On page 211, there is a statement about husbands create more work around the house than they perform. This is soooo very true. I would clean house diligently when I was a "home mother" and my husband would come in and within one hour everything would be messed. I would just pick up after him figuring that he was only home a short time and family togetherness was important to me and the three children.
Now that he is retired, the house is one big mess. I'm still working and I get home to find the house in shambles. Now my patience isn't there as before because I feel he is home all the time and should pitch in more. I let it go as I don't want to cause a fight.
Any takers on this one?
Claire
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3 comments:
but are you really letting it go? I just read in Redbook -yes that great source of academic data - that a recent research by Pew Research Center found that when asked what was most vital for a successful marriage, both men and women said "sharing household chores" more often than they cited kids, income or shared interests (Redbook, November 2007, p. 93). when you feel like your division of labor in the home is unfair, it is going to cause stress, which is ultimately going to affect your relationship, I would think. Besides, you must be exhausted. you work all day. why is it left up to you to pick up a "second shift" (see Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift).
The trouble is, we are left as individuals to deal with something that is in fact a "social issue" - meaning that it is created, supported, even rewarded by the institutions and accompanying culture of our society. Ideally, we deal with this at the societal level - i.e. challenging gender ideologies, creating work-based rewards for fathers/husbands to contribute to the domestic sphere, equalizing the pay between men and women (and eliminating the stigma for men when they don't make more than their wives), challenging the market that continues to surround us with powerful messages about housework and who is supposed to do it, get rid of the pink and blue sections at toys are us, just to start. But until that happens, we are left to negoitate at home alone. support from like minded friends can help - they can give us reality checks when we worry that we might be asking to much or being unreasonable. counselors can help. real discussion, with real facts about how much time you are working - both paid and unpaid labor - compared to him and force a honest discussion about respect and fairness. and even recognition on women's part of how ideals of masculinity can shape men's responses to the housework issue -not to provide an excuse for behavior, but to provide understanding and recognize mutual costs to keeping things the same versus change.
now by all this, you may think I've got it all figured out. Ha! 22 years of marriage and we didn't get it worked out. In my current relationship, we have made enormous progress - as a good person with intelligence, he knows I have a solid argument when I ask for a partnership. but it is so tiresome to have to deal with this stuff. so my heart is with you. I do think it would be easier if each of us didn't feel alone, as if we are dealing with this all by our selves, and probably thinking that nobody else has this problem, or, more immobilizing, that maybe you are just lucky it isn't worse. Maybe we need to take a collective stand (oh oh, there is my radical talk again :) )
Claire I understand what you are saying about how Men can be very messy and not clean up after themselves. I have seen that in my family as well. When ever my family has holiday dinners with cousins and grandparents it always seems to happen that the women in the family are helping cook and set the table while the men in the family are in the family room watching TV or doing other things. Once the meal is done and it is time to clean up all the men make a run for that TV room again. I notice this because my mother ever since I was young made me help clean up and not go to the TV room. It seems that for some reason in American Culture along with many other cultures that there is a tradition dating back to many many years ago that the women in the house are supposed to maintain the house and clean up after the labor intensive male of the house. For some reason that tradition continued even when the Woman of the house joined the workforce and worked just as many hours as the male of the house does. I feel that one of the only ways to break that tradition is to do what my mother did and start with the male children at a young age and break that tradition, have him help clean up, make him clean up after himself. That is one possible solution. To break the habit from a 30 40 or 50 year old man might be as difficult as getting to the top of mount everest, but this is a tradition that needs to be broken and we need to start breaking it now.
Ryan, I believe that it is not culture or tradition that predisposes men to delegate household roles onto women, but convenience. Men often enter into marriage solely for the purpose of experiencing care and warmth that women create when tending to the 'family hearth'. In other words, being a bachelor has its good sides, but often gets lonesome and requires men to assume household responsibility that can otherwise be delegated onto a woman.
And this is not only prevalent in the States, as you've mentioned. I know entire cultures that base marriage and husband-wife relationships on this premise. In the Caucasian culture, for example, men simply won't take on a wife who refuses to assume responsibilities around the household (or expresses a desire to share them with her spouse), or chooses not to subjugate herself to their will. This extreme inequality in spousal relationships gets to the point where men openly belittle their wives in fron of guests/relatives to demonstrate that they have an upper hand in the relationship. Cheating on a wife is a norm in such cultures as well. And women simply have no choice but to accept this mistreatment, because society does not offer a venue for them to express themselves in. I speak of the Caucasian culture so extensively, because I've spent sereval months in it and had a chance to observe this inequality and mistreatment first-hand.
However, I believe that gender equality and mutual responsibility both around the house and outside of it is a reality for ANY culture. I may come off as naive, but it is my strong opinion that the secret ingredient to making everything work in a relationship is that little feeling called love. As long as men approach women from the perspective of convenience, with a set of pre-established expectations as to her roles and responsibilities, a realtionship won't work. But if both partners feel love and geniune care for each other, they become partners who approach a realtionship with a desire to make it work for both spouses. Then there is a strong chance that men won't leave their sock laying around the house or retire to watch TV while the wife does the dishes. As Bravo puts it: "It may sound like a great deal to be waited on and sexually serviced. But nothing's more satisfying than a lover who's really a partner" (213).
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