To be angry to find so many threads on fights regarding house chores

[Valentine2]

I think it should be regarded a national emergency considering the distress it's causing to at least half the population (women mostly) and definitely the stress extends to men.
MNHQ and JUSTINE
see I think we can actually use Mumsnet as a platform for starting a campaign for this? It can involve academics, funding (Mumsnet can help with that perhaps?) and of course lots of coverage/campaign in media.
I do think that if we are finding this level of stress among mothers and women in general, it is something that must be discussed in an organised way.

I think that's definitely equal. I don't think that's justice though. And I think it certainly does t explain a lot of what the women are facing right now. the women who were born probably a couple decades after you. We need more.

1 - yes it's abominable that men are such lazy freeloaders at home
2 - yes there should be a public societal shift to state better standards. Society as a whole should - with leaflets and verbal advice to new dads, education in schools, posters at the GP, everything - be saying "it's not ok any more, guys. just stop being a freeloading arse and pull your weight. This is, practically, what that entails, in general terms. Doing less than this is being a shit." Hardly anyone smokes around babies any more. Hardly anyone drinks and drives. It is possible to change behaviours with public concerted effort.
3 - this has nothing to do with measuring energy which is a massive quasi scientific distraction and you're unconsciously pandering to the canard that men "just get too tired" to get shit done. We're all knackered; that is totally irrelevant, immeasurable, and unenforceable.
4 - society will not change in the way I outline in 2. Because no one gives a shit about women and men like it how it is.

I was reading the bunfighty thread about parents sending sick children to school before it went poof and a few posters summed it up "And the problem isn't down to "selfish parents". The problem is a society that does not value children, or parenting." - basically women are being expected to do 2 shifts all the time and so many of them manage so heroically to get most of it done that the fact that there are two actual jobs there is being elided. I think that men should do work in the home (as women already do) and if necessary both men and women should be required to work less, or more flexibly, to manage this, because we're just making bosses richer by doing the home work at night when we should be reading or going to parties or having sex.

Howbad
I am totally with you on 1 and 2.
But on 3, I am saying a total opposite of what you are saying: I am saying that it's WOMEN who are tired all the time and it DOESNT MEAN we should actually agree to go back to the 1950s etc like solitarywanderer etc have been saying that they fear. I say if I am putting in the same fucking hours as a man and doing the same job, I should babe appreciated more because they have are left with far more spare energy than me and we need a scientific proof for that . So we could paste it on all those poster you talked about in your 2nd point.
As for your 4th one, sorry I am not that pessimistic. We have come this far. I want more. And I think if we keep at it, we will get there too.

Sorry for the terrible spelling mistakes/ grammar. I am working alongside this and just posting quickly without editing etc.

Scientific proof that women don't have as much energy as men doing the same job?
No thank you.

Sooty
I know what you are saying. But is there no way we could make it work the other way round?

I don't think there should be any suggestion that women get more tired than men and that without adjustments they are less employable.

OP, not all women are tired all the time. Not all women are more tired than men. And not all women have higher standards of housework than men (I, for one, am a lazy slob).

Government standards for housework would be a disaster for me (supposing for even a second that I didn't just throw the letter in the bin), as it would almost certainly involve spending more time on housework to the detriment of my career.

And I seriously, seriously do not see why greater physical strength equates to getting less tired at work. Most people don't have jobs that involve lifting boulders or killing cave bears these days: there is absolutely no evidence to suggest men get less tired from 8 hours in front of a computer or a 5 hour commute. The physical advantages men have over women are things like being able to throw a spear further: how many men are able to earn a living that way?

For the record, I did use to do manual work, and I found I was quite able to keep up with the male workers just by perfecting my technique. Spear throwing, no I might have been at a disadvantage there. But it didn't really come up.

Interesting point unthread about the remote control.

My ex used to change channels whilst the ads were on it drove me mad.

When I told him it annoyed me and to stop it he just smiled sheepishly.

We split up because he was controlling.

I say if I am putting in the same fucking hours as a man and doing the same job, I should be appreciated more because they have are left with far more spare energy than me and we need a scientific proof for that

You are extrapolating your experience of feeling more tired than your partner after both doing the same amount of work to the general population of women. That just isn't right. Women do not heberally get more tired than men on doing the same job. The problem is some men expect them to do the childcare and housework simply because they are women. That's the issue that needs addressing.

Heberally?! That's not a word-I meant generally.

PurpleDaisies Sun 17-Apr-16 09:22:53

"You are extrapolating your experience of feeling more tired than your partner after both doing the same amount of work to the general population of women. That just isn't right."

This with knobs on.

There is no way you are going to be able to prove that women get more tired than men: What you are experiencing is that you get more tired than the man in your life. Hardly a sound basis for the government to start laying down guidelines for the rest of us.

Op whilst l recognise you have the right to feel strongly about this, l cannot help but feel frustrated that a highly educated woman such as yourself is willing to spend such time and effort on this subject when there are massively more important things to focus your energy on....

Compared to the ongoing terror threats, immigration issues, rising homelessness and rise in domestic violence to women and children, suggesting considerable time and money should be spent on division of chores is frankly ludicrous.

Chose a subject of substance to tackle and you may find much more support and do some actual good.

I don't think there should be any suggestion that women get more tired than men and that without adjustments they are less employable

Well I'm not keen to suggest the ops theory to either the men or women in our factory

Op, do you seriously want the government or an academic to tell you how to manage your household ? What happens to those who refuse to comply with the recommendations ?

How chores are divided depends on a number of variables, such who us home the most, and as mumon lthe run says who cares the most.

You also have to factor in things like DIy and mowing the lawn which usually fall to the man.

and the maytr syndrome has to be considered, some people like moaning about how everything falls to them.

I have lived as a SP for 17 years and in this time I've brought up two kids, worked, done a degree, cleaned my house, done my shopping, done the laundry, mowed the lawn, walked the dog, cooked meals, done all the kids' social committments and everything else in between.

Most days I would say I was probably 100% too tired to do anything but it needed doing, that's life.

Ps: not moaning btw, I wouldn't have had it any other way, but not sure how the government would have been able to help me, short of sending in a cleaner/ househelp as part of a benefit scheme

I'm up for it - another one appalled and depressed at the frequency of the postings where the gender split of housework is wildly far away from equal.

I work in PR and would love to help from that angle, if I could. Hit me up if you ever get it off the ground.

But we don't even need to get into who is more tired than whom. If we just start from the basis that (even though everyone is different but we're just using rules of thumb) one hour = one hour = one hour, it could very easily be accounted that way if anyone could be bothered.

Eg - if you get up 15 minutes earlier and put a load of washing on and the dcs' breakfast out and do a quick wipe round the bathroom - count it

if you WOH and have a longer commute - count it

if you make packed lunches, count it, and if you spend 10 minutes while you do it tidying and wiping the fridge, count that too

If you do the car insurance, count it, including if you do it in your "lunch break" (ha) at work

If you run round 15 mins before guests are coming throwing toys in boxes, hanging up coats and hoodies, plumping cushions, doing a mini super speed hoover of the sitting room - count it.

If you spend 10 minutes on the step discussing dc's behaviour with the child minder - count it.

I don't believe women (as a class) are more physically exhaustable than men (as a class). It's only a personal point of view, admittedly, but unless they are pregnant to breastfeeding, I think they tend generally to have at least as much stamina. They don't just get as many nice little breaks because they are in a constant buzz of multi-tasking. I can't even make a sandwich without a mini clean of the kitchen first because no other fucker will have cleaned it, or had the decency to leave it the hell alone, since I last did it. I can't full the kettle without pulling bits of salad and other crap out of the plughole and making it drain freely again. I can't do a load of washing without doing something to do with the last load of washing. I'm not exhausted because I am a weak and feeble flower, I am exhausted because I am always doing something.

Oh and another thing. To some extent your energy levels have something to do with your level of activity. I would not want to be rewarding crap men who get exhausted from washing a cup because they usually just sit on their arse.

I say if I am putting in the same fucking hours as a man and doing the same job, I should babe appreciated more because they have are left with far more spare energy than me and we need a scientific proof for that

This is UTTER GARBAGE. Your entire premise is nonsensical, doesn't address the stated problem in any form whatsoever, and is unworkable, unuseable, and frankly ridiculous.

Coincidentally, just popped up on my Facebook feed (shared by a friend-I don't subscribe to this crap) ...
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=972126686235267&substory_index=0&id=157688154345795

Read with a sick bucket handy. I wonder if this is where the op has the idea that women are delicate little flowers with less energy than men from.

Tigger
I think you won't try to give a counter argument. You will just keep saying it's awful ridiculous etc etc.

Purple daisies
Nope. It's an extension of the same idea that when women go on and have children, they end up getting lower pay, lower level jobs than their male colleagues in the long run. Nothing beyond it.if I work harder I want more for it. I don't know who should pay it though. May be the government? Or the partners or some form of a combination ? I don't know but I hate that parenthood is essnrtially an unpaid job.

As for the link you posted purpledaisies I don't care what they are saying in there (I read it). I am perfectly ok with being called little lady or whatever so long as it means all the time spent on the "wife work" is acknowledged thoroughly, not taken for granted and I am considered to be doing an absolutely fab job and not something that women have to do by the way.

Howbad
That's a very valid point there.