I was chatting to a male friend the other day about ‘wife work’- the emotional practical & organisational burden that falls on women in terms of managing domestic & family life (see thread about women in lockdown for instance).
His response was: but women have evolved to be more nurturing; to care about the home (in early days, the cave). This is their role. They have higher domestic standards because that’s their nature! Basically, we’ve evolved to wield the hoover.
The points I made to him were roughly as below. What did I miss? I was so astonished by his suddenly turning into Fred Flintstone that I was rather thinking on my feet.
- We can’t realistically tell what results from nature & what from nurture, in complex modern societies.
- Even if in the Stone Age women took on primary responsibility for sweeping the cave, gutting the mammoth, whatever, the burden of modern domestic life is very different. Stone Age women had to worry about starving to death, not about organising parents evening & paying bills & doing laundry & overseeing homework & caring for the elderly relatives while also working full time & commuting. It’s completely different.
- The fact that so many women are clearly discontented with wife work seems to militate strongly against this ‘evolved to hoover’ line of thought. Look at the number of divorces initiated by women. Listen to women talking about their lives. They’re fed up. Where we’ve genuinely evolved in ways that promote certain behaviours - for instance loving our children, wanting to have sex- those behaviours are generally valued and wanted. Wife work however is not. Women generally hate it.
- In any event, it’s a fallacy to conclude that ‘natural’ is good. It’s not natural to clean our teeth.
- This line of argument is of no practical use whatsoever. It’s not going to convince unhappy women that they love hoovering. It’s not going to keep a marriage together where the wife is discontented & resentful because of her domestic burden. So what’s the use of it? It’s a cop out, not a useful argument or tool.
I feel I let myself down a bit- would appreciate further thoughts (apart from anything else because I’m going to revive this discussion).