Dropping the wifework

Don't know about being more 'house trained'

Yes, and the household over all. Christmas planning... All the odds and sods.

So wifework seems linked to the arrival of children, possibly when the mother takes an extended break and becomes responsible for the children?
Being the person available to take them to the doctors and for new shoes?
Then somehow becoming responsible for everything to do with the children.

You must be much more house trained than me koala. I just usually look at my rail and grab a load, stuff it all in and hope it matches when I get there. That is for myself, don't think I could cope if I had to do that for dh, and he would want to kill me!

The division I see in otherwise pretty equal couples is that it always seems to be the mother who keeps an eye on the children's clothes and shoes, notes which they've grown out of/ruined and buys new ones.

to clarify slightly: free choice etc, make of life what you will.
Problem sets in when Wife is seen as invisible behind-the-scenes life enabler for entire family, and this role is not chosen by the individual but insidiously falls upon her, poss. societal expectations/feeling lesser due to reduced earnings?

I'll attempt to answer your question, OP:

"Not exactly ground breaking feminism I know but wondering what else I do that I don't realise that others consider 'wifework'?"

This is my idea of wifework, not an exhaustive list but in my mind it includes:

• Being the default person for meal planning
• Being the person who washes/launders
• Arranging childcare or being default child carer, this is perhaps worse if it leaves you with the child care responsibility when the other parent is not at work.
• Arranging and attending dental or medical appointments for children
• "Mum's" family organiser calendars - mother as family organiser being the societal norm. The backbone of the family.
• Being the fun arranger. The weekend activity planner. The holiday planner. All these mental drains falling on one person takes up a great deal of mental bandwidth.

Yes, Koala. Like that.

Of course it's a thing and continues to be so, despite decades of working women, feminist thinkng and equality teaching in schools.
It will continue to be a thing as long as people in a relationship don't question the reasons why a person does a particular job and why the balance is unequal in many homes.
My DB and his wife have a very traditonal marriage, he earns and she's a SAHM. Works for them and their children very well, and there is equality within that marriage.
I'm pleased that the OP has finally started to ask herself 'why?' nd I'm also pleased that her DH hasn't noticed and is just doing things for himself. So the chains were possibly of her own making, and she's freed herself.
I wish more women would do the same.

I lay out all the clothes that I want and write DH a list for all the other stuff bonniebear

In our house we play to our strengths.

DH is brilliant at packing the suitcases for holiday and I'm shit at it (can never fit in as much as he can) so he does it.
I do the cooking because I'm a good cook and I enjoy it.
DH does the DIY and painting because he's good at it and enjoys it.
DH does most of the cleaning because he enjoys it but I help him at the weekend.
I do all the bills, finances etc as he is hopeless with money.

It's nothin to do with our gender, just what we are good at and what we enjoy doing.

How can you pack someone else's case anyway? Surely you wouldn't have a clue what to take.

I'm not sure how this helps that much. Of course you can stop doing things that only have any impact on your DH/DP and his extended family. That doesn't change the fact that most of the work of the house will still need to be done because most of the work also impacts on the children.

Anyone with a partner who refuses to do any of that work will still have a huge amount to do. Not ironing their partner's shirts or buying his mum a present is a very small amount of the overall work.

I'm not blaming another woman and neither is OP; both you and morethan seemed to suggest that this wasn't a thing because it hadn't happened to you.

DH and I divide everything very equally; doesn't stop me observing other social trends.

My MIL told me lots of things, sharing her expectations as to what I should do from wedding through pregnancy to general lifestyle advice. She got married in 1944.
I smiled and did exactly what I thought I should do. DH deals with his family stuff and I deal with mine. Blaming another woman for your decisions is not reasonable.

Morethan, it's great that it's different in your family but certainly in many it's the woman who gets prompted by her MIL to remember birthdays post wedding etc.

' I haven't had to make any great declaration that I'm not doing it anymore, I've just stopped and DH has just done it for himself and doesn't seem to have noticed that I'm not doing it anymore '

Exactly what moretan said.
We've been together for 35 years and we've always done household stuff as a team. We have different preferences and strengths, and the stuff that neither of us like doing, we either alternate or do it together when it can't be ignored any longer. two children, one of each sex and neither of them think of jobs as being gendered or would be allowed to get away with it by the rest of the household.
So, how much is because you are a tool of the patriarchy and have been hypnotised into doing what you've always thought of as women's work, how much of it is martyrdom and thinking 'Oh well, I suppose it's doewn to me again' and how much is down to you not looking at a situation and thinking 'It's your turn' in a logical fashion?
What are you expecting from your children?

I've never seen this type of work as wife work, neither has my dh.
We just share and do what we want to do and its worked for the past 23 years of marriage and four years as dp before this.

I'm not sure what this has to do with feminism, do feminists see xmas shopping, laundry and housework as wife work?
Do men who do these jobs see them as husbands jobs?