by "Claire Cain Miller". The reason I chose this article because I believe that this was going to be a very interesting topic to read about, which it was. In the article it talks about how the roles of a man and a women have changed from the beginning of time. In the article it also talks about how a man with a messy house is "given a pass", while women are expected to have a presentable looking house. I personally think that most of the time it is the woman's choice to clean the house, especially if there are going to be guests over, and to me some men don't care about how their house looks so they are okay with leaving is dirty. Now this doesn't mean that all men are this way, for example of the T.V show “Full House” grandpa “Danny” likes to make sure his house stays clean no matter what, he is basically obsessed with the cleanness of his house. I don't really believe that we can just simply go off of this chart because none of this was never actually proven, this is more of an opinion based belief. I think it doesn't really matter who cleans the house, I mean it is good if both husband and wife clean, but it really just matters that the house is getting clean and sanitary.
@Madison Rich If this is a school assignment, you might want to make changes. This information is based on a research study, so it is "proven." Also, someone from TV is not a real person. I definitely would not use that as an example. It's not about it mattering who cleans. It's about women being more harshly judged for messy homes.
I am a teacher, and really am trying to help you. We do these types of assignments in my class, and I always read each article that students comment on, and grade based on whether or not the student has clearly read and understands the article.
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When we discuss the roles men and women plan in a house, let’s be sure to include the topic of “honey-dos”, repair projects/upgrades, and other roles men are asked/expected to do.
There is always something that the man needs to do around the house because his wife delegated that task or he self identified the task. These tasks typically do not involve cleaning the house and we’re overlooked in this article. The tasks could be cook this, repair that, install this, buy that, kill the bug, capture the mouse, and other dirty jobs. The lists can be lengthy depending upon the age and size of the house.
Let’s acknowledge that we all have roles to play in a relationship and we should not be shaming one gender or another. There are opportunities on both sides to pick up the slack around the house.
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@Jim It looks like they considered all chores men did to me. And, this article isn't to shame anyone. It's to relay research findings. I always wonder why people get so defensive over factual information. It's not a competition or putting anyone down. It is literally pointing out information from a study. I see articles like this as an opportunity for people to change their thinking in judging women more harshly for a messy home more than anything else. How couples split the housework is their business. But, as a society, we can learn to judge less.
5
Once I went to work full time, I hired a house-cleaning person (or service) on a weekly basis. It meant cutting back on other things, like clothes or eating out, but it was absolutely worth it, because there was far less bad feelings about who did what. I still did more than my share (I'm the female) but so much less of it that it was tolerable. Anyone with a partner who doesn't pull his/her weight around the house is entitled to paid help. Make them give up something (like fancy toys) to help pay for it.
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When I told my (then) eight year old son that he was now part of the cleaning roster for our home (two parent family, dad never did squat around the house), he asked me why he had to learn. My answer was that someday he would be grown up and living elsewhere and he would need to know how to do these things. His reply, "but my wife will do all that for me".
Guess it's just as well he learned and got lots of practice because he's still not married at 40.
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The key to this is don't invite people over. Then, it's a non-issue. That's what cafes are for. Meet your friends at a cafe, just like they do in Europe.
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@Herself that assumes one isn't depressed/stressed/disgusted/enraged by living in a mess or doing all the grunt work for both parties.
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Speaking of how paid work is set up, it would be interesting to study the caring professions that working families rely on--the nurses, healthcare workers, educators and teaching aides. (Not management or administrators.) What do such professionals' own family lives look like?
*There's an anecdote in one of Brené Brown's books about the working mom who misses her daughter's school performance, to be judged by some and comforted by others. As a well educated low wage professional, I've been both the teacher and the mother in that scenario. Not comfortable.
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But, but, but as a gay man, housekeeping standards are expected to be maintained at Queer Eye levels and do I have to say that gay men are overwhelmingly male? How could the writer gender bash men about messiness without including the alternative lifestylers among us. Clearly Claire Miller is in need of some diversity programming else she wouldn't have produced an article that neglects to take into consideration the cleanliness standards of gay men.
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@Curtis M While I don't disagree with you, I wonder in a gay household how housekeeping inequity plays out. Is there a sharp imbalance, or do both partners contribute relatively equally to home maintenance?
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@Curtis M Could it be that the studies didn't look too specifically at gay men and women? They mentioned something about same sex couples, but I got the idea that the study didn't go into that too much. It seemed to be about how individuals judge who is responsible when a house isn't clean, as well as differences in how clean a room should be based on the gender of the cleaner.
My husband wants a DIY project but can't do it alone, who do you think possibly is helping him me the wife. a 12'w x 26' long x 20' high shed. framing needs lifting after being built, who is being called on to help, me the wife a 5'3" tall wife weighing at 120lbs. Do you think he asks any man, nope. It took him and I 1 month to complete. we take turns mowing the lawn. I do a majority of the gardening, even though he wants gardens to, he doesn't prune, weed or water the plants or lawn I do it. He has a hoards of unfinished or junk projects sitting in the yard he never planned or plans to work on, mean while it keeps piling up all in the mean while he's running around like a chicken with his head chopped off going no where. I do all the bills. clean house and keep things orderly. If I have a layer of dust any where he has no problem pointing that out, or a spot on the floor. Only chore he does in the house is dishes and picky about how they are placed in the dishwasher funny that. It took me 10 years to kindly ask him to pick up his dirty clothes off the floor and put them in the laundry basket..His way of always getting out of doing things/chores is he says I do it better than him. Which doesn't cut with me. I have heard and seen many men to have tantrums and yet a man has a problem admitting that they do.
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@tbdudley I'd move on if I were you. But then, I'm a man.
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@tbdudley As in all things in life, you generally find that which you expect to find, which seems to be the case in your instance. No, all or most men are not 'lazy' when it comes to all things to do with the household/childcare. Your man apparently is, but please don't try to imply all or most men are this way, in order to make yourself feel less badly about the man you chose to be with. (This mentality is not all that different from women who say that 'all men cheat'. This is typically uttered by women who were cheated on, and who don't want to admit that they simply made a bad choice in a man. They'd rather suggest that all their other female friends should also be on 'the alert' with regards to their own men. Misery sure does love company.)
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@tbdudley
I hope he has some redeeming features
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So much of this is social conditioning for both men and women. It starts when we're too young to even see it for what it is, and it isn't easy to shake it off. When he was growing up, my husband's sisters were expected to make his bed and his younger brother's. They were also expected to clear the table, take turns doing dishes & help with cooking. He and his brother were never asked or expected to do those things. On weekends, their Dad would take the boys on outings to museums or local attractions while the girls stayed home to help Mom with the housework. By the time we met my husband had been living on his own for a bit and could keep his clothes and living space reasonably clean, but cooking was still hit or miss. His sisters are constantly complaining about the mess their husbands and kids make, but I notice they never ask them to help because "it's easier to do it myself". They don't want their daughters to do any housework lest they repeat their mother's pattern, and their sons do nothing because they ARE repeating their mother's pattern. I predict it might be a few generations before housework is more equitably shared.
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@A. Cleary "....His sisters are constantly complaining about the mess their husbands and kids make, but I notice they never ask them to help because "it's easier to do it myself".
This right there is a common issue. Many women have this assumption that all or most men are less capable or less willing when it comes to all household/childcare task, and they take it upon themselves to do all or most of such work. They love to play the martyr, all the while complaining under their breath. And yeah, then when the man does try to help, the women are never satisfied. Some men just can't win with certain women.
It's interesting that I myself don't expect men to be this way, and that all the man I've been in long-term relationships with didn't let me down in this area. They were all great cooks, and very capable of managing their own households. ;-)
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Sounds like women should probably chose to do fewer chores that don’t need to be done as regularly. 2.3 hours is ridiculous and a waste of valuable leisure time. Also, some types of chores are more valuable than others that take more time, like taking out trash vs. mopping floors. Couples should discuss how they want to split up chores and sometimes the split won’t ideally be 50/50. It’s okay to have a division of labor in the house, especially since men on average spend more time at work making money than women. Real paid work, not fake unpaid work like doing dishes.
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@Aaron Michelson I was almost with you till I read your last two sentences..Thinking you might be single.
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@Aaron Michelson this is a joke comment right?
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This holds for child care, too. About 20 years ago, when the kids were little, I took my older son out to get his haircut, leaving the younger one (3 or so) home with his father. When I got back, I couldn't find the younger son (my husband hadn't even noticed he was gone). We looked everywhere for him, and finally called the police. The cop asked how long he had been missing, and I said, about an hour -- and he was very accusatory -- "how could you allow a little child to be gone so long..." As soon as I started to lay out the timeline, and he realized it was the HUSBAND who had lost track of the kid, his attitude changed. Perfectly normal if the husband lets the kid go astray. (Our son was fine, BTW -- had wandered off by himself to the local playground.)
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@Rachel Kreier Er...maybe his attitude changed because he realized that your husband clearly messed up, and that you were likely going to rail into your husband, and this in turn put the cop in the middle of an awkward but understandable rift between husband and wife....
Dads are not all 'bumbling idiots' as TV commercials and sitcoms like to portray as 'humor'.
@Rachel Kreier
I once left 2 preschoolers with my husband for about 9 hours on a Saturday while I attended to a business meeting in a distant town. When I walked in at 6 they were playing happily on the living room floor-dad and kids. They took one look at me, burst into tears, and said : " Mom, we're so hungry. Daddy forgot to feed us all day!" He confessed that this was the case.
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"Messy men are given a pass" and so are messy boys. I've heard a family member dismiss her son's sloppy habits by stating "He's just a boy." Perhaps when parents instill in their children the concept of shared, and substantial, responsibilities, and have greater expectations of them, there will be less inequity. And when I see a 12 year old girl mowing the lawn I'll celebrate another step in the right direction.
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@Charles Clark enjoy your celebration... I took part in mowing, painting and all manner of so-called traditionally male tasks in the futile hope that my father would quit whining about not having a son and accept his daughters. Didn't affect his misogyny, but I became a self-sufficient adult and quite happy about that.
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@Charles Clark My father died when I was young. I have no brothers. Or sisters, for that matter. It was just my mom and I.
At 12 years old, I mowed the lawn, cleaned out the gutters, killed the snake, went under the house to light the pilot on the furnace, etc., anything and everything a son or husband would have done.
Like Mel, I became a happy, self-sufficient adult as well.
Girls rock!
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At my age, I have begun to practice the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning - great excuse for a messy house.
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I lived with my husband for years before we got married. I can tell you this - if he didn't help with household chores, I wouldn't have married him. We cook together, we clean together, we do laundry together, and he always washes the dishes for me (because I hate it!). I know the studies show that women typically do more of the household chores even when they think it is equal, but I really do think our household IS equal. We don't just take turns, we literally work as a team almost every day on every chore. It's a good bonding experience (and makes the chores go twice as fast).
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@Jessica Children add to the tasks that need to be done, and usually take priority. You don't mention them, so I assume your family life is simpler than those w/children.
An interesting comparison would involve the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of a house/apartment shared solely by men with a house/apartment shared solely by women. This would control for some of the social/environmental biases cited here.
In the men's house they would know that cleaning is their responsibility, with no women available to come to the rescue. My guess is that the men's house would be less clean than the women's. Why? Perhaps because there are no women around to clean it. Or perhaps, because men are more tolerant of less cleanliness than women are. There could be an innate difference between men and women in terms of how they view their immediate living environment and what level of cleanliness or messiness gives them comfort or discomfort.
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I'm often struck by how desperately people--both men and women--want to tie social mores to biology and declare them "innate", an assessment which means that we can't do anything about them and therefore don't have to try. If most or all all-male dwellings were messier than most or all all-female dwellings, it would seem to validate these researchers' point--that men sustain no social stigma for messiness and therefore can afford to be "comfortable" with it, with no need to fall back on the assumption of innate levels of comfort with mess. And yet, of course, many, many people rush to do exactly that.
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@Bruce
In my experience many of the household tasks women are willing to do (like iron napkins, set the table with flowers etc.) men do not want to be bothered with. That is on the high end - on a more basic level I don't think they have the same ego involvement, mentioned in the article, as a motivator so they will let things slide until they are inconvenienced enough to do something about it - like running out of clean socks. Even then they might just buy more. I also think many men are rather oblivious to what their mothers and wives actually do. I think they have been socialized that way.
Clearly I am only generalizing as I know many, many men do more than their fair share or do all of it.
The "not wanting to bother" includes children. How many times can one walk past the basket of folded laundry at the bottom of the stairs, ready to be taken up?
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@Cat
Except there is no objective standard of messiness is there? That is my point. There may be a certain standard in the eye of the female and a different standard in the eye of a male, but they may not be the same standard. So which standard should be applied? If it is the female standard then your point holds, but if it is the male standard then it is a case of you being dissatisfied with the male standard, rather than the behavior of the male. I am not saying I know the answer. I am saying there are other explanations that may apply.
So to your point, why should there be a "social stigma for messiness" if the person at issue genuinely sees no messiness whatsoever?
I am always amazed at the beautiful things in the world that my wife points out to me that would go unnoticed by me without her prodding. Is it just possible that there is an innate difference in how one sees the environment around him/her on a daily basis? It certainly doesn't seem to be impossible.
5
Repetitive inside chores may still be viewed as women's work, but heavy manual or dangerous jobs continue to be seen as men's work. Is it fair to demand men do the same work as women when women refuse to do the same work as men? And what of the biological fact that men and women are different? Men frequently can't even see the marks or dust that women pull their hair out over. Conversely while men are usually happy to use their greater strength to lump something heavy around the house for a female relative, they're far less inclined to do so for a female colleague who's employed to do the same job as them. Perhaps folk just need to accept we're not equal and get over it?
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As someone who does the bulk of the housework AND the bulk of the yard work AND the bulk of the financial management, I have two thoughts about this. One, washing cars, mowing grass, weeding, chopping ivy, pruning shrubbery, splitting stovewood, and changing oil--all of which I do or have done--are not men's chores because they're especially heavy or dangerous (having done them, I know they're not). They are considered men's chores because they're associated with masculinity in a way that doing the dishes is not. Two, I agree with you that "we're not equal." But the lack of equality isn't in ability to do traditionally masculine or feminine chores. The lack of equality is in how much unpaid domestic work men and women do, and how happy both men and women are to assume that women should do more. So, no, I'm not inclined to "get over it"--not while the people who tell others to get over inequities are generally the ones benefitting from the inequities.
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How many times a day does something heavy need to be lugged around at your house?
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@John Smythe you didn’t even read the article did you it? The cited studies debunked the idea that men don’t recognize the mess as well as women. There’s nothing “biological” about men not seeing dirt and mess.
The conclusion is men aren’t held responsible or judged for it, thus they don’t bother. Both men and women are culpable for allowing men to get away with this and putting the burden of housework on women.
3
Men get a pass on a messy house because other men and women do not care if a man is messy. Women do not get a pass because other women do care is her home is messy, whereas most men do not care if a woman is messy. Until recently (last 75 years) virtually all families depended on family women to perform domestic duties and for men to perform wage, warfare, and other outside-home duties. The advent of lower wages for all jobs (quaintly called "higher productivity") requires two wage earners today to provide the same support that a solitary man would have been expected to provide pre-WW II.
To be fair, pre-WW II most poor families also needed two wage earners to survive, but the social model was "The man provides and the woman nurchers".
In our current world, employers can play on the pre-WW II social model to pay women less than men for the same work. Such exploited women are then socially expected to also maintain domestic duties suitable for a domestic servant because such women rarely earn enough to hire a domestic servant from their meager pay checks.
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It is entirely true that husbands create dirty and messy conditions in the home. One big reason why is because THEIR MOTHERS put up with their disorderliness and continually pick up after them when they are children. I've been married for 33 years, and my husband is worse than a five-year-old child when it comes to cleaning up after himself. And it is all his mother's fault.
They grow up looking upon their own mothers as "scullery maids." They also see their own fathers creating messes in the home and they see their mothers cleaning up after their fathers as well. They grow up virtually never seeing any male family member housecleaning. Then when they get married, they view housekeeping as entirely the job of the wife/mother, and they set this same awful example for their sons. The only way to break this vicious cycle is for MOTHERS to insist that their sons help them to clean up the home. BOYS and girls both need to take out the trash, make the beds, tidy up the rooms (not just their bedroom, but all of the rooms), clear the table and pick up dishes, load and unload the dishwasher (or wash and dry the dishes), do the laundry and clean the bathrooms. BOYS and girls also need to learn to make simple meals. This is yet another case where proper home training would greatly improve the behavior of men and boys in the home.
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@Elizabeth Moore Sounds like you enjoy being a martyr. If your husband is still not kowtowing to your expectations after 33 years then it's not his mothers fault, it is yours.
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Radical thought here: maybe the FATHER should've helped to train the proto-husband to do his share? Even when we see a grown man behaving like a toddler, somehow it always seems to be some woman's fault--his mother's, for not being able to singlehandedly undo the father's and the society's social conditioning, or the wife's, for putting up with it. Maybe it's neither of their faults. Maybe it's primarily the guy's own fault, and secondarily the father's fault for modeling inequity for the former child.
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@Elizabeth Moore
Are there no messy single women?
1
As kids, my parents made sure that my brother and I were both expected to wash dishes, and help with laundry, but we also were expected to do labour, like chopping wood, and mowing lawns.
We also helped Mom in her garden. Mom always kept a nice, big garden with all kinds of flowers and veggies. Gardening was her favourite hobby! So at home, we learned to do both "male" and "female" chores.
However, when we went to visit our grandparents (on both sides) kitchen work, gardening, laundry was Gramma's domain, while outdoor labour and repairing stuff was Grampa's domain! Both of my grandfathers, my father, and myself and my brother, ALWAYS offered to help both of my grandmothers with their house work, and without fail, they always shooed us away!
My dad's parents were married for 70 years, and right up until Grampa became too feeble near the end, he would always ask to help Gramma in the kitchen. She sometimes let him dry dishes, but most often she would say, "Get out of MY kitchen!" Grampa would flash a sheepish grin and say, "You heard the boss!" All us boys would flee the area. She had no problem letting Mom help in the kitchen though.
5
@Roy To continue: Today, I work in a female-dominated industry. I do dishes in the break room ALL the time, and I happily sew and stitch when necessary. I have no problem doing "women's work" because that's how I was raised.
BUT when it comes to nearly ANY form of "heavy" manual labour or repair work, the ladies ALWAYS ask me or one of the other two men to do it instead of just doing it themselves. Even climbing a ladder to change a light bulb is, as one female co-worker put it, a "blue job" around my office.
So are these social conventions? Old traditions that won't die? Or is is more a case of women's lib, when it's convenient? What's the truth? Women love to cry for equality in our current political climate, but when it comes to doing manual labour or repairs, there's definitely an observable, sexist double standard, at least where I work.
One final thought, which I'm sure will not be popular, but begs to be said: house work today is not as difficult as it was in the early 1900s. Today, laundry usually entails tossing everything into a machine. No need for the wash board! A lot of people don't even bother to sort colours or iron anymore.
Today, folks throw socks out when they get holes instead of painstakingly darning them. Today, doing dishes often means loading and unloading a machine. "Cooking" often involves ready-made microwaveable meals. These tasks are a far cry from the tough drudgery of "women's work" in bygone days.
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@Roy It drives me crazy when people (both men and women, as you point out) conveniently invoke gender stereotypes to get out of doing work they don't want to do. Not shoveling off the sidewalk, if you are an able-bodied women, is just as "bad" as refusing to change a diaper as a man. You're right that we can't attempt to obliterate gender roles in one direction while perpetuating them in another. Your childhood sounds ideal in terms of (1) learning vital life skills and (2) sharing workload. I was raised much the same way so I cringe that there are still women out there talking about "blue jobs". I strongly believe exposure/training goes a long way towards overcoming unfair or unnecessary gender roles. If a person has never been around babies or power tools, he or she is going to be reluctant to attempt the job and more likely to pass it off on someone who they deem more competent or interested, even if that designation is based on stereotypes, not reality. Strengths, interests, and abilities do not fall within neat boxes, gender or otherwise. When it comes to chores, if you want food to eat and clean clothes to wear you have to cook and do laundry (if it's within your ability), even if it isn't your strength or interest. Play kitchens, mini tool belts, and yes, even dolls are for ALL kids, since they teach them valuable life skills!
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@Roy, maybe the women ask you to do those things because you are taller. Also, how are they dressed? Even today in the US women often wear clothing that restricts their activity. I’m glad your parents taught you to sew and clean up, but that’s not hero-medal stuff.
3
I think that women are judged for a messy home and other imperfections of yard and general domesticity, but more so by older women than women of our own age group. I have heard my mother and women older than her go off on young women, coupled or not, for having a messy home. I tend to be tidy in general, but I often wonder what it is she says about me when she leaves my house. My much older neighbor comments on my yard keeping skills (I'm single. I'm supposed to do it all even though she clearly does not.) I think this particular generation of older women finds it exceptionally easy to judge younger women.
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Who cares? Just don't clean as much if you don't want to. Really digging deep to look for "oppression" here.
2
Really??? Life is so unfair.
Women are almost inevitably more worried about other women seeing a messy house. Men tend to overlook whatever the concern is and get on with the reason that people gather. It's a conundrum..
3
I can't help but believe there are many reasons for a messy house. This may sound like an excuse rather than an explanation, but with both my sons, now adults, ADD certainly factors in. (And diagnosed with it). We never succeeded in teaching them how to clean their rooms, and honestly it seemed as if they were just as frustrated as we were. Even though they were coached how to do it systematically, and break it down to manageable bits, they truly felt overwhelmed and it clearly contributed to a poorer self image. As adults, they've still not mastered it. Wonderful people though and their positives far outweigh these negatives.
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@Birder
I tend to be disorganized, but I like things clean and don't mind cleaning, but after a severe bout of depression and other physical conditions that leave me with little energy, I am not able to clean. My family and my job go first. I do what I can, hen I can, and try to ignore the nagging voice in my mind that makes me feel embarrassed every time someone comes to the door, and angry at myself every single day while thinking about my mental to-do list, so I understand you. Men or women, being messy is often not an existential flaw, not even a choice.
5
Cleaning is like email - produces a temporary sense of satisfaction and productiveness when done (or answered - "inbox zero" 🙌) but is ultimately pointless (yet necessary) at the same time.
As someone who sits on the other side of this overwhelming trend i.e. a male who did the bulk of household "female" chores while my wife did the bulk of the "traditionally male" chores, gendered expectations can only be part of it. It is also due to internal, negotiated dynamic of the relationship and the difficulties in having the other person acknowledge and credit work that largely goes unnoticed but which is essential. In effect, people have a remarkable capacity to discount the value of other's work while elevating the value of their own. Now, if I knew how to solve this issue...
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@Peter
You are right, it becomes invisible it's easy to dismiss the effort and time it takes.
In my case my husband seems to have an incredible tolerance for dirt, so if I don't do it, nobody will. The options are cleaning or asking for a divorce.
2
@MR I believe more and more women are asking for the divorce.
4
@Peter Cleaning is not just aesthetic, although that is often overlooked. (A preference for order over chaos yet another issue.) Cleaning the bathroom and kitchen controls germs. Most of us would rather than contract e coli, etc. Dust throughout the house contributes to allergies, etc. It's not JUST preferences and whether or not one perceives messes.
2
higher standard ? perhaps self-imposed ? Perhaps more from female competitive rivalry than men’s ?
I was raised in a country town where social evenings typically involved men attracted to the kitchen as the warm and convivial heart and hearth of the home - only to be shooshed out by stern matrons' command 'men out of the kitchen!!'
whereupon the men would meekly shuffle out to sit awkwardly on rarely-used sofas in an empty loungeroom and gaze unhappily out the window while waiting for food to be served by the women who had chatted happily in the kitchen from where the men were banished.
Just today I was reprimanded in the kitchen by my angry-faced female partner for 'not doing it right' - simply mixing beef mince for hamburgers - something I have done successfully many times alone in the past - but no - this is something more about woman's domain - where she feels in charge - and any incursion by a man is seen as threatening her area of control.
So - after finishing what I knew was enough, I returned to my recliner - to wait and be served hamburger - which wasn't quite how I would have liked it - but hey it's easier than getting attacked for invading someone's eminent domain ...
9
@Frank Brown I've experienced this same thing many times in my life as well. You offer to help, and you get shooed away!
4
Is this premise even true? I've seen both men and women judged for having messy homes.
This article doesn’t make the case for women. It just makes them seem way too sensitive to criticism/judgement. Women are doing an outsized share of housework, but speaking on societal pressure (aka the voice in her head and her own insecurity) is a poor excuse. Women need to stand up and demand some equity when it comes to parenting and housework. “Why should they have to?” <—— what you say when you’re too scared to stand up for yourself but don’t wanna come off weak.
1
The problem is our expectations are ingrained by our parents. My Mom stayed home, raised 6 kids, cooked, cleaned while Dad went to work and earned the income. I have one foot in that old paradigm (SHE cleans) but one in the new (SHE earns). My husband does not see clutter or dirt, he loves stuff piled around (mostly the printed page of any sort) and can't part with any of it. I've fussed and fumed, he promises but ...
4
When I was married, we divided the chores among ourselves and our children. Even the 3 year old had chores to do on Saturday and the 15 yo did the vacuuming, while her father did the bathroom cleaning and I did the laundry. It created a sort of camaraderie among us, as we were all working toward a clean home at the same time.
14
Here we go again - this issue rates an article? It is true that a mess bothers more women than men in general, but slobs abound but nowadays women don't care! I am a self professed neatnik but I am appalled by both men and women who are messy. The sloppiest woman I knew (who didn't care) would throw her clothes everywhere and root thru "less dirty" clothes to wear out - it gets better: she would turn underpants inside out to wear again! And this is a woman who looked fabulous when she went out! But a slob with a capital S and she didn't care what people thought. I have known men with homes as neat as pins - my conclusion has to do with what women and men were taught as children. Those lessons stick. In my case, my parents were slobs. I vowed never to be like them.
3
@Mahalo
Yes, this issue rates an article. It s a major source of friction in families, and a major reason women are left behind at work (although often not a real reason but a excuse).
Also, your own case is an example that what we were taught as children doesn't always determine what they do today.
2
Purely anecdotal here but in my time dating in NYC (before I was married) I was more frequently (and just overall frequently) appalled at the messiness of women's apartments (particularly the bathrooms) than I ever was at the apartments of any of my male friends.
I can't think of any man I know who wanted or had any expectations of having any kind of success with meeting women who would let themselves live in filth. Women clearly don't share that burden.
Now as a 42 year old married man and father I do about 75% of the housework in our apartment and I absolutely create less of the mess than either my wife or child. I include the cat in this because I wouldn't have a cat, left to my own devices so that mess is also my wife's.
What is the implication of this? I don't know. But I do know that I do harbor some resentment about the inequality in the share of work being done and it's been an issue in our couples counseling and something she's working on.
I know that in our society the facts hold up to scrutiny that men do less at home overall...but in my own social circle of people who spent early adulthood and met and got married in NYC that was absolutely not the case...
4
@Hern
You see how you feel about your wife? Most working women feel that way about their husbands.
7
Who says messy men are given a pass?
I know a woman in her thirties who says the stark white tennis shoes, well pressed clothes and neatness were what first attracted her to her future husband. When she discovered that he kept his home and car impeccably clean, that further attracted her.
8
@Jean That's one person and a smart woman, because a neatfreak husband may actually help out with the cleaning.
1
A common experience amongst my friends is that we have to ask the men in our households to do things that they shouldn't have to be asked to do (e.g. clean up a mess they've made, notice that they used the last roll of toilet paper and put a new batch in the bathroom, notice that the kids' laundry is piling up, etc), which then leads to the man feeling "nagged" (a word which I find is most often used by people who are not noticing work that needs to be done and resent being asked to do something they haven't paid attention to). It has always seemed to me that even in my generation it is the woman's "job" to notice what needs to get done and make it happen--the men and the children don't notice, and then have to be asked to do things, which sets up a dynamic of resentment. A logical solution would seem to be to divvy up chores, but this can backfire, as it leads to the opportunity for people to say "this isn't on my list, so it's not my responsibility."
25
@KEL Totally agree. I have 2 boys and a husband, none of whom seem to notice they leave stuff lying around - dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter, shoes scattered around the entryway, laundry on the floor, the list goes on. I have to “remind” (read nag) them to pick up after themselves and they get resentful. The honestly don’t see it or if they do, it doesn’t register. However, I am done with picking up and nag them daily. Doesn’t necessarily make for a harmonious household but at least I’m not seething with rage every time I walk into the house.
5
@ND
If they don't seem to notice the mess, and have no expectation that someone else is going to take care of the mess, then maybe they're OK with there being a mess.
It seems to me the equal sharing of chores should only be expected if all parties agree (or can compromise) on what those chores are.
If that discussion isn't explicit, it leaves the person with the most expansive view of necessary chores feeling overburdened, and makes the others feel like requests are 'nags' to do chores they didn't otherwise care about.
2
@ND
Get yourself a big bag. When you find their stuff lying around, put it in the bag and hide it somewhere. When they say "where's my such-and-such?" you say "I don't know; where did you leave it?"
7
@E I agree it's the women that reinforce the housecleaning labor duties to other women from one generation to the next. Time to take a clue from the men and give eachother a break!
3
Suggestions to minimize housework:
. Live in a place of reasonable size, with no pets. Have hard floors that can be swept with broom. Vacuum once or possibly twice per month.
. Don't use an oven or stove except for boiling; microwave instead. Don't make a big production about food if there would be any martyrdom involved. Put food in a bowl and eat it from a bowl. Clean up stray food immediately.
. Don't use things that require ironing.
. Don't allow people wearing white gloves into your space unless you know dirt about them.
Stray thoughts:
When portable vacuum cleaners were invented, it was expected that time spent on housework would decline. Instead, standards of cleanliness went up. I guess that women, advertisers, and salespeople raised the standards.
I would like to have a place for everything, but if I get more shelves, I acquire more things.
4
There's not mystery to why ""Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found." You are cleaning up after an extra person who isn't doing squat. Keeping up with two people's mess when only one of them lifts a finger quickly becomes a terrible chore.
Nobody wants to do the thankless tasks involved in keeping things going. But apparently a lot of men are comfortable foisting those tasks onto women whom they purport to love. I've never quite understood how that works.
28
I was working full time, primary care-taker for 2 kids under age 4 (one still exclusively breast-fed), and earning more than my husband. Yet one day when our landlord came for a short visit, who did he scold for the sparse weeds along the side of the driveway -- me, the wife, of course.
14
@Eddie I feel your pain. I'm supposed to have a full time job, keep my yard perfect and keep my house perfect. My neighbor has a son who does all her yardwork, but she (who only waters the occasional plant) is happy to tell me what **I** need to do in my yard to make HER happy.
1
My late husband was fully disabled by leukemia (probably incurred from drinking poisoned water at Camp LeJeune while a Marine) and stroke. I worked more than full time to provide for him. For all those years, he did virtually all the housework he could, no matter how long it took. (I cooked because I am good at it and he was a self-admitted disaster, moved furniture for cleaning, and did not permit him to touch the toilets or cat box.)
He regarded it as a point of honor and manhood to do all he could and support me as much as he possibly could, to include what he called provision of menial services, such as bringing me my first cup of coffee while I was still struggling to get out of bed.
I cannot tell you how many women told me, I was lucky, their husbands left it all to them. And how many men were shocked--to include by the fact that I took the time and spent the money to exercise hard. It is extraordinarily sad that so many men regard women as servants, not partners.
32
I work full time and my husband is the stay-at-home parent. Yet when his mother visits, she criticizes me for the condition of the house and offers to take us out to dinner to "help [me] out." It's frustrating in a confusing way because she is acting like she's doing me a favor when it's really assigning me the responsibility for the "chores" and absolving him of any. It takes some effort to hold my tongue but she is from a different generation and I don't think it's worth getting into it.
23
@Jennie, if she keeps bringing this up, you have every right to tell her it’s none of her business. It’s obviously bothering you, so why not call her out on it. She won’t learn if she’s not told.
10
@Jennie you could turn to your husband and ask him if needs “to be helped out”. Might make the point. He should also speak up and remind his mother that he stays at home and is responsible for the house.
9
@Jennie, for several years I worked while my husband stayed home (not by choice, he was job-hunting). He's quite good at cleaning, better than me, but rarely did any. Then he would complain to me that the house was dirty. When people came over, especially his friends, they would make remarks about MY slovenliness. I did sometimes try to point out the inequity of this, but no one listens. I don't believe speaking to your mother-in-law would do any good.
6
How can a man live with the knowledge that his wife has a harder, less fulfilling life because she does so much more work and has so much more responsibility at home 24/7/365? The love in that relationship is out of balance. A man who allows that to happen is selfish. If you a married to such a man, leave him!
18
@Sharon, because too many men think they are entitled to be babied all their lives. As well, they think housework is a cakewalk.
5
Love the article, and I’ve had many conversations with fellow Gender & Politics scholars about this issue in our own homes.
I do have one correction: It’s Dr. Pepin, not Ms. Pepin!!
Discrediting women by not acknowledging their PhDs or their titles as Doctors has been a long-standing issue and it’s receiving a lot of attention now. In an article about gender equality, I had hoped for better.
30
@Elizabeth thank you very much for your comment regarding the title. I must add, however, media does not call us doctors as it is customary to afford this title to medical doctors only. I had this conversation with media personnel
on numerous occasions (as a Doctor, whose name was presented as Mrs.). I am sure the author did not mean to offend Dr. Pepin or disregard her accomplishment. She simply followed the rules of the media outlet.
8
If you're spending more than two hours a day on "house tasks," you are wasting your time. Stop being a neatnik. Stop caring about things that don't matter.
17
"Women do more of such work when they live with men than when they live alone, one of the studies found." Ehhh... what's the use of sharing a house then?
Also, 2,4 hours a day??? I live by myself, cook almost every day and NEVER spend more than an hour on everything. You are all completely mad... Please start living.
18
Please start living? You mean living ... by yourself? I'll take my mate, the three kids, and the three pets over sanctimonious solitude any day of the week, even if that day is filled with four hours of housework.
3
@Lady Edith If my choice in this life is to be alone and have more free time, or be an indentured servant to 3 kids, 3 pets, and a mate, you can find me and Miriam drinking at the bar and giving a toast to living by ourselves for the rest of our merry lives
3
We both work full time, and our roles have also fallen along these same lines. What bothers me is that the work that I do (the cooking, the cleaning up after dinner, the laundry, the bathing, most of the kid-related stuff, the dog stuff, the grocery shopping - dear god, all the grocery shopping, ugh!) is daily family maintenance - work that keeps our family alive. If those things go undone, then it's noticed. These tasks cannot be ignored because they are crucial to us functioning as humans. I feel like I'm on one of those gerbil wheels. Can't miss a beat or else it all falls apart.
The work that my husband focuses on (and yes, I really do appreciate it all) tends to be the outdoor stuff - mowing the yard, working on the house. Yes, all required tasks, but only when those things ARE done, are they noticed. All that to say, obviously if the yard is not mowed it's evident, but not in the same way as if we don't have anything to eat in the house or no one has any clean clothes. The two aren't equally weighted, yet when it's described that he takes care of the outside and I take care of the inside, it all seems fairly unfair.
41
@Jennifer
There's a French cartoon depicting this type of invisible labor you describe. Essentially, many women and mothers are responsible for the daily workings of keeping a house running. They are also the primary overseer for birthdays (and purchasing, wrapping and delivering of gifts), parent teacher conferences, shuttling kids (and sometimes pets) to activities and appointments and juggling family activities. I bring my daughter to and from daycare on the way to and on the way back from work. She frequently has swimming lessons too so she and I seldom return home until 530 or 6 pm (depending on whether I stop to get groceries). By then, my husband has been at home, relaxing for the past two hours by himself. Sometimes he starts dinner, sometimes not. The rest of the evening is then swallowed by cleaning up after dinner, bath time and bedtime routine. The rare nights my husband puts our daughter to bed, I'm feeding and walking the dog or still cleaning up from dinner or attacking the proliferating pile of laundry. Alone or leisure time is only possible if I'm up by 5 am before everyone else to do yoga. Weekends are typically consumed by kid's sports and other obligations while my husband enjoys a 3+ hr bike ride with his friends. It is no wonder that for mother's day many of us just want a day to ourselves.
18
@Vanessa, yep. Here’s the cartoon in question: https://www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear#page-2
4
It's amazing how many guys of my generation (Gen X) have selective vision. They can only see (and complain about) mess when they believe it's someone else's responsibility.
29
@Working Mama SO TRUE!!
1
I thought my son didn't know how to do much. Then he got a job. I found out he knows how to fully clean the bathroom on the first try, clear a clogged plumbing line, paint the walls, set up a room for birthday parties and clean up after the party is over, build picnic tables using a table saw and repair a roof.
5
Social pressure? From men? I'm a man and women have been telling me to clean up my whole life and I've been telling them my whole life to stop wasting their time on that. "The results debunked the age-old excuse that women have an innately lower tolerance for messiness." Really?? Single childless women still do more housework than single childless men, even if no one is there to see it. These studies don't eliminate the possibility that these are behavioral differences, not social pressure on women who hate cleaning.
And anyway, my experience is that women seldom clean these days; they just like tidiness. I've often left an important paper on a kitchen counter or table to remind myself to deal with it in the morning, and a woman has tidied it away so I've forgotten. And one unstable woman insisted nothing could be left on the kitchen counter, not even dish or hand soap. So yes, I admit it, I deliberately left the dish and hand soap on the counter -- and she physically attacked me. Oh, sorry, that's something else that doesn't exist according to the NYT: female on male domestic violence.
5
@Jeff White
Jeff, honey - so...you're a slob and expect your female partner to do the heavy lifting on keeping the home neat. Got it. (You should try picking up your underwear, though. It won't get washed if it's not in the laundry.)
18
@Jeff White Why be with these women if they're always beating you up and you're always having to nag them to stop being so clean, tidy, and conscientious?
I just leave the slobs and violent partners in the dust. Win-win all around.
4
"Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework." Who is doing the judging? I don't think it's fair to blame men for the social pressure. It's women judging and shaming other women!
5
Women are the messiest people I know. They hoard and occupy all horizontal spaces. They're untidy, unorganized and display unclean habits. And their finances are in shambles. Not all but most. Guys I know are squared away in all aspects. Married men I know carry the household load.
5
@Mike
Ha ha ha!
Very funny... 'Guys I know are squared away in all aspects. Married men I know carry the household load'...
You were joking, right?
24
@Mike definitely my experience also.
Defining messy is easy.... it's how the condition of your home makes you, and anyone you live with, feel. However, the point is who most cleans a residence, men or women. If there is a guy out there who spends more time doing housework than his female live-in partner, please have him contact me. I, and my girlfriends, want him to meet, and train, our male partners.
9
The headline appears to come from an advertisement in a 1950’s issue of Life Magazine. The men I know, married, single, gay, straight (and younger than 50) seem as interested in the home and neatness as women. I think it’s more generational related than gender related.
3
When I visit a married home. I always ask, how is the husband. If it was not for a father we would not celebrate Mother's Day!
When the father comes home he is ambushed by the mother because she is so exhausted from watching her children.
The father then takes care of the kids, makes dinner, scribes the floor, cleans the house and the mother is so exhausted! The father think usually use paper plates and cups because he doesn't have time to internally wash the dishes. Of course the mother is exhausted from putting the dishes without a dishwasher. And she certainly cannot put the dishes away.
I certainly see why men walk out the door, never to return. And look for a very very happy life. Without the disgruntled former wife. Of course he will always remember the kids.
1
@Bob Washick
I'm sorry that your marriage didn't work out... but your life of coming home from work, scrubbing the floor, taking care of the kids etc etc. is basically unheard of,(unless you happen to be a women) hence this article with accompanying statistics.
18
Let's define "messy." Is the bathroom really messy just because of last Thanxgiving's turkey carcass in the bathtub? Most all the flies are gone now. A duplex is probably the answer, one with a roach-proof dividing wall.
5
Read the original paper. It is a statistician’s worst nightmare. You simply cannot make definitive conclusions that this article purports to be true without a more comprehensive multivariate analysis, which this study lacks. The author should know better.
9
Women feel judged for a messy house because they are judged for the state of the household; married or single. I see a lot of women in the comments believing that they are putting it on themselves when in fact, there is judgement from the outside. I am naturally messy, but as a woman, I am judged more harshly than if I were a man. No, ladies, it's not all in your head, you are judged for not being super clean, neat and a home decorator to boot.
20
Kids are the most “get off scott free” culprits in the contemporary household IMO.
14
@Woodson Dart I agree, but I feel that I should point out that I was given much more chore responsibility as a girl in my home than my brother ever was. Tons more. My mother held me to a higher standard than my brother. And sadly, when I have discussed this with my female friends my age, I hear the same story. Something happened with baby boomer women and outright coddling boys. I'm not sure why. I don't care why.
3
The kitchen is mine, folks.
I live in a well organized, clean space probably because I was raised by a woman who had a sign on her kitchen wall that said 'Dull women have clean houses'. Although I am sure this article reflects reality for me a messy man is a deal breaker because it would mean that sooner or later, I would end up cleaning up his messes in my clean and well organized space. Been there, won't do it again.
12
Could it be that women clean more because they like a clean home? It's true in my case. My husband is somewhat of a slob around the house and doesn't mind the mess. For his generation, I blame the mothers who never asked their sons to do anything around the house. He never learned how to cook the simplest thing and never had to lift a finger growing up. I don't have kids myself, but hope that today's parents are bringing up their children differently.
6
@RAR
I used to tell my son he needed to know how to do all household chores. He may be single, his wife could be ill, he may have many children and she would need help or both of them would work and they should share duties. My teenage sons liked being taken to movies, out to dinner, lots of activities before they could drive. They had to do chores if they wanted transportation when I came home from work. They both are hard working men, love their families, and are helpmates to their wives. One thing I was fairly successful in my long ago past.
11
@Margie Steele. Good for you! All parents should teach their kids (boys and girls) to be self sufficient, not just for their own sake but for the people they share their lives with.
4
This article links to quite a few studies. It's time consuming, but I think it's increasingly important to follow the links - I try to get as far as the original publication and data set (you'll often find these links go to an advocacy organization, not an academic study. Often the advocacy site will reference a study that hasn't been published in an academic journal. When there is a study in an academic journal, the publication often doesn't say what the journalist claims it says. When it does, there are serious flaws the methodology. When there aren't, the data required to validate the study often isn't available).
This article links to a section of the American Time Use Survey from the Department of Labor focused on time spent on tasks at home. This study contains another link: "time spent in selected activities by sex":
https://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/household.htm
Even when both spouses in a heterosexual marriage work full time, men on average spend about 30 minutes more per day in paid employment). And when a woman works part time, the gap is wider.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
The same data set referenced in this article supports the notion that, in married couples, men often spend more time in combined paid and housework than women do in married couples, though this varies dramatically by the different permutations of employment status.
4
I have to laugh. My paternal grandmother didn’t get married until she was in her late 20s (1912) and had been “working” in “business” as a secretary for the president of a food imports company in NYC and this was the era of the male secretary. Tough as nails and highly organized. When she got married she actually had to take cooking lessons first. She quit her job and quickly proceeded to have 4 male children.
The ALL were taught to cook, do housework and child care and once the youngest was in grade school, roles and chores assigned and household management humming along she ended up with a remarkable amount of free time to pursue volunteer work. Boys grew up to be teachers and engineers. I can’t speak for my uncles but my father always pitched in on housework although I can’t say he was a very good cook. Home decor was neat, casual but unremarkable.
My wife’s family was quite different and most of the women (who also worked) took the art and craft of household management (cooking, cleaning, sewing, furniture, decor and appliance purchases, holiday meal planning, children’s activities and clothing purchases and on and on) very seriously and discussed it among themselves incessantly and with the vibe that this was very much THEIR turf and husbands could not be relied upon to do any of these things correctly. My mother-in-law was snapping at her husband about how he emptied the dishwasher almost right up to the day he died.
4
A few practical thoughts: 1) If it looks neat, people will assume it's clean. Keep stuff off the floor and stow it where it belongs, and everyone will assume you have dusted and cleaned the floor much more often than in fact you have. Invite people in at will, and they'll never know the difference. 2) Children can be trained from the age of about 12 to cook dinner as well as wash the dishes, especially if their allowances depend on chore completion. And 3) if your messy son or daughter has found other reasons to join the military, remember they may emerge from a tour of duty with glistening housekeeping skills. I once entered a room in our apartment the morning after my brother had slept there on his way out of the Army. I could not tell that anyone had been in the room for any purpose, ever. Eventually I found a rolled-up sleeping bag on the shelf in the closet, and recalled his room from his high school years. Mothers, if you want your child's marriage to be a happy one, an early introduction Sergeants can help.
9
I find when my husband is away and I have to take on all the chores (on average I'd say it's a 55-45 split on household chores when he is home) that I actually have less cleaning to do--fewer messy food prep remains left on the countertop (until he has time to get to them), fewer dishes left in the sink (until he has time to get to them), fewer bits of paper trash left on available surfaces (until he has time to get to them), fewer splatters in the microwave (until he has time to get to them). It's not that he won't clean up eventually, but that he expects the rest of the household to just work around the mess until he gets around to it. My view is you should leave shared space in such a condition that the next person can use it, not have to wait for it to be ready to use or clean it themselves before use. It's not that men haven't taken on household chores, it's that they still are not being socialized from an early age (as women still are) to consider how their choices affect people around them. I believe that is called masculine privilege.
50
"Socially, women — but not men — are judged negatively for having a messy house and undone housework."
Judged by whom? I would venture to guess they're judged by other women, not so much by men. Women have higher standards for cleanliness than men, and tend to judge other women harshly by that standard. I don't think most men care that much - in fact I find it refreshing when a woman's home is a little messy and doesn't look like a museum. It makes me think she has a fun, well-rounded, busy life and isn't too uptight about the small stuff. Like many men, I find overly clean homes stifling and prefer a more casual atmosphere. Many women have internalized this goal of constant perfection, which leads to constant worry and stress. I think they could take a lesson from men that it's ok sometimes to relax and accept a little messiness.
4
"Why Men, but Not Women, are Applauded For Filthy Homes"
3
My wife never cleans and I don’t care.
6
When a woman's house is a mess, kitchen garbage overflowing, sticky toilet seat, never-swept floor carpeted with clothes and papers, junk in boxes piled on top of itself teetering on every surface, dishes piled in a sink for weeks to be "washed" as needed, the stove a a half-inch brown crust of grease, the windows opaque with grime, few men say, "She must be too busy with more important things to clean house" or "She's so involved with her career that she has no time" or even, "It's like it's invisible to her".
Something's wrong with her. "She's depressed", for example.
The same conditions in a man's home, where they are so much more common as to be a stereotype?
I've never heard it laid to depression. "Look at his house. He must suffer from depression"
I've heard it excused as an eccentricity, a frustrating foible.
And who struggles to clean it for them? A sister, a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, an aunt, a female neighbor or friend.
What supposedly depressed or flawed woman who may actually be aware of the hazardous and septic nature of her surroundings can rest easy knowing that sooner or later a male - a brother, a father, a boyfriend, a male chum, will walk through the door and do her laundry! mop the floor! scrub the flaking toilet! or even one of those things?
The slobs that men are comically expected to be and be forgiven for being!
Perhaps this article should be titled, "Why Men, but Not Women, are Applauded For Filthy Homes"
27
Information sliced and analyzed partially can lead to confusion. This article is misleading by assigning assumptions and roles to gender. We need to move on from this type of stereotypes and understand males and females as individuals. My expectation is for everyone to have a clean place.
6
This article is wrong… I judge mens' and womens' housekeeping equally. And not just by appearance. It's smells and odors. Basic physical safety. Certain conditions are deal-breakers.
3
I am a messy woman and it's actually a barrier to getting in a serious relationship. I've had guys be like...I really like you but you don't clean enough. Even the guy I married was expressing his doubts about marriage based on my cleaning skills. It's not like I'm a hoarder or someone needs to call the health Dept! My marriage survives because luckily I bring a lot to the table besides cleaning abilities and I help with as much housework as I can tolerate. My husband does more than he probably wants to and also has to live with more clutter than he would like. He gets to keep his own perfectly organized office/man cave. We don't have guests over cuz I don't wanna do the work to get it beautified and neither does he....whatever works, right?
19
Hmm, well when people come over to my place (male, hetero - yes, one of them) and remark how clean it is, isn't that also a form of judgment?
(btw it's not actually that clean but then again how could it be with 2 cats 2 dogs and a (male, hetero) teenager in the house).
4
I used to see it this way:
I have never asked a woman to do household for chores for me. However, I have lower standards for what constitutes a clean house than does my wife. That seemed to me to be a legitimate choice. I would rather have the extra time that comes from not doing the chores than a cleaner house. If she wants a cleaner house, let her do the chores.
The problem with this assumption is that I do get the benefits of living in the cleaner house when she does the chores and I don’t. I do enjoy those benefits, just not enough to do the cleaning if she is not doing it. Because I get those benefits, I have an obligation to do more chores than I would ordinarily do. So now I do more chores than I used to. Probably still not my fair share.
I would check the trash every day, to make sure it was emptied. I thus felt unfairly accused when she said I never emptied the trash cans. The problem was, she would empty the cans before I thought they needed to be emptied, so I never actually emptied them. I’ve got more important things to think about than the darn trash cans, so I never connected the dots on this until she pointed it out.
When she goes out of town, the neatness level drops to my standard, and I get along fine. I clean the place back up to her standards before she comes home.
6
@Teed Rockwell
So you're the one doing more.
You don't need a certain level of neatness for happiness, but your wife does. Yes you enjoy the cleaner house, but clearly it's not necessary for you, as you note that you let it slip when she's away with no loss in happiness.
So you're actually making more effort in coming up to her standard than she is in letting things slide to your standard.
@Brian maybe. But I want her to be happy, so I don’t mind making the extra effort. It isn’t that much really. She does a lot of things for me that I don’t ask for, but I’m happy that she does them. Mutual happiness is what this should be all about, not tabulating a scorecard.
8
I warn people before they come over to my house that Martha Stewart does not live there. Still, I feel guilty if the bathrooms are not spotless and the dishes are not done. I've received enough withering comments about my house (i.e. it's small, the kitchen is dated etc.) that I overcompensate by scrubbing the shower and the sinks. The strange thing is that we purposely bought a cottage so we wouldn't have to spend time cleaning.
7
@Just paying attention, why put up with peoples’ comments like this? If they don’t like your house, why are they there?
8
In my experience the person who is willing to accept a lower standard of cleanliness "wins" the household chore battle. Men are skilled in this technique. Also, the "I just can't figure it out." Also, in my experience a favorite male technique is to take so long and feign such incompetence that the woman just ends up doing it herself.
Sadly, I think they will have to want to take on the burden to take on the burden. I am not holding my breath.
34
Keep dividing up the household duties 50-50 with different tasks until you get to a list that neither of you hates too much (and don't forget to fit the kids real chores too). Make it normal - not a special favor - to work as part of the family team. If you work at it, it will come.
3
I hope every mother of sons read this article! When my grandson was born, my daughter said her mission was to raise him to be a good husband. I had hopes that each generation of men would get better and sharing chores, but it's not happening as fast as it should. Mothers, sisters, aunts...should all make sure they don't engage in gender-biased expectations. I remember my sister asking me to "make a sandwich" for my nephew who was sitting at the table waiting for it. He was 24 years old. I refused and told him to make it himself! He now makes these demands of his wife. Women have to stop pandering and start teaching!
23
I don't think this article is accurate. A woman use to only be able to stay at home and clean while the men would hunt and fish. I think that based on this evidence people make up accusations that aren't completely true. I strongly believe that women should be able to do more than just stay at home, cook and clean. I am a girl who loves sports an adventure and math. This may be true for a few households, but to assume that every women in every house gets blamed on the mess and men don't just isn't a true and proven fact. I understand the author's point in saying that women get blamed on with messes in the house and that it's not fair which I completely agree with, just please keep on mind that not everyone is like that. I think that if you make a mess whatever gender you are, you should take responsibility for your actions.
3
@Going into sixth graderp
You have absolutely the right idea, one should take responsibility for one’s actions! But being in a family means sometimes you have to do more than just clean up your own stuff, and yes, some families are very equal about chores. But as you say, women have historically been expected to do the household stuff, except now they also can have full time jobs outside of the house. And the point of the article, that that expectation hasn’t changed about who is responsible for the household while the reality that more women now work outside the house, is backed up by data collected from a large number of households from across the whole USA. (It’s from a subset of US Census data. You can follow the links to the studies, which explain how the data are collected.) In general, when that much data support something, it is considered factual, so be careful about claiming something is or isn’t a fact unless you too have lots of data to back up ypur claim!
7
The housework issue relates to instinctual maternal behavior. Male and female mammals have sex-driven differences in behavior, skills, and preferences. These are real differences. We are animals and this applies to us, too. Humans are complex and our hard-wired differences are displayed in complicated, mysterious ways.
I’m an older male with a long history of ex-wives, girlfriends, sisters as well as knowing many different men and women well. Personally I’m much neater than average—a organization-freak really—but it‘s obvious that these gender differences are caused by fundamental differences between men and women. There is much variation, as these comments describe, but ON AVERAGE women tend to prefer home-making more than men do.
There is no reason to complain about it. The differences between men and women are useful and functional and important. They are what make each gender unique and wonderful.
1
It's all certainly outdated and unfair. But I would suspect that we (men) are also held to standards that women are not. For instance, we are likely more judged for a lower household income. I know that a messy garage is going to reflect on me as a disorganized caretaker of the yard and tools. The man will be judged if something, like the screen door, is falling off the house. And on and on.
What point is an article like this supposed to serve? We're all trying our best, and if you draw a line from 5000 BC to today, everyone's lives are improving, slowly, and everyone's respect for others and consciousness of prejudices are slowly improving. Complaining about it is passive.
4
@Jason Your say "We're all trying our best..." Are we? Or are some of us still leaning on the privilege we were brought up to expect?
7
Since you're unsure if it's nature or nurture, let me tell you with absolute certainty that while there may be an additional "nurture" aspect to it, nature is a decisively important factor. The way you described your husband is me exactly, and your own tendencies match every female I have known, except for violators, who by violating hygiene norms confirm them. Cleanliness and hygiene are almost as gender-differentiated as ovulation and spermatogenesis.
Men can be slobs (Oscar Madison) or neat freaks (Felix Unger), but you're kidding yourself if you think Felix wasn't effeminate & possibly gay-- so Oscar is representative of the 100% straight male psychology as to this: men like their environment to match their inner self: assorted impulses of order, structure and control joined with chaos, wildness, raw passion and beastial drive and appetite. He likes his environment to be part jungle or cave, part museum or stately palace. Different men have these impulses (Appolonian, Dyonisiac) in different configuations. But each's particular balance (or current inner state or inner mix) determines the cleanliness orientation. Hygiene has no place in it (Hubby's sheets etc).
Women's orientation is based on hygiene, and sense that environment reflects status and pro-child-rearing conditions. It must be clean (as must the genitals be kept), and ,
must display her family's power/wealth (her value as a woman), and be conducive to optimal child development.
4
No woman ever married a man based on how neat he kept his apartment. They marry him because of the size of his paycheck, how tall he is and what kind of car he drives. They are happy to come clean his apartment and do his laundry in the hope that the man of their dreams will marry them. They are getting what they deserve.
8
Hmm. I married my husband because I love him and wanted to make a life with him.
52
Speak for yourself Rahul.
25
@Rahul Speak for yourself. And my husband, who was raised in a very traditional home, has made it very clear through both word and deed that housework is everyone's responsibility.
18
Another Boo-Hoo I'm a woman and it sucks article. EVERY single article like this can be flipped and made about men as well. WOMEN are the ones continuing to foster this segregation and believing that Women have "Special" issues that men don't, but they NEVER talk about all the men "Special" issues they don't have to deal with.
The fact is Men and Women are hardwired differently and so they care about different things. EACH side has an equal amount of "unfairness", but if men complain, they get attacked due to inaccurate perceptions.
Men just handle things differently and don't make as big of deal about things, even though they have just as many things against them as women do. We hear about women issues more, NOT because they have more, but because they openly talk about and complain more. Which leads to the false premise they have more issues to deal with.
Women don't understand men issues any more than men don't understand women. STOP trying to being a special sub group and deal with HUMAN issues.
7
@MushyWaffle
If you stop being so mushy, first.
8
@MushyWaffle
The only male issue you describe and make a big deal about is the unfairness of not having men's issues pandered to, which are not having their issues pandered to, which are not having their issues pandered to.
See what I mean?
What's your issue?
3
The reason is men are held in low esteem by women as they believe men are messy housekeepers whether they have any proof beyond anecdotal experience or not. Women on the other hand are held in high esteem because woman like to pass themselves off as excellent housekeepers whether they are or not. If however woman would behave honestly they would admit that women are neither better nor worse housekeepers than men.
Yes, it is very sexist against men but if the argument is "We dismiss men for being less so less should be expected of us too." Okay, you're right, I'll quit holding women to high standards and I don't even have an opinion tying gender to quality of housework.
3
“Other possibilities, Ms. Pepin said, were that men created more housework”
Why is this not the #1 possibility? Why is the assumption that women with a man in the house are doing something irrational and neurotic?
Men are larger and sweatier and make a lot of laundry. It adds up easily to another load or two per week to be gathered, sorted, washed, dried, ironed and folded. Adult men eat a lot of food, and the dishes have to be cleaned up afterwards. A single mom and kids could maybe get by splitting a box of macaroni and cheese and a tray of frozen chicken tenders on a work night. When you have someone in the picture who demands another 2500-3000 calories a day, now you are cooking and cleaning up a bigger, more complex meal. And in a lot of cases, men are leaving more clutter in their wake. Experience says too that more dirt is being tracked in and more sweeping and vacuuming need to happen. Kids will listen to a single mom who tells them that shoes come off at the door, toys get picked up, laundry goes in the hamper, and food can’t be eaten on the sofa. Men will not put up with that from a woman.
Yeah, yeah liberal Times readers. Not in your family, I know. It’s all kale salad and gender equality at your place. But in most American households this is very true. It’s why so many men get kicked to the curb and we have so many single-parent households to bemoan. Many men are just more work than they are worth.
542
@Glen I have to do more housework in my second shift when my dear husband is home (not on business travel). I love it when he returns home and I also love my 'evenings off' when he is on the road.
74
@Glen
Preach, Brother.
Seriously.
61
@Glen I have been told to travel more since the house is apparently cleaner and tidier when I am gone, and the kids are better behaved! Go figure....
66
My GF wakes at 8-9:00, I rise at 5, clean the whole house, floors and yard, do her laundry and ironing, and make her coffee and breakfast every morning. The place is pretty sharp when she emerges for coffee. I’m out the door at 9:00. When I do the floors, I get down to the corners where the grime hides out. Her GFs want to trade in their husbands. It’s just about pitching in whenever you can. I am happy to do it. Why not make her happy? Like Jimmy Durante sang way back in the day.
15
I am very grateful to my mother (who came of age in World War II) that she never worried much about the house being very neat. She had moments, if guests came, that she would make the house presentable. Mostly, my mother was the Queen of the School of Casual Housekeeping. Both my sister and I are proud graduates; we do enough but not too much. After all, life is full of interesting experiences. Dusting only goes so far.
I don't know that this is really related but my sister was a pioneer in the world of computers and I earned a Ph.D. when only 10% in my discipline were awarded to women. My mother saw our futures beyond the limits of the backyard when we were very little. She would have done the same with sons.
So, let's ease up and not judge anyone by their housekeeping!!
PS My son (who is now 35) has washed his own clothes since he was 14.
26
It's like the culture is trying to pit us against each other. My girlfriend cooks, does the laundry, and folds the clothes. Also she picks around the house more than I do. I expect her to do it.
Because I...
Fix all car issues. Drive in traffic and long distance. Put together almost all of our IKEA furniture. Lift the heavy stuff. Take the trash out (she won't get near it). Do all paper work. Make the bed. Dust off, etc. She expects me to do most of what she calls "man stuff."
Neither of us complains.
I am Latin American. I would never let my girlfriend carry heavy stuff or get under the hood of the car (not that she would know how to pop it open). She's Japanese and likes being nurturing and folding clothes just perfectly.
We're both happy and see eye to eye with each other. With the growing segment of the American population that antagonizes genders based on their testosterone or estrogen influenced inclinations, not so much.
13
I disagree.
If I have ever visited a male friend or anyone in my male circle and I found their house messy...
The word spread fast, clean up the house ahead of her coming or she won't stay. My disdainful silence held them accountable.
I just ran into a colleague of mine from NY lately. He said, it was well known among the whole residency program that I didn't really keep up with folks (men and women alike), if their homes were cluttered and messy, and avoided them. I was blunt enough to tell one,... a dirty, unclean house is a reflection of your personality!
He said something which was very amusing, " you have no idea how many boys didn't want to disappoint you, and vacuumed and did laundry every week". I said, every week... imagine!
We both had a good laugh.
One of my best friends is a former Marine and I like the ethics of sparsity, cleanliness, discipline; habits ingrained from his time in military. He said something similar, he found his civilian male friends messy and cluttered. But he holds men and women to the same standard... I think this is becoming more common.
Both my siblings help their wives in house work.
Although, this I know... women as a general rule do not want you to see their homes unless they are clean-- not all, but most men couldn't be bothered.
7
Who is doing the judging? I doubt if it is men. Women need to ease up on each other. This has nothing to do with patriarchy, etc. And, there is a difference between messy and dirty.
10
Balzac. Everyone's different. I had to make a terrible adjustment to living without a live in maid, but somehow, the family seems to have made the transition.
The house is not as clean, but we have all come to a deep appreciation of what that wonderful woman did for us.
3
Women - put your collective foot down! Either lower your standards or figure out a way to split the housework with your partner. Stop apologizing. And please, don’t be the office mother. Don’t clean up after an office party. That just reinforces those expectations.
(My husband does more cleaning than I do because he cares more. When I cook - most weeknights - he does the dishes. And vice versa. I do more - but not all - of the kid stuff - medical appointments, school forms, birthday planning. It works for us.)
4
This article says nothing about equity.
If male work for pay outside the home creates a greater benefit for the home then female work outside the home, then there should be an effort at balancing the workload inside the home.
As a single working father of four, I can assure you that my paid work really is harder than my unpaid domestic work.
Tossing in the laundry, making lunch and then going to the park is “fun” work.
Articles (and people) who overplay domestic unpaid work, come off as whiny to me.
4
My grandfather died in 1988 at the age of 87, about a year after my grandmother died (they'd been madly in love for over 60 years). When my aunt and niece found him, he was at the bottom of the basement stairs. He'd been in the middle of doing what he'd been doing for decades--doing the laundry and bringing it back upstairs. He also made cakes, tended the lawn (he'd make meals of the dandelion greens he picked out there), and drove my grandmother without complaint all over New England to her various jobs, errands, and social/volunteer engagements. He cleaned. He played with the kids (six of them) and grandkids (more than I can count), helped teach me to read using his gigantic dictionary and playing word games in the car while we waited for my grandma to do her thing, and told me wonderful stories about growing up on a dairy farm and falling in love with my grandmother.
He was born in 1901. I guess he missed the memo about what shirkers men apparently (according to many recent articles here) are supposed to be in general.
My ex-husband (with whom I'm still friends) cleaned and cooked more than I ever did, and has been an exemplary and involved father (part of the reason we're still friends). Guess he missed the memo too.
The endless generalizations about (male) gender, which would never fly if they were about race, ethnicity, religion, or women, are getting kind of old, and strike me as more destructive in these divisive time than instructive.
19
Domestic experiences vary:
I grew up in the country. Before I could drive, I did a lot of walking beside rural roads. One day, as I was walking along, a neighbor stopped and offered me a ride. Continuing on the way, we fell into a guy-to-guy conversation about my high school teachers and the ones he had also had about twenty years earlier.
The French teacher, who was more than just a bit of a stitch, came up for review. "Well", he said, "you have to say she is a really neat woman. Someday you may appreciate that."
I have a theory that women are genetically programmed through natural selection to accumulate much more incidental "stuff" than men, and that having it on not necessarily well organized display gives them a sense of security.
Cleanliness and neatness are not the same thing. Women may be cleaner, but men are neater simply by not having so much stuff that they can't keep it organized and put away.
1
I’m interested in the situations that work, not ones that don’t. What is it about households in which work is equitably distributed. What are the demographics? Stories about what men don’t do and what women get blamed for really aren’t very interesting. The problems are no doubt real, but I want to know how people are solving them.
11
If there is social pressure on women to do household chores and cleaning, how do they account for how that influences their answers in the survey?
I'm certain it would be worse if I were a woman, but my messiness reflects things that are wrong with me, and people know it. It's factually wrong to say that men (especially older ones) are not judged for messiness - the judgement can be really sharp.
4
I've always subscribed to the philosophy of personal responsibility. If you make the mess, you clean the mess.
14
Can people please start thinking about taking responsibility for themselves? If women don't want to do so much housework, then don't. Pretty simple.
8
How does that work when my 3-year-old needs dinner? Or clean socks? Or has vomited on the bathroom floor? Not simple. Just a simpleminded comment.
4
I am a 62 y.o. single woman and my house is pretty messy. I make all the messes and I really don't care. If people are coming over, I will clean up a bit, make the house "look presentable", but I think it's funny if people make a comment. I just laugh and reply "Yup, I'm basically a slob, but hey, it looked a lot worse before you came over!"
I feel no responsibility to keep my house clean for anyone else. That makes no sense to me. Why do you care if someone thinks you're a slob? They're entitled to their opinion, despite the fact that it's a stupid reason for making a criticism. Even if they're right, I don't get my self-esteem from a clean house! I get my self-esteem from things that are far more important in my opinion.
Anyone who judges someone by the cleanliness of their house has a problem. It's their problem, not yours. But it's your problem if you actually agree with them and feel bad about yourself because of such things....
I agree that men are less likely to be judged for such things and men typically don't care even if they are judged for it. Learn from them to stop caring about it! My mother cared far too much about housecleaning and I could see that it was absurd so I learned from that to not care. I've been a much happier person than my mother....
18
Yes! I no longer make excuses. I say “the apartment is messy because I’m a messy person.” Four people LIVE here and we read books and get mail and kick off our shoes and forget to put stuff away. So what?
7
“A woman lives among her neighbors.”
- Jean Craighead George
I see it’s more often women placing the pressure on other women for a tidy house. Ask most working moms how stay-at-home moms perceive them and unfairly judge them. You’ll be regaled with stories for days.
5
That passive-voice headline hides a host of sins: "Women … are judged …." Are judged by whom? It seems to me that whoever is judging anyone based on the messiness of their home is the problem here.
7
Lawn work, car work, trash work, plumbing work, electrical work, hammer work, all still considered men’s work.
And if these areas of the house look bad, it is considered the man’s fault.
When one group complains, it is usually because they fail to understand clearly the life of the other group.
6
@Jane In my household I do the housework, the car work, taking out the trash, repairs (electrical, garden, etc), and keeping the yard beautiful. Who says this is men's work?
11
Although I did not grow up here, I currently reside in Atlantic Canada. Religion is still quite big here, and churchgoing women are put up on a pedestal (mostly by themselves, but that's a whole other story).
The women here very much equate having a spotlessly clean house with being a good Christian.
I guess I missed the part in the Bible where Jesus talks about the importance of being able to eat off a germ-free, spotless floor.
12
Fascinating! Was the same growing up in deep Southeast Texas. I assumed it was a Southern baptist/Bible church thing. Either way it was and is ridiculous!
7
Ha! One day, my mom called me while I was scurrying around my apartment, picking up, because someone was on their way over.
"I don't want them to think I'm a slob," I said.
"No, you don't want them to KNOW you're a slob," she replied.
:)
33
I briefly was friendly with a man in my neighborhood who was a stay at home dad. One factor in my declining to continue the relationship was the state of the house. Tornados never did such a good job of disorganization. Yes: it was an extremely unattractive situation.
4
Things are certainly moving in the right direction, though cultural change is very slow. I really feel for the women of my parent's generation. Despite the fact that many of them are resentful of the disparities, they clearly internalized the expectations that were placed on them. It always blows my mind when my Mother-in-law comes to visit and promises to help ME straighten up the house. She is very generous to do so and I appreciate her offers but we are a family of four, including her son, and she is convinced that the only person she is helping by tidying up is me.
18
I just tell my husband that he can go live with one of those type A women if he wants a perfect house. He has learned to keep quiet... The reason we work is he is type A and I am not and while I keep what I consider a nice house it isn't for others and
I could care less!
11
Moms, it’s the same reason that you can’t let your daughters leave the house with messy hair & dirty clothes. Ultimately, it’s your fault. SIGH...
6
Let's face it, 'housework' involves a lot of repetitive and frankly boring jobs. Every person has their favorites and their big 'groans' but all in all it's just not fun or exciting or even pleasurable doing. Homework is simply necessary.
And since before sliced bread, since women were allowed to do little else, housework was it. How many posts on how to clean your shower grout can you read in your lifetime? Martha Stewart et al snuck into glamorizing housework through cooking still keeping the old stereotype alive. And now Joy brings us best ever mops that do not ruin our manicures.
It's still not fun and I don't like doing it. It's just me now so no choice.
America went all in with June Cleaver in the 50's and we've had a very hard time breaking free. More women HAVE to work for pay so the domestic goddess nonsense needs to go away.
19
Could it be that women keep house, just as they choose their clothing and hairstyle, essentially for evaluation by other women? Men are not subjected to the same critiques by other men and generally are oblivious to the pecking order amongst women.
12
@Penseur
Correct. Men simply do not care, about living in a non-fastidious environment; about what women think of other women's housekeeping; and they certainly don't intend to lose any sleep about it. Women should learn from this; their angst is self-imposed.
2
@Wine Country Dude I am a tidy person, but I can tell you my older female relatives and my older neighbor feel free to tell me everything I am doing wrong in my house and yard. And always have. It may be "self-imposed" but women are not a monolith. We don't have meetings to decide this stuff. True, women do this to other women, but have you ever tried to talk to an older woman to get her to stop? They don't listen.
Men on average work more than women. I do not agree with the notion that I have to work more and still contribute equally with respect to housechores. Compromises need to be made.
That being said, if she and I work equally, then we can contribute to chores equally as well.
9
@Kevin Since when does the income (maybe higher?) or time spent at work of a man absolve him of doing the equal amount of housechores?
9
@Kevin
Men work more than women? No, I don't think so.
6
@Janet
When you start working a lot harder than your man to generate household income, you'll come to understand.
2
Sorry there are two standards, men are slobs that can eat lunch meat from a package of they are lucky. Women well they clearly are better alone.
Can we get any more jejune? REALLY?
2
Truth to this.
My brother broke up with a very nice woman because she was messy. It was a deal breaker.
Maybe he’s high on the uptight spectrum. But I do think women are judged on housework.
I figured out a trick. I hire a cleaning service.
I can afford it once every 3 weeks or 4 weeks.
Worth every penny. Make a list of stuff you want done in 2 hours and voila, perfect home.
I gave up my $4 per day coffee habit and now spend it on home and family tranquility.
15
@Georgia M Yes, but that again assumes that you, as a woman, have the responsibility for the house chores.
6
@Janet
I’d probably resent it if I was doing all the heavy lifting in the family. But that’s not the case. My spouse does a lot. He does most of the cooking and grocery shopping, for example, and I loath cooking.
I’m glad he isn’t resentful about always worrying about the cooking.
Life is more pleasant without nagging and resentments.
3
Who gets blamed when the grass isn’t cut? I agree with the general premise of the article - women do take the blame for a messy home on the INSIDE. But let’s be fair and honest - men take the heat for a shabby OUTSIDE. I’ve not seen any studies about who does most of the outdoor work, but I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
5
I suspect that lawn mowing, which lets be honest includes power machines and toys men love to use, requires on average less time per week than housecleaning and is something many look forward to for various reasons.
And all outdoor work? Including those flowerbeds?
29
REALLY? Power tools as toys? Freud much? I hate lawn work. It is what I am supposed to do, along with clean inside cook watch kids. You know all of those unmanly things.
1
@Ed The article uses the example of outdoor work, specifically mowing the lawn, as work that men tend to do more of than women. They explicitly make the point that men tend to do outside work which generally is not completed daily, while women do indoor chores like cooking and cleaning that happen everyday, leading to a higher daily average hours spent on household work for women.
This article took the fact of women spending time spent on household cleaning and tried to understand why women put in these extra hours. The explanation of some scholars is that there are perceived and real social cost to women for failing to keep a tidy home that men do not face. Something that wasn’t discussed but likely plays a role is that women have overall lower social status/power than men, so social punishments are relatively more costly to them.
You’re absolutely right that men are probably judged more if their yard is overgrown than a woman would be. And there could be consequences for that (eg, HOA fines), but the question being posed was why do women do more household work than men overall. If the question is are men punished for failing to abide by gender expectations the answer is unequivocally yes in the literature. Subtext in the article is that one reason some men may not pitch in more inside is because those tasks are gendered female, and they perceive that they would face negative consequences for doing them (from others or simply their internal sense of worth/masculinity).
11
I think that much of the root of this problem is the "Domestic Goddess" syndrome of post-WWII consumerism which set the standards for tidiness and cleanliness at ridiculously perfectionist levels.
This standard was driven in large part by corporate America and their Madison Avenue pitchmen (yep, they were all men back then - as in "Madmen"). Now that the men were back from war, the women were expected to leave their Rosie the Riveter jobs and become "homemakers". And the overwhelming culture of conformity in the 1950s turned housekeeping into a full-time domestic competition on every block.
Seventy years later, with 80% of American households struggling just to make ends meet with both the husband and wife working outside the home, we need to relax our standards a bit.
The dust on the top of the fridge doesn't need to be wiped clean three times a week. The carpet doesn't need to be vacuumed every other day - once a week or two will do. A bit of clutter (a few magazines askew on the coffee table, a few of the kids' toys in the corner) shows that real people live here, not Stepford Wives.
Everyone will have different tolerance levels and achieving some balance is simply part of the art of communal living. But if we could all take it down a notch or two...
I recall an old "Ziggy" cartoon from many years ago showing the title character in his somewhat cluttered living room. The caption read, "It takes less time to apologize for the mess than it does to clean it up."
Amen.
24
I give no one a pass. Messy house, messy mind. I sell real estate and I've seen both sexes be equally messy. Seriously how hard is it to put dishes in the dishwasher?
Pick up your towels, throw your trash, wipe counters, put stuff away, do not leave dishes in the sink, and do make your bed. Not that hard.
21
@DS Hard if you have autism, depression, ADHD, dementia, etc. Almost as hard as it is for people who don't have this particular struggle to understand that other do. No one's perfect.
24
@DS I have better things to do with my time.
7
Martha Stewart is the only woman I have come across that keeps a decent home.
Everyone that visits my gay apartment always comments on how clean it is while I say its a dump and needs to be picked up...just in case Martha stops by.
My greatest compliment came recently when a young woman came by with her 5 year old daughter. The little girl walked into my apartment, looked around and said, "we need a house like THIS one, mom". Mom won't even let me peek inside her apartment because she is so embarrassed by her lack of housekeeping.
6
@tom harrison
What the heck is a gay apartment? A happy place to be? I should think so!
@tom harrison I have news for you: Martha has help, lots of it. She isn't cleaning all of her expansive manses on her own, if at all.
10
My father was a naval pilot and a fairly tough and courageous guy but I often saw him doing the dinner dishes, washing floors and organizing the laundry. He also took responsibility for accomplishing all the things then expected of a husband like cutting the grass, dealing with the cars and household repairs. As a young adult out in the world I tried to follow his domestic example but my efforts were short on quantity and quality. After doing household chores I often found myself somehow wanting to be acknowledged by my partner for my efforts which at the time I saw as being on her behalf. What I had initially missed in my father’s example was the fact that whenever he did anything it was done with personal pride, self satisfaction and with no thought of a pat on the back. That was the real lesson he was trying to communicate to me about domestic life and life in general.
97
@Tony Francis thanks for this. My dad is still the same at age 87. I never heard him say "Look, honey, I washed the dishes." The chore was simply done. My spouse needs the pat on the back if he does a simple chore (he's 52) as his mom did everything for them.
30
@Tony Francis Thank you. Your father's example, your self-awareness in realizing you were doing stuff for the pat on the back, and your sharing this comment just reset my inner compass.
8
@Tony Francis
Maybe it was the era or navy training? My WWII Navy dad lived by the idea that if it needs doing, do it. Viewing marriage as a partnership helped to ensure a happy 60 years together. Still miss him.
5
Whose fault is it if:
We can’t afford three tuitions?
We can’t afford a new car?
The current one isn’t reliable?
We can’t afford a vacation?
We both have to work and can’t retire?
The grass is greener next door?
The kids didn’t get into Harvard?
Their not getting straight As?
They fight too much?
They drink too much?
We fight and drink too much?
NO ONES - AND EVERYONES.
Does it matter?
If the house is dirty, clean it.
8
I think the amount of energy women spend complaining about their lot in life, if it could be harnessed, could power a true Green New Deal.
Really, there are articles about how lazy, shiftless, and shirking men are several times a week in the Times (and Slate and Salon and the Post and on and on) and they always seem to have a very similar pattern.
Women write the articles, interview only female academics, and helpfully interpret a “study” which is conveniently quoted only to show that women are getting the short end of the stick. The only difference in the articles is HOW women are getting oppressed.
Here’s a radical thought, editors: Have a MALE write some of these articles and interview only males. Or would that be bad journalism? (Hint- it goes both ways).
22
My take from this article and the research it discusses is not that men don’t DO work at all nor are they “lazy”, it’s that society more harshly judges women than men for a messy house. This was true of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. And with the shifts in “gendered” work (house work, child care), the article even states men are doing more than before. However if it is not done, blame is placed on the female. It also discusses how men are unfairly judged for a messy room as “boys will be boys.”
14
@Objectively Subjective
Advocating for men to have a louder voice and more of a media platform is hardly "a radical thought." There are no barriers to men writing their own articles or refuting any of the claims in this piece. Indeed, most newsrooms are still predominantly staffed by men.
35
@Rachel
Really? Care to produce the evidence for this? At any rate, how do you know there are no barriers to men writing articles such as this?
1
My wife and I have much in common. We also have wildly different interests, like housekeeping. To me it’s an art in the service of healthy living. For her, the inconsequential result of creativity. In any case, the bulk of the housekeeping, including cooking, over the past 40 years, fell to me. Neither of us has ever been accused of being messy.
7
I would like to say this article was meant to be thought-provoking, but it really looks more like an agenda driven article.
First, social change always takes time (i.e., generations), because a far greater number of women do not work or choose to work part time. As a result, prior generation expectations are perpetuated. Women rightly are responsible for housework in many more houses than men. That is why a majority (not everyone) continues to assume a messy house is generally a woman's fault.
Second, the article ignores Male responsibilities which have traditionally been taking care of the yard and fixing things. The article dismisses these due to its intentional bias. They are real and partly offset housework.
Third, the article is really just sexist and misuses scholarship and statistics. There is probably little question that changing roles and earnings mean men probably do less of the housework, but the premise of the article is simplistic and unsupported as it ignores other male roles along with time.
10
@Pragmatist word. Articles such as this one are exactly why Jordan Peterson is so popular. You can not intelligently interrogate one aspect of gender norms without looking at the entire dynamic, and understanding that 1 facet in merely part and parcel of an entire dynamic
.
2
@Pragmatist Did you read the whole article or just skim it? They clearly state that men are held accountable for yard work which requires much less time to upkeep - think weekly - than housework, which is daily. I would know - I do everything at my house - inside and out.
17
Here's a good idea. Everyone should clean less. A lot less. It is completely unnecessary to have a perfect house. Even a tidy house is not needed. Cooking? Sure. Dishes. Okay. But who cares if blankets are on the floor or a towel for that matter? Don't expend precious free time keeping up appearances. Read more. Take a walk. Do nothing but reflect. Don't clean up after other people who are perfectly capable of cleaning up after themselves. And if they don't, so? Clean when company is coming. And make everyone pitch in to get it done fast. Otherwise enjoy a more relaxed household.
23
No thanks. Tidy house, tidy mind.
9
@ModerateThoughts —did Einstein have a “tidy mind”? Did Tolstoy? Did Beethoven? Did....
8
@Karen
No towels on the floor please, especially if they are wet. They start to mildew and mold and the smell is awful. Take a shower and then use a mildewed, moldy towel? Yuck.
4
Both of my sons do what the article terms "feminine" work in their homes. Are they as obsessed with cleanliness and neatness as I am...probably not but most people are not as obsessed as I am to begin with, which is good. Neither son is bothered by these feminine and masculine notions, from what I can see. They see something that needs taking care of and do it, including cooking.
6
The analysis lacks equivalency. According to the article's summary, if suburban and urban couples switch residences, the women's workload is unchanged while the suburban-heading male has more (outside) work and the urban-heading male has less. This is attributed to male refusal to do women's work. Or, equivalently I would think, to women's dislike of doing men's work.
Messy and clean rooms. As summarized, men do better than women in being viewed positively and encouraging visitors in both situations; why then are these outcomes described as being due to room cleanliness? There appears to be no difference. Perhaps there is a difference but evidence of it from the study doesn't appear in the article, and the study is only new thing covered.
1
@ddr Please read Darcy Lockman's book All The Rage and then reread your letter. Here's a quote: "The expectation among my male friends is still that they will have the life they had before having kids. A switch goes on in a man's brain once there's a woman: I'm not responsible for anything anymore." And this:
"Strategic incompetence is a ploy to avoid doing work at home by doing it half heartedly or badly, thereby insuring that the mother has to step in and complete the task."
19
@Froxgirl People make causal assertions. I'm interested in whether the evidence backs them up and excludes other explanations. From this point of view, your note hasn't added anything. The messy room interpretation in the study is apparently refuted by the study's own evidence, and the urban-suburban evidence seems to show that both genders stay in their lane despite changes in the couples overall workload.
Articles like these make me feel so lucky to be gay.
6
@C, SF - Amen! How heterosexuals put their pants on everyday without help is beyond me.
6
If women are doing this extra work to because they choose to cede their personal authority for their house to society's expectations, the women alone should do all of the extra work.
Part of the burden that goes with the goodies that feminists say they don't have is the responsibility to set, and defend, personal boundaries. It seems to me that women should collectively stop cutting each other off at the knees for no positive result (other than group control of one another - gasp! The matriarchy??).
3
In couples where both work, why not just set some money apart for a maid service once a week, I do this out of my paycheck.
You can still work with your children to give them chores and such between visits to keep things clean.
Single moms may not have the money. but I doubt other posters here are so strapped that they cannot afford to have cleaning done once a week.
Cooking is a different issue, but the cleaning part can definitely be outsourced, and makes me wonder if the women who done;t do this prefer to play the martyr role, get off the cross os to speak we need the wood.
1
I wonder how much of this is a legacy that women in our culture, and in many cultures, have inherited: the need to present an attractive facade to the world.
The few years I spent in suburbia as a child was a lesson in appearances, most often led by the women. A nicely decorated house was essential, manicured gardens and lawns, the norm. I have a relative whose sole purpose in life seems to be to have a nice house and car, wear conservative but fashionable clothes, always in make-up, and go on tours and cruises that result in lots of photos on social media.
Our culture teaches women that appearances are more important than substance. Sadly, many women take this to heart. It's not hard to imagine that such motivation, in part, contributes to the willingness of many women to clean up after their men.
13
My mother and father made me and my two older brothers clean the house every day by the time we were teens. My father was a drill instructor gunnery sergeant Marine veteran from World War II, and believe me, everything had to be clean. He would always get me to clean the kitchen late at night, telling me, “I don’t want your mother to have to come down in the morning to see any of this.” And as I clean the kitchen so that my wife doesn’t have to walk in to a messy kitchen in the morning, his words echo in my head every night.
I do not understand a man who will not lift a finger to clean his own house.
57
It's women who judge other women. Men don't care. In fact, it makes men's lives more difficult.
3
Because women care about messes and a dirty floor and men don't. It's self-inflicted.
3
@Jonathan Katz And why is that? Because their mothers did all the housework and never made their sons or husbands do their fair share. "When women in the home spend all their time attending to the needs of others, home is a workplace for her, not a site of relaxation, comfort, and pleasure." - bell hooks
8
As a gay man who has enjoyed a few good, long-term relationships, I'm surprised by the narrow focus on housework, which is just a part of the overall picture.
(And I can dispel the stereotype that all gay men are good at housework! It varies a LOT.)
In my experience, couples do better when they focus on the whole more than the parts.
I'd rather see a detailed analysis of one couple, showing the complexity of what each brings to the relationship, what they take from it, and how they evaluate the balance.
All relationships are different, but that's part of the point: Relationships are complex, unique and dynamic. They require a wholistic perspective to evaluate and foster.
11
@Chris Read Darcy Lockman's book All The Rage. " I stopped cooking because I wanted to feel as unencumbered as a man walking through the door of his home expecting that something had been done for him."
7
"The results debunked the age-old excuse that women have an innately lower tolerance for messiness. Men notice the dust and piles. They just aren’t held to the same social standards for cleanliness, the study found"
This could be the case but there is nothing reported intros article that establishes this.
The fact that some people judge women to be "uncomfortable having visitors over" when the room was messy really fails to unconfound the differential social pressure argument from the innate disposition argument.
In fact, very obviously, the latter can be used to explain the former.
This does not sound like a very powerful study. it sounds more like a study that had a desired outcome in mind and then construed the available data to support it.
Another study would show men and women interiors in various states of messiness and ask them when they would be inclined to clean up. My guess is that the men would tolerate a far greater degree of messiness than the women, before they felt as though they needed to clean up.
Obviously, just as in the actual study the does not expose causal factors but it would provide prima facie evidence either for the "innate" hypothesis or the hypothesis that women are highly impressionable and have difficulty asserting their own preferences (i.e. in fact a greater tolerance for messiness which is suppressed by some social need)
Back to the lab, I think.
1
@Econ
It's social "science". What do you expect?
2
This article focuses on half of the issue … who is judged. The other half, who is doing the judging, also warrants some consideration.
My personal suspicion, as with some other topics commonly described as societal pressure on women, is that the pressure is more likely to originate with other women.
Regardless, on an individual level, people are accountable for negotiating the relationships with the people with whom they cohabitate … or moving along. No amount of literature from gender studies department and pithy op-eds to get men to "step up" will ever change that.
7
This article seems to forget that there is a whole swath of humanity out here who still considers homemaking to be a primary job. I have an M.D. and still work part time (0.67), but keeping house and cooking for my husband and sons is full-time, plus overtime. A lot of us are proud of our clean homes and of having dinner ready to eat together every night.
And of course, in a traditional marriage, having a man is a lot more work. My husband is completely worth it. My mother, who is married to a woman, wonders what I am “doing with my life”. My mother-in-law, married to a man, gets it completely and is very proud of me.
1
@Sherrod Shiveley
Can't a clean home and dinners be a family undertaking? Traditions can evolve.
10
@Sherrod Shiveley: Both my wife and I are MDs, and we also have a clean house and dinner on the table every evening. But I'd hardly call our relationship traditional.
I'm glad your husband is worth it, but here's my question: What's the worth of tradition if it only means more work for you? Can't your husband be worth it AND do his fair share of work around the house? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, truly. But I just don't see what value tradition brings to you and your family.
14
Could be the same reason men, but not women, are judged for a owning a small house, or none at all. Or a cheap car. Or having a subordinate professional role.
Or it could be that men are occupied with working, since according to the BLS, they spend on average 3.3 more hours per day in work or work-related activities.
Who knows, it's a mystery.
5
It is odd that men work longer hours, at more dangerous jobs, commute farther, and yet this never seems to get into these stories about inequality.
4
I hear these conclusions often. But in my situation-older, children out of the house for a decade, working , single... I have some perspectives a younger woman might not have.
I agree that I do less housework than when I was married-so interesting. But last week after a heavy rainstorm the man in my life came over to help with the water in the basement. He climbed up on a ladder and cleaned my gutters. He rerouted 2 drainpipes in the yard to divert water further away. This was a time consuming dirty job requiring digging. He crawled into the nasty crawl space to see from where the water was coming. He carried out some heavy objects and helped me restore the dehumidifier ( heavy ) to a new perch. This was in a week's time. I often get this help. When these articles are written this kind of thing is often not factored in. And I hear men mention this; questioning why it is not counted. I have never mowed a lawn in my 66 years. ( I know that lots of women do mow-around here )It may be very different for city dwellers in smaller spaces where all of the labor is indoors and tends to be lighter. But as a national conclusion I think it is a mistake to leave out the heavy work which seems to be dismissed here as "occasional". Women can do some heavy work and men can certainly do some dishes and laundry. But I don't think this study shows the big picture. I do agree that women are judged. I always said : " I have a right to read the newspaper before obsessing over the drudgery".
8
@Consuelo
One is in the house work.
The other is outside the house "projects."
Women don't usually do the exterior tasks.
They require skill, strength, and endurance.
Too Dangerous! I can't contain my mirth.
1
@Consuelo My parents always had me (a woman) do the dirty work growing up and my dad was always the housekeeper while my mom was better with the finances. Growing up that way was very beneficial to me. I dumped a man-baby of a boyfriend in part because he expected me to be his mother.
Instead, I'm married to a true partner who shares in the grocery shopping, cleaning, and dirty work. I do cook most of the time, but I also haven't done a load of laundry in over a year. Part of what makes our relationship great is that we choose to be together, but we can both take care of ourselves.
10
@Pia-I do the inside and the outside "chores." Endurance yes, skill maybe, strength...none but a persistent person none-the-less. 5 feet tall, nearly 62 and weight 125 pounds so the "strength" just isn't built into me. It all gets done and I do extensive gardening.
4
I find it helps to remind myself that the mess, dropped social/child engagements, etc., are just as much my husband's fault as my own. This takes a lot of the pressure off of me to do everything.
4
I don’t know any family where the woman is expected to do more housework, and most of the families I grew up around were Republican! I’m sure these families exist, but I utterly fail to believe that they are as common as the article makes out. Given the fact that the primary study for this assertion has no methodological notes (at least not in the link) is especially worrying.
A few thoughts:
- if you polled older families the gender imbalance is more likely to appear.
- Not all families are the same. If a family has one principle breadwinner who works all the time then of course the person at home (usually the woman) will do more chores. That is actually *fair*, and even a handful of these families will skew the larger averages for time spent on chores.
- Following on from the above I don’t see any consideration of how the couples themselves feel about their current balance of housework. Do they feel it is equitable? If so, isn’t that all that matters?
Yes, of course some men are worthless slobs who don’t pull their weight. Same is true for some women as well. No, women are not yet fully equal in society (they are still disproportionately punished for having a child, for example), but I’m not convinced by this article that women across the US suffer under old fashioned patriarchies where they have to slave away while the man drinks beer and watches the game. This no doubt exists somewhere (everything does), but it is far from common, at least in California.
2
When we were recently putting our house on the market, we had a private pre-showing for a broker who lives on our block. The feedback from her client was that they liked, not loved the house. But they specifically remarked on how clean "she" kept the place given our two young kids.
It apparently never occurred to them that it was me, the husband and father, who spent two hours that morning going over every surface in the house with a microfiber cloth to bring the kitchen and bathrooms to showroom condition.
Oh well. I'll survive the insult. As will the housekeeping service who normally cleans our home because my wife's time is better spent running her consulting business than scrubbing toilets.
27
@JAS Esq.
Booohoooo!! Waaaaaaa.
The last sentence does not balance out the fact that you felt the need to tell us you spent two (two ! and with a microfiber cloth! ) hours wiping already clean surfaces, and that this two hours wiping already clean surfaces combined with the "insulting" comment stood out so starkly that they function as a springboard for a display of your laudable progressive perspective (last sentence), their distressingly regressive perspective (wow they assumed the woman cleaned) and
right up there with a man's ability to avoid household chores...
excessive self praise for the slightest effort!
Yeah, So.
Booohoooo!! Waaaaaaa.
(As an aside, has anyone ever seen cleaning service staffed with even one man?)
1
Her friends care. His don't. Not that difficult to understand.
4
All true- but who does the judging?
3
After 27 years of marriage I divorced my Ozzie wannabe husband because I had no desire to grow old as a servant in my own home. I have not once regretted it.
My advice to my adult sons, and anyone else, is to hire someone to clean your home. Treat the expense like a utility bill. Prioritize how you want to spend your free time.
Even though I live alone I still pay someone to clean my home. I’m happy to sacrifice in other areas to pay for this service because there are so many other things I want to do in my free time.
17
I think many of us have homes too big and cluttered to clean ourselves. Two solutions: Keep a smaller home with clear surfaces and fewer objects; Routinize and distribute nearly all household duties in an agreed upon system. If children over twelve or spouses forget or decline to do the agreed upon chores, then go on strike. No dishes washed or groceries shopped for or laundry done for others? It will be messy and chaotic for a time, but pretty soon the children and spouse will want to eat, wear clean clothes, or be able to find the remote. And they will return to being responsible, cooperative members of the household.
21
Men are held to a higher standard by society than women. Men are judged more harshly, in general. This is particularly true in the criminal justice system. Society thinks nothing of telling a man to "man up" or "be a man," whatever that means. We take it. But, I have never heard a man criticize a woman for a having a messy house. It's women who judge everyone, including each other. They are their own worst enemies and they blame men for it.
15
Says a man, blaming women for, well, everything.
30
@Louise Cavanaugh- Spot on!
1
Something that hasn't been raised is healthfulness. I'm not talking about obsessive white-glove-test fussiness, or bleach mania, just simple a simple healthy environment to live in. A family relation who had persistent respiratory problems, also had at least a quarter inch of dust on all surfaces in the home, and a mustiness that made visits very trying. I clean to promote health for me and my family. On the cleaning equity question, maybe the truest indicator is who cleans the toilets!
13
Nobody blames my husband if our house is messy, they blame me. When my house isn’t clean I feel ashamed. I’m a modern feminist but I can’t shake the expectations I put on myself. It’s innate. I would much prefer to be outside doing yard work and I do that too or working on building some cool thing for our house. We just hosted a German exchange student. Our family went to the gathering to greet all the other exchange students. All the moms had put together welcome bags, and prepared food. We all talked about how stressful it was to get our houses perfect for our students, making sure we had food, and how much we worried about being prepared to be good hosts.
125
@Lambnoe, why spend life doing stuff you don’t like? Who’s blaming you—and why are you friends with them if they are like that?
15
@Mark Um no. I'm in charge of all our finances, do the taxes and pay all the bills. So if we miss a mortgage payment it's all my fault. Also, sometimes people lose their homes and it isn't anyone’s fault. Sometimes it's bad luck.
8
@Lambnoe
You’re missing the point. This article is about prejudice against women for having a messy house. There are plenty of homes where the man keeps the house clean. You pay the bills at your house. Great. But, if the house is ever lost, your husband will take the blame. Again, this article is about prejudice. Men are judged too.
The other two comments are of course by men making it about themselves and ignoring the issue at hand. The article doesn't blame anyone, but rather suggests that the road to less household inequality is paved by men stepping up to do more houswork. Of course this is an inconvenience for them, so I imagine most men will be defensive and defiant.
237
What about women doing less housework and ignoring judgmental people? I brought sanity to my house wrangling an agreement to clean just once a week.
19
@Victoria
I'll do more laundry and vacuuming and dishes chores just as soon as my wife does more garbage/recycling and lawncare and the other more dirty+physical chores.
Which she has informed me will never happen.
7
@Victoria. Most men won't even read this article.
189
A slob is a slob. This is not a gender issue.
9
unconscious bias by the female author. No mention of the unkept lawn or dirty car?
5
@bx Could be that the author lives in a major city and doesn't have a lawn or a car.
For the same reason why men are still judged for the family's finances: they were traditional roles. Why does everything have to be about prejudice, privilege, hatred, etc? This sour rhetoric and demagoguery is turning America off. It's in so many stories, headlines, op eds, FB posts. People get sick of hearing accusation and complaint. It's like the twisted Moral Majority of the new millennium.
9
How stupid. When you women start lawn work, shoveling the snow ,fixing the plumbing the car and the million tiny other things that are considered a man’s job then come cry to me. I do all of the above and guess what I’m a better cook then my wife. Yes I also enjoy cooking. Oh I do my own laundry too! Please give it a rest it’s just house work and everyone wants a clean house... don’t they?
3
Sadly not everyone wants a clean house. My husband is wonderful in many ways but he’s a slob and doesn’t care how much detritus is scattered about the house. After 32 years of marriage I still see only 3 losing alternatives:
Bug him to put stuff away
Do it myself
Live with the mess
I guess I should have looked for a neat freak but everyone has good points and bad. Hey, he puts up with me.
10
@J Clark I do the gardening, deal with contractors, manage our money, household filing & organization, cleaning, laundry, any necessary ironing (mostly hubby's shirts), cleaning for our pets, carry in 50-pound bags of birdseed to the garage, 40-pound sacks of litter to the basement, glean out stuff for donations which ends up in large boxes that I move to the garage, assemble anything that gets shipped in a flat box, do all holiday decorating, and manage what social life we have. I work full-time as an office administrator and coordinate repairs and lift a lot of deliveries, some quite heavy onto carts and then unload them for the people who need them. I've moved very large and heavy furniture on my own, usually for men who need an office set up for themselves. I hang pictures, bulletin boards, and move stock around. I like being active, but sometimes it would really help, when I'm tired, to have some help without having to ask for it. My husband is a tremendous cook, especially on the grill, and he does most of the grocery shopping and deals with the auto mechanic and IT stuff in our home. He works hard at his job and is very smart. But he does have stockpiles of old stuff that I'm concerned will be left to me to deal with someday, and it won't be cheap, easy, or just a matter of calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK. I did that for 8 years for my elderly parents, and it's not easy.
15
@J Clark Do you think you're the norm? You sound like a very good husband. I don't think everyone is so lucky. My husband takes care of a lot of the housework and I'm very grateful for him especially because I know it isn't this way for most women. But FYI, this is the NYT, so I think that overlooking chores that are related to house ownership and cars may have been overlooked as many of us city dwellers don't have those things.
1
So. Much. Generalization.
Which women? Which men?
There are 3.5 Billion of each in the world.
This headline perpetuates damaging gender and cultural stereotypes. In truth we are each free to choose our values, what we want to judge, and with whose judgements we will concern ourself. We must take individual responsibility for those choices.
We should not accept the perpetuation of cultural stereotypes (and sexism) foisted upon us by by media.
5
It’s like you don’t understand how statistics work, and lack reading comprehension. The article in no way insists the data reflects all men or women. It discusses the data that shows the majority behavior works a certain way. It even discusses attempts to understand why, that are not merely depending on stereotypes. If the facts are bothersome for you, perhaps you should focus on why that is.
7
I see these articles of this type daily, though to be honest it's hard to tell one from the other, so I may just keep seeing a small set of them.
What I don't see is articles about the imbalance of the other "housework": I've cleaned sink and toilet drains, repaired each of the appliances, refinished hardwood floors, replaced toilet parts, cleaned the carpets many times, rewired electrical circuits, rearranged patio stones, put panelling on walls, removed wallpaper, fixed plaster, replaced faucets, recaulked tubs, installed range hoods, installed ceiling fans, installed and removed window-mounted air conditioners annually.
This is just the beginning of the other "housework" I do. I'm not even a handyman: I'm a teacher. Some of the work is satisfying, some is pretty unpleasant and/or physically demanding, but I don't whine about it. I'd say the work in our house balances out. Through the gender-biased filter typical of articles like this one, I'd look like a slacker, because the only work that seems to matter is the daily chores (which with modern appliances are mostly a breeze).
4
@ObjectiveObserver Same here, AND I'm the sole income earner.
1
@ObjectiveObserver And how often do you do those things? Maybe once a week, tops? Will rearranging those patio stones next week result in more stones to be rearranged? Other things, like installing paneling, you do maybe a few times in your life, unless you are particularly bad at putting up paneling. Plus, many women do those things, or other people are paid to do them. You'd have to have a full time servant and a personal assistant to completely eliminate daily chores. You say that daily chores are a breeze, and they are certainly less labor intensive than they used to be (though power tools serve the same purpose for "men's work"), but they are still daily, and the work is quickly undone, whereas home improvement tasks have a clearly defined finish line, which makes them more mentally satisfying. To me, the point of this article is simply that women spend more time cleaning because they feel that they will be judged for having a messy house. And, it turns out, they are being judged.
9
I have a husband who through portions of our marriage has traveled extensively, and as a result I have had to do many of the types of chores you describe. They are sometimes challenging, and have the positive effect of a sense of accomplishment when completed. They are random in occurrence, and can sometimes be put off if logistics do not permit doing them right away. If I compare them to laundry, cleaning, and cooking, the biggest difference I see is the incessant nature of the “feminine” chores, and how little positive effect is felt when completing them. The exception can be cooking, but only if you are willing to spend even more time on it in order to be creative and interesting. Thankfully, my husband likes to cook, does not travel as frequently anymore, and we have the income to support a maid. I am the one more likely to do mundane chores around the house (except for cooking), particularly laundry, but the chores are not an egregious amount. I also am blessed with a partner who is appreciative of my efforts and says so, and I likewise try to do the same for him.
8
many of the same women whining about men not doing enough housework probably voted for Trump. get out of the 1950's view of the world and give your husbands and sons chores to do. if you're submissive to the men in your life, you're part of the problem too. Also, who cares what other people think of your house keeping ability? People should stop worrying so much about what other people think. it's your house, do whatever the heck you want.
5
@dw Good way to end up single.
What if one person is the sole income earner, and the other cleans the house?
I think it funny that you argue for equality, but tell women to “give” others chores. In an equal situation, none of the chores would be hers to give, they’d belong to the others just as equally.
4
gimme a break. presumably folks wouldn't have the issue if men did more. if men in your life don't help out voluntarily, choose to make them by giving them chores, don't complain about it, or move on. Being submissive to the issue is enabling the issue.
I'd rather be single than have a 1950s dynamic. I like my women intelligent, independent, and free - thinkers. Beautiful too. I'm married to one and I'm glad our son and daughter see the benefit to a sharing, mutually respectful household, including chores by everyone. You don't have to be a crunchy hippie to live this way either.
1
The title editor knows exactly what they're doing. The passive voice says too much or too little : the word "social" serves no other purpose but to suggest the anonymous, genderless "society" in the readers' mind (translate : patriarchy). Yet "Society" does nothing of the sort.
So drop the word "social" and replace the passive voice :
"Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House
*Women hold women to a higher standard*, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show."
There, fixed it for you.
4
Did I miss something? Where does it state that these studies show only women judged the other women more harshly?
1
How many women do yard work? Is that work shared equally? Fixing appliances? Home repairs?
And are men or women judged differently for the quality of their yards... Has anyone every done a study on that?
1
@OneView I do all the yardwork at our house, but I love gardening and weeding is a contemplative chore for me. My husband HATES it, but he likes the benefits it brings (birds, rabbits, bees, hummingbirds). I do some very minor home repairs, but most of the bigger ones we encounter require a contractor. For most of the homes in our neighborhood the husband does some of the yardwork and parcels the rest of it out to a landscaper (like mowing the grass or mulching). And for many here "yardwork" means going around spraying weeds with Roundup while talking on a mobile phone. My husband does do snow removal, but he hates that as well (6am in the winter is dark and freezing cold--not pleasant when you first wake up).
1
@OneView Honestly, I'd love to see a study on yard work and who gets blamed for a messy yard. I wish they would do a study and an article on that too. I do both the housework and yard work. And, I admit that I judge people with messy yards. I've never noticed whether I was judging the man, the woman, or both, though.
2
@Rebecca I am a single woman, work full time, and my neighbor is an older lady that is physically capable but does not work. she has male family members do all her yard work but is happy to tell me what I should be doing (on my own) in my yard.
If you happen to turn on the TV, the ads almost always have the women getting the paper towels to clean up the mess. It is getting better than it used to be, But overwhelmingly women are shown doing the dirty work.
12
@ConA
....another reason for no TV.
2
And the men are shown to be big, helpless doofuses.
3
@Cheryl
Your comment is really spot on. Popular culture shows men who can't manage their own affairs, much less a household and/or face relentless criticism from women who tell them they can't do anything around the house correctly. I am fortunate in my life to have both men and women who strive to be competent in many different facets of life and are willing to try and learn new things.
Women seem to be more sensitive to being judged by other women, mainly as a result of a relationship to their mothers tangling their identity.
Stereotypes live as long as some believe them, but is it the male patriarchy or media pushing them?
In our house, I (as the male) do most of the housework nowadays because she is busier. But my standards are lower: whatever works for us.
Her standards are higher when she's afraid of being judged. She's actually happier with my standards (and cleans to them), until a female friend might come over.
I also notice her friends are not actually judgmental. There's no sign of it when they are here, no signs they consider it covertly, they're not the type to gossip, and they respect her for many reasons.
But to her, even knowing there is no threat, the risk to her sense of identity is still compelling enough to raise the standards. She notices it, but we have not figured it out. So I try to make a game of it and out-clean her when people are coming over :)
14
The Episcopal Church requires that a couple planning to wed engages in pre-marital counseling, to discuss money, children, sex, etc.
Wouldn't it be great if, before a wedding, a couple were also required to talk about the burden of house-keeping: who does what, how to maintain equity, and what to do when one partner walks out the door for an evening of beer and pool leaving the other partner with a pile of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes.
23
My very good mother, a fanatic house cleaner and room straightener-outer if there ever was one, had a built-in alarm system in her head that enabled her to leap far distances at a single bound and find and remove tiny specks of dust and dirt in remote corners of our house.
I miss her terribly.
My good wife -- sad to say -- suffers from no similar malady.
3
I suggest that you clean that speck. You seem to notice it as your mother did. If it bothers you grab the broom or the dust cloth. Go for it.
13
@mlj
Thanks very much for the suggestion, but I really don't think a broom or a dust cloth could handle the job. I've been thinking about giving an earth mover -- one of the big ones -- a try.
1
@A. Stanton Is something stopping you from cleaning that speck of dust yourself?
8
Women's work is never done.
3
@Pia
Here's the entire phrase:
Men may work from sun to sun,
but women's work is never done.
5
When I was first married and living in an apartment, my now ex husband would drop off the laundry at the laundromat on Saturday morning, and pick it up in the evening after playing basketball all afternoon. Nothing could convince that he wasn't doing 50% of the housework
11
Men only said they noticed the mess because they were asked to look for it. If they had just walked into the room, they wouldn't have noticed or cared. It's other women who put pressure on women to clean.
2
Many years ago I had my girlfriend, her roommates and parents over for dinner. My apartment was so neat, tidy and well decorated that they were convinced I was gay.
Expectations of men are low indeed.
Fast forward many years and that girlfriend is my wife. We also have a teen, a tween and a dog and our house is not neat and tidy and not that well decorated. I only blame myself! I certainly don’t expect any one member of our family to be responsible for it all. But it’s ok if we don’t live in a museum; the home feels homey and lived in and I’m perfectly ok with a little messy.
10
Here's a twist in the division of labor issue: my husband and I spend the same amount of time doing household chores, but I get more done because I work faster, and with equal, or maybe even better, results. I would love to know what he is doing, but he gets defensive when I bring it up.
12
@Lauren Ideally housework should never be time spent, but chores completed, and to an agreed upon standard. If it takes the man 8 hours to make the bed, so be it. He still has to complete the other agreed upon chores. There is a method to their slowness madness. Eventually they know they'll probably be excused. If men performed at work the way they often do at home, they would, I'm sure, also be excused.
15
I would be interested in if men and women reacted differently in the study. Are women more likely to blame other women for a messy room? Or did men and women react similarly to assigning blame for a mess? The article merely speaks of "respondents". For example, my observation over the years is that women are more aware and critical of how other women dress, but give men a pass.
5
Based on an admittedly small sample pool, my assessment is that part of the problem is that no one teaches boys/men how to do these chores and it’s so culturally stigmatized to ask for help that they hardly ever admit they need it.
I’ve known a handful of men who are, at root, willing to do household chores, but literally don’t know where to get started or how to self motivate.
My hope is that in another 20 years, as more and more boys are growing up learning how to do basic chores, we’ll start to see this shift.
6
People don’t typically blame the wife when a family financially underperforms or falls in financial status.
4
@HO but they often blame "her" for spending "his" money, even if she makes more.
My landlord used to remind me to straighten up my mess. The mess was arranging the information for one of my books (8 bicycle tour guide books, now all out of print) on the apartment's floor.
Until recently I was embarrassed to bring friends to the apartment due to its dishevelment! This necessitated always convincing lovers to use their apartment.
Fun! It also made my apartment something of a mystery. Friends, lovers, and relatives all enjoyed trying to fathom the reason why I would not allow them to visit!
2
@Harvey Botzman If you lived in New York City your landlord might very well have taken action to evict you. That is what they do here. I recently took a declutter class at a senior center and some of the people were there because they were having legal problems with landlord over clutter. One even had an upcoming court date by which she needed to show improvement.
I'm having more fun reading the comments than reading another tired article about why women let men get away with some unequal practice in the home. As I've met men with habits so neat that they put my own minimalist, "clean freak" habits to shame, and women whose homes should be declared toxic waste sites, I do my best to be equally harsh when being judgmental about other people. Or, as I was taught, I shut up and instead enjoy their company.
12
This is all so true. I married in my late 30s and had a child. While I love them dearly, I miss having a clean home. Living with two males who step over dirty clothes on the floor and are just fine with a sink full of filthy dishes is a challenge, especially since I work full time as an educator and then work another 15 hours a week from home preparing.
This past school year I decided that I would attempt to not stress about the sad state of our home. I cleaned what I could and let the rest go. Wow, it was hard. I did feel like I was judged on the mounds of clothes multiplying around the family room. When my son, age 11, stated that he didn't know if he wanted to have friends visit because our home was so messy, I informed him that he could change this dynamic. He seemed shocked. This was from a boy who has been washing his own clothes since age 5. I can only hope that my efforts will pay off and he will be better trained than his father, whose mother did everything for him.
18
I guess it now depends on the definition of "woman", since wives don't have to be female anymore, and may in fact be somewhere along the continuum of moving from one gender to the other. The stereotype of one gender or the other has been pretty much relegated to legend.
4
Much of this seems driven by how children are raised. My parents expected us (both boys and girls) to assist with cleaning, meal preparation and yard maintenance. There was no sense of work that was strictly the job of women or men. I see many parents who seem to give children a pass on learning basic life skills. As a result, it's common to see men and women who are clueless about basic meal preparation and other life maintenance skills.
6
Sure, one of the problems is that men are not especially aware of the issue and boys are not especially taught to help with the housework. However, I think that another problem lies in the way women judge other women. It may be one of the elements missing in the studies: who judge women harsher than men? Paradoxically, social pressure more often comes from women themselves than from men.
The conclusion of the article is a bit disappointing. Finally, neither women nor men do household chores. A messy world is emerging … But maybe it shows that mentalities are evolving and in the future years, social standards will tend to disappear. Technology maybe will find ‘solutions’ to this problem. Thinking of a robot that will do all those chores?
6
@Sabdhi
I like the first part but not the second. It's only my point of view but thanks for sharing yours
2
Every day women spend more than 4 hours on domestic work, whereas men spend less than 2 hours a day on that. Personally as a woman who works in finance and has to deal with my working life and housework I really can see the difference with my husband who only has to come home and put his feet under the table.
13
@Colombe
"Every day women spend more than 4 hours on domestic work".
Who's forcing them?
2
@Colombe
Funny how "work" has come to have such a negative connotation these days.
@Colombe
Would you willingly trade roles, and take ownership of outdoors tasks which require more physical exertion? Clearing the gutters, lawn care, garbage/recycling, sewage/septic tank issues, other misc handy(wo)man work, etc?
Because my wife definitely prefers her indoor chores to mine.
1
I highly recommend Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s The Homemaker, a 1924 novel about role expectations and reversal. Beautifully written and —given this article— still meaningful.
1
Single women do less housework and one possible reason is “they may be more tired”?
On behalf of every exhausted married woman reading this article, thank you for the laugh!
Let us take a wild reckless stab into the unknown and all agree—single women do not do less housework than married women because being single is just so dang exhausting!
5
This article does not say single women may be more tired, it says single mothers. So yes, it is feasible that a single mother working and raising a family may be more tired that a mother in a two parent household that has help raising the kids.
6
Not “single women”—“single mothers.” That is an enormous distinction.
3
@Julia Collier
Single moms, not single women. As to whether they’re more tired, I’d guess probably, but your mileage may vary depending on you’re husband. Mine does ok around the house, but I have no doubt my life would be more exhausting if he wasn’t around.
1
Women also have, on average, more meticulously maintained eyebrows than men. But it's not because of societal expectations. It's because they're competing with other women.
3
@M. Casey Not necessarily, not any more. Watch some of the programs on television and YouTube and see whom is competing with whom.
2
@M. Casey My husband meticulously maintains his beard. Same thing. Gets haircuts every two weeks while I go every 6 months. But yes, I pluck my eyebrows more than he does. Evens out.
3
@M. Casey so how does a woman win an eyebrow competition exactly?
1
I totally judge men who can’t keep their homes clean, and do twice the housework my wife does maybe it’s a function of being in the military?
7
@Pakky My hubby was military. Active Army for 5 years. Still doesn't vacuum, neaten or make kiddo do chores of any kind. By his standards, I should be nothing but grateful because he cooks and takes care of the household shopping, while he cleans out his car and leaves the bags of toys and jackets in the living room for me to deal with.
2
One must make accommodations in order to have a life long companion and household harmony.
One element this story lacks is how gay and lesbian and gender-fluid couples fit into this picture.
Let's all pile on the stereotypes: gay men are OCD about house decor and presentation (cleanliness being a presentational attribute). Lesbians are all about the hand tools and not so much about cleaning. Gender-fluids are all over the place with their artistic selves.
I will say this - training starts young. My brothers barely lifted a finger on chores in their 18 years at home. Mother was sheltering them from the inevitable hard lessons (she feared) in basic training once they would be drafted for Viet Nam. The war ended before that dire day and my brothers rely on their wives forever more.
3
Because women are judged by other women via the housework trait. Quite frankly, having a show house isn't as important as it used to be. We often laugh about having a party so we can finally give the house a good cleaning BEFORE the guests arrive.
5
What never fails to irk me in this debate are people who characterize my former spouses's slovenliness and disinclination to take on any portion of the household work (including outside) as my failure to "train him properly". Apparently, a segment of the population believe parents of male children have no responsibility to teach them basic domestic upkeep.
17
Thank you for saying "parents" and not "mothers."
2
Hiring a cleaning service may be a good idea AFTER husband and children have demonstrated they can do their share of house chores. As an Illinois female public official I knew who worked long hours said, “My sons and husband must clean the house and know how to do it. That bathroom sink is not MY bathroom sink. It is OUR bathroom sink.” And so forth through the house. She also made a good point that her boys should have these skills in order to live fairly orderly lives and get along with roommates and be of value - yes! - to life partner prospects. If a service is hired, spouse and kids should handle the jobs during the “off” week. I did it. It works.
4
I live alone but have lots of family and friends in and out. I feel about the state of my house the way I used to say I felt about whatever car I owned. I just want it tidy/clean enough so it doesn’t embarrass me. (No rust spots on the car and no dirty clothes and dishes in the visited part of the house.)
My daughter and son in law are very happy and neat, and my son and daughter-in-law are extremely messy and happy. So I don’t know if it was nature or nurture.
2
Two questions : first, was there any significant gender division between those doing the *judging* of the messy rooms? In other words, were men and women equally critical of sub-par housekeeping?
Second: instead of convincing men to do more housekeeping, why don't we try to persuade women to do less and care less?
Finally, an observation: often men are 'barred' from doing certain chores by their partners because 'you always do it wrong.' It would be fascinating to see the trends (if there are any) on one gender accepting the quality of work of the other.
10
@Voltron I believe men often do the job "wrong" so they can be excluded from doing it altogether. A man who can rule the world is unable to properly clean a toilet? I think not. When toilet remains filthy after each cleaning, and the woman is forced to re-clean it, eventually the task will fall to her and be off his back. Men can refuse entirely and be thought brutish, or "cooperate" in the spirit of fair-play and equality, and be excused. It is a subtle but powerful method of control and dominance, and highly effective and, in their minds, no one is the wiser, "wink wink".
14
This is one of the few social constructs that have stood the test of time and I think both sides are exceedingly comfortable with.
Men do the outside work, women the inside.
Simple and effective
2
@There ...except it is not effective, as the article notes that outside chores are less frequent than those inside. We live inside - there are more spaces to clean there and more objects to keep tidy. When women are expected to do all inside chores, they are simply doing more chores - and male partners somehow remain confused at why women are frustrated.
19
@Not Surprised
I'd say that people massively and emotionally exaggerate the amount of inside chores that have to be done. It's not like we're getting up at 5 am to chop firewood and haul water. Many of us have electric or gas stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers... If you don't have little kids and you have learned to pick up after yourself, housework in a rich country is a walk in the park.
2
I'm not sure it's quite that simple, because it's unlikely to balance evenly. I spend about three hours every day on inside work, with maybe an extra hour on Saturdays and Sundays. For nearly a year I was the one solely responsible for the outside work as well, and I learned the inside work took up more time. For example, I cleaned the gutters three times that year, and it took me just about two hours. I spent 90 minute push-mowing the lawn three times a month. I took the edger for an hour to the sidewalks and driveway once that summer. I raked the yard twice in the fall, and once in the summer, and that took a total of 12 hours. I spent two afternoons trimming the trees and bushes. Spreading mulch takes an entire weekend when you do it alone. Two hours and the air conditioning condenser is clean. I spent 2 weekends scraping and painting the porch and deck (we only do that every 5 years--my bad timing.) Shoveling was only about 30 minutes a snowfall. I paid a service to weed'n'feed and insect bomb the lawn, but that was something we hired out every year. I also hired a plumber to replace the main sewer line all the way out to the alley, but that wasn't something Himself could have done anyway. With the exception of the mowing and the edging, those weren't tasks he would have done alone because in a regular year I help him. Average summer outside work: 15 hours. Housework, year round: 25. Not very even.
8
I have always done more housekeeping than my wife. I may be the exception, but I’ve also never participated in a social survey.
2
There's way more to this story. Yes, I'm sure there is still much gender inequity involved with house cleaning. Or perhaps a better, more accurate description is a lingering "division of labor."
Every situation is different, but I can tell you that in my house, I clean less because I make less of a mess. Maybe I'm lazy, but I put dishes directly in the dishwasher, put things back in their place, use minimal paper, keep neat and tidy drawers and cabinets, and generally try to keep things simple. My wife, on the other hand, has a constant swirl of stuff in multiple places, in multiple stages of processing. My wife is a wonder to me - how she is able to keep it all going, I don't know. And so, I just keep out of her way and let her do her thing. But I take care of all the manly chores and my neat and tidy garage is a sanctuary of clean and calm for me. Its something I keep up with, so there's less work to do. But my wife's approach fascinates and entertains me. Not better or worse, just different. Complementary.
10
@Bullwinkle
But in today's social climate, traditionally male household chores are undervalued or ignored.
1
The article implies that women are motivated to have a clean house by the judgments of other people - guests, outside family, maybe husband. But I’m not sure that’s the whole story. For one, a lot of women take on the bulk of household work even when no one else ever sees the house besides the nuclear family. My mom was always cleaning even though we rarely had visitors. If it were just about social pressure, she could’ve just cleaned once every 3 months before my grandma (pretty much our only guest) came over for dinner. I think many women have an innate drive to provide a clean orderly home for their children, and not a lot of men have this instinct. I personally am kind of a slob naturally, but once I had children, I developed this deep need to provide them with a clean orderly home. It started with the nesting instinct in late pregnancy. My husband is actually a tidy person and does a lot of household chores, but I don’t think he has this same instinct.
8
Years ago I asked a male friend why men never picked up towels or socks on the floor. His answer: "You're assuming that we see them." That about summed up the male position for me. And despite efforts by both sexes since then to rebalance the household work, I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed all that much.
23
@Nancy Lederman Did he have a wife who picked up all that stuff and washed it for him? If he had no clean towels or socks, he would see them pretty quickly.
13
I work full time and am a single mother (not my choice though).
While I do find myself apologizing for how messy the house is when friends come over, otherwise I do not let these expectations dictate my actions. Housework will always be there, but my child won’t be a child forever. Better to spend more quality time with him.
I also have a third shift of work, which is maintenance of my appearance. Seems vapid,
I know, but more often, people see me and not the inside of my house. And as bad as a woman can be judged based on the cleanliness of the house, how she is judged for her appearance (“she let herself go,” etc.), can be much worse. We aren’t robots. We can’t be accomplished career women, involved mothers, fun sexy wives, and merry maids all the time. Something has to give. I choose the house keeping and do the bare minimum when I can fit it in. Our mates have to help us more. One person can’t do it all, all the time.
40
In my experience, a lot of it boils down to women just being fussy about cleanliness and men not caring. As Bridget from Connecticut says in a comment here, "Part of it was due to not having to clean up after another person who didn't value cleanliness or organization as much as me."
I've gotten reamed for things I consider absolutely immaterial, like a dirty microwave oven. Who looks inside a microwave oven?
These are ancient instincts that evolved as a consequence of the division of labor in primitive societies. I don't think they will be entirely effaced.
3
@Josh Hill Nope. I have no natural instinct for cleaning. And just as you're doing here, people take for granted that women just "are" like that. I have tried to develop the skills and strategies, and the drive and daily determination, to keep a clean house, but I'm just lousy at it.
I'll get it down one day. And you'll walk into my house and praise ancient division of labor.
4
@Josh Hill I recently had a microwave die a premature death, and the repairman said that grease inside it probably contributed. So please listen to your wife, get off your rear, and clean the inside of the microwave.
11
@Josh Hill
I look inside and clean my microwave oven once a week.
4
. . . and why men don't care about the mess.
Same reason men don’t get to cry at work.
5
@The F.A.D. Because they're getting more pay and respect?
14
@Michelle
In spite of having to do almost all of the grungiest and most dangerous jobs in the world.
1
@ObjectiveObserver "Having to do" is a phrase way more often applicable to women than men. Even garbage collectors are largely free from any threat of human trafficking.
4
There may be evidence here, but the fact that no man was referenced and most probably not apart of the study being referenced, I cannot take this as anything more than a bias study and a bias story. Typical man bashing. Frustrating...
13
@Dave We love you. But you really don't get it.
4
@Michelle: I'm a woman, and mother, grandmother, wife and I don't get it.
Really, I don't.
These are things people need to discuss BEFORE marriage (or living together) and work out a mutually acceptable arrangement or face 50 years of hating on one another.
1
@Concerned Citizen That's about marriage. What of women who exist outside of a relationship to a man? I think I'm a whole person until I walk out the door and the double standard punches me in the face. You wouldn't believe how blatant and life-affecting it is.
2
We never talk about why people think they will die if the house isn’t perfectly tidy or why people are judging. We should even submit to this standard of tidiness?
10
To be fair, this title would have offered an equally compelling article:
“Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for the Inside of a Messy House; While Men, but Not Women, Are Judged for the Outside of a Messy House”
14
This article fails to take into account a major cause behind so much falling on the shoulders of women: Women judging other women. If women would just get off the backs of their own kind, and just not do the work until men decide to pitch in because they just can't stand it anymore, this would go away much faster. It's the married women doing all the work who do the most judging, and they do it to justify what they are doing to themselves. Younger women looking to get married similarly judge other women hoping to give them a competitive edge.
Ignore them! Just do that and your life will become so much more simpler. Oh, that and picking a man who does not buy into the notions of woman hood as judging women. They do exist.
9
Nice but quaint. Many of us gay men do house work and judge ourselves as harshly as women. Men are not just straight men.
20
@David Gifford - some straight men are obsessively neat. My brother is much neater than I am (I'm a woman). He is straight and single. And I've had straight guy friends whose apartments were absolutely perfect in terms of order, decor, neatness and so forth.
2
The idea that men will be men and therefore should get a pass on household work is an argument too weak for serious discussion. But hear me, ladies: the same holds true when you claim that only a man is ingenious enough to check the oil or mow the lawn.
My dad liked both those ideas. Sorry, Dad.
4
Perhaps we should be exploring more how it is that so many men feel entitled to the free labor of women they purport to love and respect rather than why so many women provide that free labor (-when it is what they are largely trained to do since a very young age). Like the husband of one commenter who sneaks out weekend mornings with his son "to be out of her way".... You can't get the right answer if you ask the wrong question...
110
@Rebecca Thank you.
7
@Elizabeth
Well said. How could anyone - and in this context this seems to be "husband" - sit and watch TV or relax while another human - in this context "wife" - is busy doing house chores or other house-related work?
13
Until his death several years ago I was married to what had to be a contestant for the messiest person on the planet. He truly seemed oblivious to his mess, except when he couldn't find something and had to call on me for help. I did my best to confine him to his "man cave" and keep the rest of the house relatively livable, though he never seemed to notice, so he really surprised me when after having a single friend to dinner one night he looked around the kitchen and pointed to the plants and decorative things I had put there and said how sad he felt for our friend because he didn't have a home like ours.
13
I grew up in a household where cooking, dishwashing and childcare were largely shared between my parents. My husband's parents were German immigrants with a very traditional view of gender roles. I doubt my father in law had ever washed a pot in his life--which didn't mean he did not consider himself an expert on all things pot washingThere was no way I was going to live like that.
When we first got married I lay down the law. One person cooks. The other person does the dishes. As my husband hates to cook and I enjoy it that was pretty easy. He was also willing to take on the laundry--especially after my mother expressed the opinion that men were fundamentally incapable of separating whites from colors.
I'm more of a self-starter than he is at the big things but he's better at detailed scheduled tasks--I did mention that he's German didn't I. I fix electrical stuff. He repairs plumbing.Cleaning is a challenge--neither of us are what you would call the neat and tidy type.
Sitting here right now our tiny RV living/galley area looks like a tornado hit it. Time to take out the recycling and sweep. I'll probably do that. His tolerance for disorder is higher than mine. He had a repairman in yesterday when I was out and my first thought (after what is this going to cost) was "Oh God the trailer is a mess."
I assure you, my friends, that that thought would have never passed through his mind.
3
I am quite certain that my spouse does not see the cleaning that needs to be done, because I have run my own experiments. Instead of washing the dishes more frequently, he bought more coffee mugs and spoons. I fell ill for 3 days and, while he kept our kid and pets alive, he also left me all the dishes and laundry.
I sublet a room in a fraternity house in college - it was awful, as in platefuls of toenail clippings on the kitchen counter. I had a ton of male roommates (gay, straight and otherwise) throughout my youth, all slobs. In my experience, they all don't care, no matter the stench or clutter.
2
After my husband moved out following almost 30 years of living together, I found myself doing less housework. Part of it was due to not having to clean up after another person who didn't value cleanliness or organization as much as me. But another big part was that, living alone, a messy house affected only me. When you live with another person or in a neighborhood, you have a social responsibility to keep things in order.
15
You did less housework, but did you also then do more outside chores like cut the grass, manicure the landscaping, and snowblow the driveway? What about fixing the leaky faucet, changing the oil in the car, and maintaining the furnaces? I bring this up because men always seem to get stuck doing the difficult chores while women get stuck with the daily chores. Both the difficult and daily chores are mundane, but if the difficult chores don't get done, they'll cause a deleterious effect on getting to work, living with modern conveniences like heat and indoor plumbing, and having a yard that looks acceptable to the neighborhood. If the daily chores don't get done, all that happens is you live in a messy house and you have to order takeout for dinner.
4
@Josh You can easily hire someone to fix a leaky faucet, change the oil, or deal with a furnace. My husband certainly does.
If the laundry doesn't get done, you have to wear clothes that smell. I would imagine that would cause a deleterious effect on the ability to maintain employment. If dishes don't get washed and meals don't get cooked, you're paying more for take out and disposable dishes on a daily basis.
Typical attitude of devaluing what is traditionally "woman's work".
20
I do what you call the “difficult” chores in my house and I think that they are fun projects. What’s “difficult” to me is the drudgery of laundry, dishes, and picking up after my husband when he can’t see the mess.
12
Order in an older house is a bit like whack-a-mole: something always pops up that needs attention, and the whole picture is never clean at the same time. And if by some miracle it was, it certainly would stay that way for long.
We like to have friends over for dinner. I tell people, "You can have a really nice meal or a really clean house. But not both!" They always cheerfully opt for the food.
20
@mammakay Sorry - meant to say it would NOT stay that way for long.
1
A friend called me on an early Saturday morning. She had 'caught' her husband tiptoeing out of their (large, expensive multi stored ) house. When she asked where they were going he informed her that he was taking himself and their son out of the way so she could concentrate on 'her' housework and errands.
Mind you, they BOTH worked in professional occupations (one was an architect, the other an engineer). But in his mind, the 'housework',cooking, cleaning, childcare all belonged to HER.
I suggested engagement of a cleaning service and a lawn service, with monies to be paid jointly. That saved their marriage.
71
@Cal 'monies to be paid jointly' - suggest he pay solely for the number of year they have already been married then subsequently jointly. But that might put too fine a point on her unpaid work to suit him!
1
Nothing makes this happy apartment-renter happier than not having a lawn, garage, basement, or my own roof. So much less stuff to care for and maintain.
Regardless of gender, renting is still looked down on, for reasons I don't understand. Maybe because it involves less housework!
16
@Bubo
If renters are "looked down on"(?), it may be because if you rent your entire life, you don't accrue the equity that a homeowner can cash in. Renters indirectly pay the taxes for the property owner, but "end up with nothing to show for it." Ultimately, owning or renting is either a life style choice, or something a person is forced into because he or she can't financially come up with a down payment and get a mortgage.
8
And women are the harshest critics of each other! Judging someone on how they keep their house? Why not judge them on are they giving back to the community, making the world a better place...being kind? I've yet to see on a tombstone "She kept a clean house". Sheesh.
92
@Martha P - I have two children, and though my house is not perfect, I do try my best to make it a cozy refuge for them as they develop into the people they will become. So I consider my work in the home my giving back to the community.
3
@Martha P
You are so right! Quite often women are each other's worst enemies.
After 35 years of marriage and a husband who still is unable to differentiate whether the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty, and has no idea where the cleaning supplies, lightbulbs, toilet paper, or clean towels are kept, I’ve tried but given up.
When he is home the house is a mess. Somehow it never seems to bother him. And usually it adds an hour or two to my day to restore order. We’re like the Odd Couple...and I’m Felix.
He does know where to find the refrigerator and pantry though.
And when I can’t find him, I just follow the crumbs.
43
@It's About Time: They call that "creative incompetence": I act like a child because some adult will take care of it.
But even if you train your husband to take responsibility, you'll find that some things you think need doing, he won't think are necessary — and will sometimes be right.
2
@Watercannon You are absolutely correct...though I’m not so sure his lack of competence is “ creative.”
Though I partially jest, we recently instituted a “ let my fingers do the walking” clause in our marriage.Whatever doesn’t get done in a reasonable amount of time, an outside source is called to take care of it. ( Open the computer and find someone )) So much of our life is now outsourced to lawn companies, gardeners, snowblowers, housekeepers, and maintenance people.
Now if grocery shopping and cooking could be added to the list...life would be a bowl of cherries.
2
I'm not sure if it's due to nature or nurture, but I think a big part of the reason that women generally do more housework than men is that most of women place greater value on a neat and clean living space. My husband could live quite happily in a house that was never vacuumed, sleep in bed linens that haven't been washed in months, or use a toilet that was breeding new life forms. It's not that he thinks that I should be doing the cleaning instead of him; the need for cleaning simply never impinges on his consciousness. And while he will willing do cleaning chores if I ask him to specifically, his efforts are rarely to my (what I consider quite reasonable -- I'm not Martha Stewart!) standards, and it's easier just to do it myself. Sigh!
100
@SML Exactly ! My husband believes that his towel is clean, simply because he only uses it after taking a shower. I stopped putting it in the wash (not going to mother him any more), and it's been 2 months and counting.
29
@SML
Since you're unsure if it's nature or nurture, let me tell you with absolute certainty that while there may be an additional "nurture" aspect to it, nature is a decisively important factor. The way you described your husband is me exactly, and your own tendencies match every female I have known, except for violators, who by violating hygiene norms confirm them. Cleanliness and hygiene are almost as gender-differentiated as ovulation and spermatogenesis.
Men can be slobs (Oscar Madison) or neat freaks (Felix Unger), but you're kidding yourself if you think Felix wasn't effeminate & possibly gay-- so Oscar is representative of the 100% straight male psychology as to this: men like their environment to match their inner self: assorted impulses of order, structure and control joined with chaos, wildness, raw passion and beastial drive and appetite. He likes his environment to be part jungle or cave, part museum or stately palace. Different men have these impulses (Appolonian, Dyonisiac) in different configuations. But each's particular balance (or current inner state or inner mix) determines the cleanliness orientation. Hygiene has no place in it (Hubby's sheets etc).
Women's orientation is based on hygiene, and sense that environment reflects status and pro-child-rearing conditions. It must be clean (as must the genitals be kept), and ,
must display her family's power/wealth (her value as a woman), and be conducive to optimal child development
4
@SML Nurture does indeed have a strong influence. If boys are raised to be hygienic and organized, then they will learn that those principles are not gender specific. They will take those practices into adulthood. If, however, the parents (read, mother) did all the cooking and cleaning, asking little of the boys, then they learn that they are not responsible for the housekeeping.
21
My wife and I have a good split of home duties. I do all the cooking (I love to cook, she doesn't like to cook) and she does the house cleaning (she loves to clean - seriously - and I don't). But I usually do the dishes as well as cook, and do my own laundry (she prefers I not do hers). We live in an apartment so there is no yard work. Both of us are happy with this. We celebrated our 47th anniversary on June 6th. We never had any children (my wife has never wanted children, and I loved her - whether or not we had children wasn't important to me.). So we are probably not typical. We're both retired now - she calls me her personal geek squad, as I worked in IT for almost 30 years, and take care of all her tech issues. I'm incredibly lucky to be married to her.
148
@Steve: you sound delightful and happy and I am glad you are an example here of how MOST happy couples "work things out" in some way that suits their individual talents and needs….they don't just endlessly whinge and fight about this.
7
Perhaps the trick here is to question why we are still being held to impossible cleaning standards. In fact, what are the standards, exactly? Is everyone supposed to have gleaming white interiors and furniture 24/7 even if one has kids and pets? One would think so, judging by commercials and shows with people living in unrealistically-perfect houses.)
39
@Deering24 I blame it on HGTV and the staged, pristine rooms seen on myriad home decorating shows. I don't know anyone who lives with a pure white kitchen that stays sparkling clean.
9
@Sukie: good point. Some "styles" and fashions demand more work than others.
This is true of personal grooming as well!
Men have less work getting dressed in the AM, because they tend to wear the same kinds of basic clothes all the time (suit, tie, slacks, shirt) while women have to make all these complex choices (high heels or flats? hose or socks? pants or skirt? dressy or not dressy?).
Men have short simple hair (usually) and women have complex styles, weaves, long hair, etc. that require elaborate grooming. Nobody MAKES US DO THIS….we clearly like it.
Styles in homes are similar. If you CHOOSE to have a "fancy" house with a lot of square footage….miles of off-white carpet….light colored furniture….a "white on white" kitchen!…..it will not only GET dirty fast but will show every speck of dirt….and add immeasurably to your cleaning chores.
If you have dark brown shag carpet….old shabby (but clean) furniture with scuffs and nicks….a plain kitchen with dark wood cabinets….vinyl flooring with a busy pattern that doesn't show dirt….it won't require nearly half as much constant cleaning.
But it won't be fashionable, stylish, "cute" or make your friends envious of your HGTV style.
We all need to take responsibility for our choices in life.
3
@Sukie, ain’t it the truth. A friend of mine once had a white kitchen complete with glass-front cabinets. She almost went crazy trying to keep it streak-free alone. Not enough Windex or Lysol in the world...
3
A bachelor with messy pad/is never labeled as a cad/Likewise husbands that are slobs/are excused because of jobs/But any woman who declines/to follow cleanliness guidelines/is condemned to infamy/if there's any dust to see.
65
And that is why my children refer to my mother in law as Grandma White Glove.
6
Which gated community did the researchers sample for the studies mentioned here? And in which mid 20th century decade did they do the studies, apparently recently published or read?
I don't think millennials, for the most part, would be adequately characterized by these generalizations. Many retirees here in Florida are living so that the husband has assigned housekeeping chores with the wife supervising or assigning. Wives in these older households still do the grocery shopping meal planning and much of the cooking because they know better from good home training, how to do it. I'm specifically thinking of people I knew where the wife used to do most of the housework until retired hubby started hanging around and taking up household space all day.
For those members of the middle class where the husband makes more than the wife or partner, these patterns may persist. It is, unfortunately, also a pattern I see that women still get saddled first with child care duties until the children get old enough to talk. Then the young men I know can take care of them.
There are just too many generational differences in income, lifestyle and presence/absence of children to make much of a useful generalization. Sometimes I think researchers see a pattern they expect in their data, and ignore the other data that doesn't fit. A article like this could be more useful if it tried to estimate how fast trends are changing rather than presenting a snapshot.
8
I’d venture to say that men are held to lower expectations more so than women being held to higher standards per se.
7
Being in a messy house unsettles me. I don’t dislike housework. It calms me. Being in a messy house unsettles me.
13
@Bello
Are you currently in a messy house, thereby compelled to repeat yourself? Just kidding. I dislike both housework and being in a super-messy house, and compromise with working additional hours at a job I like to hire monthly house cleaning services. Then I can settle myself by reminding the heavy cleaning will get done soon enough to make me happy!
9
@Bello Come to my house - I have lots of calming housework for you to do.
4
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Women are judged more harshly for a dirty home? By whom...other women?....by women who have internalized their own erroneous assumptions that men simply can't or won't do anything domestic, quite as well as a woman will?
As in many areas of life, you will typically find that which you seek. Women who go around believing most men are 'this and that' will typically end up with such a man. Or if not, that man will turn into exactly what the woman was already anticipating, because she expects so little of him, constantly berates him, and then mumbles 'oh never mind, I'LL do it'. No one likes to be thought less of, or negatively, simply because of their gender. And yet, that is precisely what so many hetero women seem to feel about their men...the men who are more or less there to fill a role for the woman, that of a 'husband' they can now show the world that they possess.
5
@Lisa The chicken. The chicken came first. Read Aristotle.
10
Good to hear that girls in the next generation are doing less housework.
Women choose to do too much housework. Life would go on even with a messy bed, less frequent vacuuming, and dishes piling up for a day or two.
Interestingly the article is not clear about who is doing more of the judging. From my experience I would expect this about women (disproportionately) judging other women. Again, the solution is simple. Judge not and you won't be judged.
9
@Frank .. my can’t have less frequent vacuuming in the spring in Wisconsin—- we have ticks!!
3
@Joyce Put permethrin-sprayed cotton batting into used toilet paper and paper towel tubes and leave them in dry corners inside and outside of the house, where mice will take the cotton batting back to make their nests cozy. The permethrin will kill the larval stage of the ticks that use mice as hosts at that stage.
A lot of women won't want to hear this, but if women stopped criticizing or "nagging" at guys when they perform tasks in or out of the house, they would strengthen their negotiating for more equitable distribution of household chores. Just as men parent somewhat differently, they perform household chores differently. They are discouraged from performing any chores when criticized. It also doesn't help when women pick up after guys who leave a mess. Leave the mess to the guys who make them.
18
I am gobsmacked by the assumed premise that tidiness should occupy so much space in our brains and so much time in our days. Homes are to be lived in, not displayed to outsiders as some measure of your worth as a human. If a homeowner would rather spend their time adventuring with their children, growing and cooking nutritious meals, creating works of art, volunteering to the benefit of others, or reading a good book, how can they be judged negatively for that? Obviously the home shouldn't be an unhealthy environment, but beyond that why should we pressure ourselves to spend our short time on this planet cleaning and tidying instead of living and loving?
94
@Clarify
Just to keep the health department away I have to spend minimal 2-4 hours cleaning. I’ve got 3 kids, a husband and a dog. So that’s laundry, meals, dishes, shopping and tidying for a family of 5. Now I will say this, I insist that my son does dishes, cooks and helps with laundry. My older daughter will try to step in and do it faster but I will not have a son who can’t take care of himself.
55
Conversely, why should I spend my 'short time on this planet' playing the clothing version of 'go fish' when looking for a clean matching sock?
'Clean' is, for me, an elusive and unattainable goal with 2 teens, 2 large dogs, and 4 cats plus 2 parents holding full-time jobs. But *organized* - in the 'place for everything, and everything in its place' sense - seems like it shouldn't be asking too much. And yet, crazily, I'm the only member who simultaneously unpacks my lunch stuff, loads the dishwasher, refills the dogs' water bowls, sets up the coffee machine, sorts the mail, and prepares dinner when arriving home from work. It's like a background rhythm of 'straighten up' playing while asking the kids and spouse about their day - yet I'm aware I'm the only person hearing this song.
31
@Caledonia: so with two teens, why don't THEY fill the dog's bowls?
Don't they have CHORES? if not, why not?
Your husband cannot sort the MAIL?
With 4 people over age 12….you can all take turns making dinner. Does not have to be fancy. Whoever cooks, that person does not have to clean up -- the others must.
A child of 10 can set up a coffee maker.
Ditto on loading the dishwasher.
Maybe they do not do it, because it is done by you before they get a chance? and they don't have chores? and you never assigned work to anybody?
Expecting kids to figure out YOUR NEEDS and anticipate them is naive and will lead to you doing everything and being bitter about it.
Also: I adore animals, but two dogs and four cats is a LOT OF WORK -- feeding walking, litter boxes -- you brought that on yourself. Also, those are all chores teenagers can do.
3
I'd be interested in cross-cultural research about this.
6
Yes, sadly, the gender stereotypes and inequities are still around, but just a few notes of caution.
Mainly, to say “women, but not men” seems to convey a false dichotomy that oversimplifies actual results. I haven’t tracked down all the specifically cited studies yet, but in general, it’s not that men are not at all judged negatively, just less so than women (or a lot less so). In addition, the author noted a result that messy men were judged as less responsible and hardworking than similarly messy women.
Also, it is risky to base strong conclusions on MTurk data (collected completely online from paid respondents). So it may be an overstatement to say that MTurk results can “debunk” any previously accepted belief (about female-male tolerance for messiness in this case) until the results are replicated using different methods (including, as the author alluded to, different populations).
2
I believe and have witnessed that women hold other woman to these cleanliness standards. I am not interested in how clean your home is but my wife will certainly notice and I've heard discussions amongst women about other who do not keep their home "up to standard".
8
For the past year, my partner has assumed full-time stay at home responsibilities for our two children. Our house is a wreck 90% of the time.
I work full-time, but also still am carrying the bulk of the household chores. And with the majority of the family home for the majority of the time, our house is showing the wear and tear of three not-too-careful people living in the house.
We've had discussions about expectations during the day (laundry, dishes, etc), which helps for a while then stops until I rage clean. It was much easier to manage when we were both working full-time and our kids were in daycare.
23
@H
Send your partner to work and hire a cleaning person.
6
@H: if your partner stays home full time and does NOT clean anything (or arrange to have it cleaned by others)….he is NOT assuming "full time responsibilities".
He's slacking.
There is no reason for you to work full time AND do 100% of the chores. That is clearly not fair.
"Rage cleaning" is just giving you an ulcer and not changing the paradigm.
Set up reasonable rules and schedules for things. Maybe make a chart.
If he continues to do nothing but slack….tell him the experiment is over….GET A JOB, a paying job outside the home….and send the kids back to day care.
Some people are not suited to being "stay at home" caretakers and therefore, they should not do this.
2
I have a Latin mom who calls me from NYC to make sure I've cleaned up the house, for my husband and for my in-laws to make sure they don't criticize me. Even though, the one person constantly criticizing me is my mom. I have a full-time job, I have a toddler, I have a husband who also works full-time job. We sacrifice my career because I'm in the field that can be earning $200-300K, yet we don't because I need to remain flexible for anything and everything related to our son, the care of his parents, etc. etc. etc. Already feeling like I don't spend enough time with my son during the weekdays, my preference is to spend time with him, read to him, play with him, develop him, and I also have to handle all the middle of the night sleeplessness that may come for one reason or another i.e. fever etc.
I'm exhausted. I rather pay someone to clean the house so I can focus my limited time on what's most important to me. Yet at the same time, I can't quiet the nagging voice from my mom and the self-depracation that comes with having a messy house that you feel too drained, too tired, to clean after. We have 4 levels in our home. I really miss my old cozy apartment when it would simply take 30 mins to an hour to deep clean.
Funny how much still hasn't changed in 2019.
60
@Happy Lady You sound frustrated and exhausted and angry, not happy. If you are old enough to have a full-time job, a husband, and a son, you are old enough to make decisions about your own life, not do as your mother tells you. Decide what you want, talk to your husband, then tell your mother if you want her advice you will ask for it. Repeat as necessary. One of the reasons people look forward to being grown-ups is so they can live their own lives.
39
@Happy Lady
Next time your Mom calls to nag you, please hang up. You get to be an adult, especially with her.
20
@Happy Lady
Clean the house and send her a photo.
When she calls, say you're busy, cleaning.
10
Women are often guilty of telling their sons "Oh that is women's work"
2
@Drew ...Um, no. Just no.
25
@Drew Never in my 54 years have a heard a woman say that. But I have heard men say that.
44
@Drew Um, my 73-year-old father says that but I would never have married a man who talks like that. My husband knits, cooks, sews and thinks he cleans :)
9
I don't give messy men a pass. They should pick up and keep their bathrooms, and kitchens, clean. If they eat, they should know how to cook. No pass. (I hope you're reading this, son.)
113
@ChesBay
I can't stop laughing.
7
@Pia Me too. @ChesBay is raising a responsible and functional man.
4
This article bothers me, in part because it doesn’t contemplate that one reason women spend more time on “domestic” tasks, is that we are neurologically programmed to do so. Every morning I go down to my barn, and my hens re arrange their nests, making the hay just-so. Is this because they can’t get the rooster to do it? Or would they have another hen do it in their place if they could pay it to do so? No, of course not, they are wired that way.
That’s why pregnant humans call the flurry of activity before giving birth “nesting”. We run about cleaning, moving, making things, just-so because only we can, or that’s what our brains tell us. Most of us don’t want anyone to do it in our place.
That’s not to say every woman is wired the same, nor is every man.
I was an executive working 60 hours a week yet my weekends were about “nesting”, stuff I didn’t want anyone else doing to make my nest the best I could for my family. It’s not all about equivalency of labor.
8
Hens fuss with their nests to get rid of parasites and maybe find a tasty snack. The day you see a hen doing this for the rooster’s nest, come talk to me.
56
@Elle I disagree with the premise of your comment. I suggest you read the book "The Gendered Brain" by Gina Rippon. Modern neurology has largely dismissed the concept that baby girls are born wired differently from baby boys: gendered expectations of small children shape boys and girls into those expectations. There are also modern studies that show that when mothers and fathers do split household tasks equally, their sons are more likely to do their share as adults.
43
@Elle Are they though? I, and plenty of other women I know, would happily live a life style worthy of a slovenly frat house. But we are faced with the idea that as women, we should be neater.
I'm not in a relationship, so at least I don't have the gender dynamic at play, but it's not at all clear women are naturally cleaner.
16
"The results debunked the age-old excuse that women have an innately lower tolerance for messiness."
In order to believe this, I have to ignore a lifetime of observations.
But it's a peer-reviewed academic study, so I guess we're supposed to believe it.
4
The study suggests that what you're taking as a lower tolerance for mess is actually a stronger sense of social shaming regarding mess. It's a subtle enough difference that the study could be correct and you observations could be almost correct.
12
When I was a single mom of a preschooler, I was in grad school full time and working nearly full time. Dinner was often scrambled eggs, pb&j and fruit, or something else that took 5 minutes to throw together. We lived in a small apartment so maintenance and outdoor work was all taken care of, and 30 minutes of cleaning once or twice a week left it good enough. Laundry for me and my son was a single load in the complex washers once a week.
A decade later, I'm married to a wonderful man who is really invested in gender equality, and we have a second child. We both work full-time jobs, we own a medium sized home on a medium-sized lot, and the housework never seems to end. We cook simple, healthy dinners from whole foods to eat together as a family every night, and that plus cleaning the kitchen is rarely less than 90 minutes. Even trying to minimize our wardrobes and belongings, the laundry and tidying and cleaning feels never-ending. The vegetable gardens and flower beds would take as much time as we were willing to give them.
My husband does just about all of the traditionally male labor and a whole lot of the traditionally female labor, but the sum total of all the house labor and childcare is simply greater than what can easily be divided by two. We're looking for ways to simplify, but there's just a lot of labor inherent in the way that we're currently running the household.
19
@Jen, something has to give. Either you hire someone to do what you don’t/can’t...or you let some things slide. Does everything have to be clean 24/7—or to an unrealistic standard? What can you toss overboard—and how would you prefer to spend your time instead?
3
@Deering24 Oh please. Unrealistic standard? Keeping a house minimally clean and cooking meals nightly takes a couple hours a day, no matter how you slice it. My trick to meals includes some leftovers and some fresh things at every meal, but not an entire meal from scratch daily. AND the kids have to help put the dining room and kitchen together again after meals, plus other chores.
1
Yes my wife does most of the kids (plus her) laundry and is the one who usually cleans the kids bathroom (they are both under 6), but we both clean the other bathrooms. I do most of the dishes. We both cook about just as often. Roomba mostly cleans our floors, I clean what it doesn't. I do all of the yard work and gardening. I do all of the house maintenance and appliance fixes. I maintain the cars. And I do most of the straightening up around the house...because frankly I care more about having a tidy house than she does. I mean she and the kids don't leave trash and dishes out very often, but her and the kids definitely don't leave rooms as clean and put away as they found them. She also does plenty of other things for our family....like working on her PHD and making the sure the kids have clothes and shoes without holes in them. As well as making sure they have everything they need for preschool. She also reads to the kids more than I do too. I could get mad at my wife for not always picking up after herself or completely cleaning up after she has been drawing, painting, or using the dining table as a work area. Or I can just do it myself in a couple minutes and then not have to be bothered by it anymore. I am sure she could think of things I do which annoy her, which she chooses not to make and issue about. My point is no one is perfect and finding a balance which works between two people is what is important.
21
I am sitting in a very messy house right now terrified that someone may come to the door. I am the full-time caregiver for my younger brother, who has Parkinson's, and is unable to do much of anything around the house except make terrible messes.
I do all the cleaning, cooking, shopping and yard work. I also have to sit with bother and bring him down from his frequent panic attacks. I deal with his healthcare and take him to all his appointments and everywhere else he has to go. I take care of the car and make arrangements for any repair work or improvements that are done on the house. I handle all household finances, my own finances and my brother's.
I haven't had a single day off in two years and don't expect to have one anytime soon. I have progressive spinal stenosis and arthritis and other pain from the neck down. Two years ago, when I actually had a chance to get away, I was very weak and had to be hospitalized on my so-called vacation. I was extremely anemic and had to have a good transfusion. When I got home, I can't begin to describe the chaos that had been caused by my sister and brother who were supposed to be making things a little easier for me.
People always ask me how my brother is doing, but never ask how I am. What I do get asked is, "How can you stand this mess?" I don't feel like a human being; I feel like a machine that needs its oil changed.
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@Carole A. Dunn
Your letter makes me sad. You sound like a real hero, and you certainly deserve to have better and more appreciative friends and relatives!!! My mother was the primary caretaker in my dad's last few years with Parkinson's, and even with amply support from family, friends, and outside services for house cleaning and yard work, she still was constantly exhausted by the emotional and physical demands on her time and energy.
I hope you can find more support, and soon. Until then, stop people at the door and tell them there's a rabid bat loose in the house, so nobody can come in until you catch it. Or maybe play a tape of a very loud, aggressive dog barking?
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@Carole A. Dunn, it’s time to spread the labor. Brother and sister need to be forced to step up and help, else they will continue to slide and let you do all the work. As for the folks questioning the mess, say if they aren’t going to help clean, they should mind their business.
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@Carole A. Dunn
There are support groups for caregivers of people with chronic diseases. Please go on the internet under "Parkinson's disease" to get some help. You can get respite care for your brother so you can have some time alone to go shopping, go to a movie, whatever. These services can provide help with housecleaning and other "activities of daily living." Costs for various types of help can be free or on a sliding scale. You may have to adjust to your brother's unhappiness about the changes, and perhaps you will have to adjust some of your own standards. But it appears you've already burned out as a caregiver. At the rate you're going, you'll end up too sick to take care of him, or worse.
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Folks who hold themselves to a standard 'higher' than my own are quite difficult to persuade. In addition, they do not believe that I do not judge them. Compassion is useful.
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What researchers, NYT and other media should focus on is how to re-think allocation of home management and parenting chores, and the approach more satisfied couples have taken to address it.
In my experience, it takes a shift in how chores are allocated and expectations from both parties for the finished product to increase both partners' satisfaction.
My household assigns full responsibility for an area to a partner (ie, laundry, vacuuming & dusting, grocery shopping). My husband may not complete a chore in the way I would, but I don't complain about the results because I'm not doing it. If someone needs a clean pair of pants, father takes the complaints.
I also learned that when I have spare time and want to do a household chore, I should always pick first the chore my husband would do last. I never start with cleaning the sink, which he'll do first. I start with dusting the baseboards, which he never notices.
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I’m sure the followup piece in the Times will be about how men in 2019 are still expected to do the bulk of the yard work, heavy lifting of furniture and maintenance of the car etc , right? I won’t hold my breath.
FWIW: I mow the lawn, my wife edges and gardens, she cooks most of the time because she’s excellent, i bake because i grew up doing it with my nonna, i do the dishes , we both do laundry and I enjoy vacuuming and dusting for some deranged reason.
This piece is full of 50s tropes and while trendy for 2019 an increasingly tired think piece for those of us who are millennial and not slaves to the past
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@Jg Your arrangements are fantastic, but are very rare even in these times.
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@Jg Wouldn't "#notallmen" have covered this in fewer words?
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I like the heavy yard work better than indoor cleaning and I do a lot of it. It's really much more satisfying than the indoor work. I wouldn't trade, so I doubt that many men would. Also, I've noticed that my generally extremely egalitarian husband feels a bit uncomfortable if I'm the only one out shoveling after a heavy snow, so I suspect that many men don't want the look of letting their wives do that work.
(Mike's wife)
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This is a problem for women and only women can solve it. If your home is clean enough for a man not to feel guilty about having guests, its clean enough for you. And if you worry that your friends will be judgemental, send them a copy of this article and remind them its 2019 and there are more important issues than dust bunnies.
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@Patrick Kirk
In 1970 my friends and I called this the pigsty argument, i.e. "I don't mind living in a pigsty, but I'm tolerant and you can clean up if you want to."
Not much progress since 1970, I guess.
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And men are judged for unkempt yards and loose gutters and downspouts. And unsealed driveways. And lack of Xmas lights. And usually if the cars are dirty, too.
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@ Kyle C
Yeah, there sure is a lot of pressure on men to put up those darn Christmas lights.
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@Kyle C, sort of a one and done, or at least not daily work. That's the point.
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@Kyle C the article points out, correctly, that much of "man's work" is weekly, monthly, or occasional. Like mowing (weekly), sealing the driveway (every 1 or 2 years) or putting up holiday lights (once a year) vs. the work women are expected to do which is daily or even multiple times day (dishes, laundry).
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In our house my now retired husband creates most of the mess and it doesn't bother him one tiny little bit. I am constantly struggling to tidy up, organize, declutter and steer things more in the direction of neatness because I struggle to function well in a disorganized and unclean space. I am embarrassed to invite people over though I used to love entertaining friends and family. As we age the problem is getting more difficult for us to handle, the burden of dealing with it mostly by myself is exhausting, creates resentment, and he feels criticized if I point out that he's gotten sloppy. It's hard to fight the stereotype of housekeeping being the woman's job even though we're both intelligent, well educated, forward thinking people. Our solution will most likely be paying for outside help to do the things that he's not willing to do.
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@PJK, yes! This is my experience, too. The arthritis in my lower back makes cleaning up after Perennially and Increasingly Messy Husband much more difficult now than it used to be, and my resentment grows. I'd like to read the article you could write as a companion piece to Ms. Miller's!
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PJK Thank you for articulating this. You nailed it.
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@PJK,
Do what I did, get help in the house and don't tell me you can't afford it, you can't afford not to. It is the most wonderful gift I have given our house. Worth it. Also, it seems to me that women tend to care more about how things "look" and men care less. This seems clear on many levels and not just a clean house. Women themselves seem to be distressed if the house is a mess and so clean it. Interesting article which raises many issues. He does do the heavy lifting that I cannot do. He does other things I do not do. If I am happy to clean, wash dishes, do laundry and vacuum what is the big deal. He was in the military and can make a bed, better than I and so he does. He makes all the beds in the house everyday. He loves to grocery shop and is great at it and so he does. These are two things I prefer not to do. There is a division we just tend to give women more credit for a clean house than the man and more demerits too. Communication not anger is the key.
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I believe that in some families this expectation is passed down from parents to children. When I moved in with my boyfriend he was incompetent at cleaning up after himself or having the radar about when it was time to clean. Interestingly, although he’s gotten a lot better he still seems to notice the house needs cleaning primarily when I am out of town— maybe because usually I do that labor. He was not asked, taught or expected to do these things in his family of origin; his mom was a stay at home “housemaker” to his dad’s high-powered career and they had cleaners on top of that. When we moved in together and I complained his mom told me “it’s your job now.” Having grown up in an equal household where both parents worked and split household labor and being taught since a young age how to clean, cook, and care for a home, I reject the idea that a man’s girlfriend or wife becomes his next mother or housekeeper and am sad to see that idea being passed down to my generation and further.
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@E
Early in our relationship, I went to visit my to-be husband in his new apartment in a new city.
I walked into the bathroom and it was filthy. I walked right back out again and out of the apartment.
30 years later, he's been clean ever since.
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@E
In the 1980's my mother was a single mom of three, two girls and a boy. Of course, we had some chores. At dinner time there were three tasks: set the table, clear up the table, and sweeping the dining area. She would assign things seemingly at random... until one day my brother managed to not set or clear up the table. My mother asked me to sweep, and I complained. She was brave enough to admit she was wrong and, for the first time, my brother had to handle a broom.
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I would be very curious to learn the gender breakdown on the part of the people doing the judging. I am guessing that most of the oppressive judgments that women suffer (in terms of eating, child care, housekeeping standards, ...) is done by other women. But I could be wrong.
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@Gunnar
So you are assuming that women are more likely to be motivated to do this research.
You seem to imply that that if men did the research it wouldn't show the same result.
Do you think that men do as much housework as women?
If so why do you think then why do you think that men haven't done studies to show that?
I might suggest that men assume that doing these studies, like doing housework, is women's work.
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@Elizabeth I must have expressed myself poorly. My point was not about the genders of the researchers. Instead, my hypothesis is that among people who judge women on the state of their homes, women themselves are over represented. This would be important to know, since it makes a difference in how the problem can best be remedied.
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Women often do feel more pressure from other women, so you could be right. See, for instance, the Mommy Wars. And men often comment that they're praised--usually by women--as if they were going above and beyond for handling routine child care tasks. Acculturation is like that.
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I was raised by a very creative mother who preferred playing with her kids to handling housework. She hated housework.
When my father called to say he was leaving the office, I got a pillowcase to fill- with as many out of place items as I could in 20 minutes. The pillowcases went under our beds until the next morning, when Mom fished them out and put things back.
Over time, she ended up getting a cleaning lady because the pillowcase trick just wasn't covering everything.
While cleaning out the house after my mother died, I grabbed my
that 60's bright colored pillowcase for safekeeping and memories.
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@mainesummers
I'm with your mother. Housework is pure drudgery.
And when I (hopefully) re-marry, one of the conditions will be that we either split the housework 50/50 OR we pay someone to come in and do it.
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@mainesummers Your mother sounds like a woman after my own heart! My favorite aunt kept all the get well cards she received when she had her gall bladder removed and brought them out to display prominently whenever she had unexpected callers and the house was a mess. Then she'd throw on a bathrobe, smile weakly, and say "sorry about the mess".
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What is interesting about these sorts of articles (and it seems I read a new one with this sort of message every week) is that they never talk about what is expected of men. If women are judged negatively for a messy house, it stands to reason that men are judged for other things. What are these other things? Why do we never, ever, talk about them? I worry that somehow the idea that women might somehow judge men is too threatening to contemplate, but this unfortunate because understanding this might help reduce gender inequality. As written, this article and so many others like it, effectively lays the blame for gender inequality purely and solely in the hands of men.
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It did actually go into work around the house typically done by men, how when men stop living in places where this type of work needs to be done (such as mowing the lawn), they just do less work overall and don't take up any slack on the house work.
Maybe read the article a little more carefully next time?
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@Alex I wonder whether you read my comment carefully. The points you make have been made ad nauseam. Things never change. If you want to change things it might be useful to consider what incentives women keep providing to men (what forms of judgement) they use to keep men from doing housework. If this idea is too offensive to consider, well perhaps some female introspection is needed.
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@Hazlit Yay! No only do men not clean, but that's the women's fault too! You are brilliant!
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As a gay man, I find that we always have immaculately clean homes and beautiful yards since we know the straight population will look for any opportunity to judge us poorly. Gay men will almost always have the nicest property in the neighborhood...doing so prevents us from being told that we bring down a neighborhood. I also hear from straight female friends of male companions that are far better at keeping a house clean then they are. Perhaps it would be fun to hear from those women rather than just hashing out the old stereotypes. In addition, men seem to like cooking more so than dishes afterwards, and most of the women I know are glad not having to cook. Roles ARE changing....let us examine that for a change.
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@Scott Hieger
Men doing the cooking and women cleaning up afterwards fits perfectly this articles thesis that women feel compelled to clean up. Many women I know let their men do the cooking rather than do the dishes because cooking has become one of the household chores that men find acceptable to do. Personally I prefer cooking to cleaning up partly because I have more control over what I eat that way. When I cook, my husband cleans up - the next morning and we often have an invasion of ants. If he cooks, I clean up at the times. Voila -no ants, no messiness.
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@Scott Hieger Interesting. My husband has been a stay at home parent, and he was a much better child-tender and cleaner than I ever could be. It was good to be Ward Cleaver.
However, when he isn't fully in charge, he takes care of his needs first and "allows" me to manage all details of family and house. (Even how to take care of sick kids, though he is a health care provider and I am not.)
His expectation was that I keep track of every detail, and I would proactively ask for help when needed. Just that piece took an enormous amount of mental energy.
It was that way until I pushed back and forced him to take full responsibility for certain areas of household management (we each have our own areas of responsibility now.) I still do more than 50%, but it is much more equitable and less stressful now.
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@Holly P I find it so interesting that my husband will always put his own needs first, in a way that I never would. I'm not sure if that's typical of men, but wow, it never ceases to amaze me.
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