Domesticity and Femininity

I'm a don't see the dirt woman married to a tidier man...

'Nesting' Will have had a practical purpose. Cleanliness, softness, etc, for the new baby.

Like you, Olennas I sometimes get conflicted because I can see differences myself which I'm not always convinced are down to socialisation. Though, I do believe that socialisation is incredibly subtle and massively effective.

In terms of men and women preferring a different environment - I posted the link below on another thread, but it serves here too.

Physically, women detect smells easier than men and they see colour on a more enhanced level. Which might account for their 'feminisation' of their surroundings. I think lots of us may have been in the position of showing a couple of swatches to our other half and he simply can't tell the difference even though it's screamingly obvious.

I don't think anyone can argue that man and women are different, biologically, physically and hormonally. The differences are small but have been exploited.

www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.livescience.com/22894-men-and-women-see-things-differently.html

Countess - counting for nothing really is an amazing book!
Olenna - I'm not sure you could ever separate out socialisation to look at if there's anything innate in it. And the socialisation in this area (as in most others) is just so all-consuming - I would start listing it, but I'm deluged by thoughts of exactly how many differing expectations for males and females are reinforced and contribute to girls liking nice spaces etc.
Anecdotally, none of the females in my extended family were much for cleaning and dad and uncles and granddads seemed to do most of the day to day stuff which is weird when I think about it. But I do think this directly influenced my own ability to 'just not see the dirt' though I was constantly reminded that I should be able to because I'm, y'know, a woman.

Gah, posted to early!

My internal conflict is that this seems to be something innate, given the prevalence of the difference between male and female spaces. But, if we reject the "lady brain" arguments then should we also reject the "home maker" theory? Does socialisation completely explain this difference? I'm not sure...

And pregnant women "nesting" - definitely a "thing", I believe, so perhaps decorating our environment more generally is basically low level, permanent nesting...? And it is devalued in male / societal eyes, because it is female activity / frivolous / ephemeral?

But on the OP's question, I have a real internal conflict...

It is possibly completely due to socialisation, but time after time after time when I see single sex spaces the majority of girls' spaces have been decorated and some attempt made at keeping them nice, the majority of boys' spaces have been left at the lowest acceptable state.

I recently looked around a sixth form college with separate boys and girls common rooms. The girls had chosen to spend the money they were given on cushions, some nice pictures etc etc. The boys had spent it all on a table football and a new toaster. Similar story in the all boys / all girls student houses I can recall from university. (And a recurring issue on MN when two people move in together and have different standards of cleanliness - the vast majority of the time it is the female who has to drop her standards or do extra cleaning to tidy up after her male partner.)

At my secondary school boys and girls both had to do home economics (basic recipes, along with general cooking techniques like peeling potatoes, and basic sewing and ironing) and we all also had to do CDT (basic woodwork, some electronics stuff, messing around with a soldering iron) until we got to Year 10, when we could choose either one to take at GCSE. 99% of the boys did CDT, 99% of the girls home ec. Predictably enough.

In fact, one of my major feminist awakenings came during a CDT lesson when the teacher actually said, "Boys, we have got a new machine, come here and see what it can do. Girls, carry on with your work."

Wasn't there some rather expensive course that university students could take prior to going to uni? It involved how to make cheap food and perfecting the dastardly task of getting a duvet cover on by yourself.

I've always thought that compulsory classes for both girls and boys would be brilliant. Even if you separated them for the class. Woodwork, DIY, cooking, laundry, etc.

Isay I was taught domestic science at school (and I'm not LM Montgomery old either ). Some of it was very useful in fact.

We had a three term year in our school. Girls got Dommy Sci and Fabric and Fashion for two terms; boys got Technical Drawing and Woodwork for two terms; then we each got one term of the 'other' subjects. My school was considered very progressive!

In terms of this thread though, it's quite interesting. Dommy Sci very much taught life skills - how to read the fabric care label on a garment, how to iron (practical lesson no less), sewing, cutting patterns etc. Tech drawing and woodwork - I suppose could still be considered life skills but it is perfectly possible to get through the average life without being able to do woodworking. It is not perfectly possible to get through the average life without washing your pants. I'm not sure what that tells us though...

I think this is a complex issue where the status of women interplays with the effects of the class system.

The class system undoubtedly influences the value society puts on domesticity. People who had servants to undertake all the domestic duties within the household often would regard domestic work as 'beneath them' or not suited to their status. To this day, it is considered, by some, to be an upper / middle class trait to not put much importance upon having a spotless house.

With the class system giving a high status to professional positions, I think this compounds the low status given to domestic work done by women.

Housework isn't simple but it is necessary.

Is being a garbage worker valued? Not particularly, though we all know it's necessary. That's a male profession.

Transport is another one, I don't know how well paid train drivers are (just that the tabloids think they're all millionaires) but I don't think it's particularly respected, though it is male dominated.

Toiletries? Women's are twice the price of men's. Clothes? Women's are twice the price of men's, and often not as well made. Same with shoes.

I'm assuming this is just consumer driven. Maybe women like more disposable fashion. You can't equate that with toiletries though.

I wonder if the architecture thing is something to do with how temporary textiles are. Cushions get stained, or lose their plump. Sofas get replaced. Architects are building something to last lifetimes but your average textile product lasts - how long? 5 years? Maybe 10?

There does seem to me to be a perception that women's work focuses on temporary whereas men's focuses on permanent. Cleaning versus DIY for example. Textiles vs building is a scaled up version of that.

Is it because leaving a legacy is seen as the ultimate achievement? Is living comfortably in itself devalued? I don't know. We all want to live in luxury don't get me wrong, but it's not seen as a virtue.

This book is amazing Counting For Nothing
It's about all the sexist assumptions behind economics.

Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? is also worth a read, along the same lines but less meaty.

Both books give some context to the points posters are making about the undervaluing of domestic work.

Just to say if this turns into a thread about bodging and stupidly designed things, fine by me.

Like my local hardware store giving me rat poison (after we had builders in they ran riot) which I didn't know gives the poor buggers a raging thirst. So they ate through the back of my dishwasher to get to some water. Which the dishwasher repair man thought everyone knew! Um, no.

I can see two separate issues in your post SteadyOn.

One relates to decorative arts and the way that these have been 'put down' in comparision to men's artistic endeavours.

The other is about more mundane (in the sense that it is necessary) housework and the way that the importance of this is minimised, presumably because women do it.

I think the two are related and yet also different.

Interestingly I recently bought a new lightweight vacumn. I love it because it's light and converts from upright to cylinder, making it easy to do the stairs and overhead beams.

DH & DS on the other hand think it's poor quality because it's not as heavy as our previous dyson. So quality in their minds, is superior to usefulness.

There is definitely a macho attitude at work here. Is a task valued more highly because it requires power tools?

Don't get me started on stainless cookers that have black numbers painted on and which come off with minimal wiping with cleaning products. Grumble. :)

Oh God - do not get me started on people designing things who have clearly never used them day to day.

If I ever want a consensus about a household product, vacuum cleaners for instance, I long ago abandoned Which? in favour of just doing an advanced search on Mumsnet.

And kitchen designers who insist on putting impossible-to-clean grooves and curlicues into fitted kitchen furniture. Neatly demonstrating their cleaning experience to be pretty much around zero

Oh God - do not get me started on people designing things who have clearly never used them day to day.

Yy to all the points made above. But also a big side order of architects being massively aesthetically focused impractical and arrogant.

And kitchen designers who insist on putting impossible-to-clean grooves and curlicues into fitted kitchen furniture. Neatly demonstrating their cleaning experience to be pretty much around zero.

It's not like we spring into being able to sort washing any more than someone knows how to prune the roses!

Well precisely (as DH found to his cost after 'cleaning' some non-existent grease from the front of the oven with a Brillo pad, thereby removing all the dials and numbers completely).

Yes, I should have been more specific - I meant you regularly see posters who don't realise it will have an effect.