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.

Ok let's end it here because it means I have to multitask to come back here and even then I can't reply to all the points raised by all the posters for which I really apologise because it's such a massive effort you have put into something that looks this ridiculous/stupid to you in general. It's a lovely gesture and the main reason I love Mumsnet. Xxx

So are MNHQ and Justine on board with this yet?

It doesn't look like they are. 😹 But I have hardl a few people around here who thought it's not that mental. So that makes sense

I disagree with measuring energy levels as the way forward for this. However, I do think that housework is constantly undervalued by society, and that there has been no move to address the fact that most families now have two working parents, while still having to do housework as well.

sending in a cleaner/ househelp as part of a benefit scheme THIS! I would vote in a heartbeat for the party that decided to fund cleaners for households with two full-time working parents, or a parent with disabilities, or single parents (I'm sure there are other categories that would also need cleaners that I haven't thought of).

I would vote in a heartbeat for the party that decided to fund cleaners for households with two full-time working parents, or a parent with disabilities, or single parents (I'm sure there are other categories that would also need cleaners that I haven't thought of).

I love the idea but being realistic for a minute how on earth would it be funded? What would you be willing to cut to pay for it? Dh and I don't have children but still have housework-why shouldn't we have a cleaner paid for by the tax payer?

The solution is for families to work together to get the housework done between them with a fair split between the partners.

"What would you be willing to cut to pay for it? "

Trident
bonuses to the shower that run things like Railtrack
Bailing out the banks - at least the part of it that paid the bosses' salaries
Bombing anyone, ever (almost)

the list is endless

How about mothers teaching their sons to do housework, cooking, cleaning etc and sharing the responsibility of running a household (age appropriate) Two million to research energy levels between men and woman? Wtf? Teach your sons to be self sufficient! In the hope that when they become parents they are used to doing housework and carry on as they always have. Teach our daughters that housework is a shared responsibility. These posts bother me too "I do all the housework and work full time" STOP DOING IT THEN.

OP, you really are talking about two different things:

the fact that more women do more housework and consequently get more tired; this seems fairly well established

your claim that women get more tired even if they are doing the same amount of work; this is what most posters do not believe.

I have worked alongside men for nearly 30 years- I see absolutely no evidence of this. Dh and I share housework- again, I see no evidence that he gets less tired than I do.

In fact, all the men of my extended family do their share of the housework- and they get tired just like the women do, not more, not less.

As for sending in cleaners to do the cleaning work- will that work for the cleaners' families too? And will the cleaners have to pay more tax to fund the cleaners of wealthy merchant bankers?

I agree 2fly.
And this army of cleaners, sent in to help working families. I wonder what gender they are most likely to be? Trapping more women in low-paid, low-status jobs.
No, let's just educate the men as to what equality means in the home.

"And this army of cleaners, sent in to help working families. I wonder what gender they are most likely to be? Trapping more women in low-paid, low-status jobs"

Exactly. Yet another way of letting men off the hook.

solitarywanderer
I have just managed to get my hands on an excerpt of Wife Work. And there it is: something about justice or equality. I will order this book to read. Thanks for the reference

"Yet another way of letting men off the hook."
How do you know the cleaners aren't men?
why shouldn't cleaning be paid and recognised? It isn't letting men off the hook to go to a restaurant, instead of forcing your husband to make dinner in his spare time. It isn't letting women off the hook to get your oil changed at a garage by a pro instead of forcing your wife to do it in her spare time.

why shouldn't cleaning be paid and recognised?

I pay my cleaner a decent wage and I think she's fantastic. Do I think the tax payer should pay for me to have her? Absolutely not.

HowBadls, how many men are cleaners? Compared to the number of men who are chefs? Or mechanics? Something to do with the status and the pay, I suspect. Plus the fact that lots of employers would feel less comfortable about giving a man access to their house. I think it is very naïve to imagine that funding cleaners in the home would be opening up more job opportunities for men. The only male cleaners I know work in offices.

And for the record, I don't think the tax payers should pay for me to have a meal in a restaurant either. Or to have the car serviced.

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

I have told you, both here and via PM, that you are conflating several different problems. The problem of unequal gendered housework is a valid project to research. Your half baked notion of doing it by measuring the relative strength of men and women and vague unidentified idea of a metric of tiredness is , AGAIN, unworkable, untestable AND NOT EVEN RELATED TO THE PROBLEM YOU ARE ORIGINALLY TALKING ABOUT!
I don't know how many times I can tell you this. I have read your PM's, and you are not a scientist, or a researcher, or have any background in studies of this type, and have only a collection of vague and unconnected ideas that can achieve not results of any kind.

If you still think you have a proper point, go back to the start: define your terms, establish your research question, and formulate a hypothesis WITHOUT the bias of already deciding the outcome!

What Tigger said. Research only works if you are willing to keep an open mind and are absolutely clear about how you are going to measure your results. No one, says no one, is going to back a research project, however societally relevant, that doesn't fulfil those very basic criteria. Because it's not going to lead anywhere.