To find it unacceptable that society in general expects women to do most domestic tasks

[nonaomi]

I still think most men and women think that women are responsible for 'housework'. It's often joked about how men are 'messy' and 'useless'..and lots of women I know, don't seem to mind this role.

Is this just in my circle, or is that other's experience too ?

In my experience most men don’t, or, at least, they might cook. But as soon as they pick up a knife or duster they are cooed over and seen as doing 50% if not more.

@lazylinguist "But... overall he works absolutely miles harder than me, has much less free time and much more pressure and stress than me"

That exactly is what I am trying to say- the current system we have of work being divided based on gender stereotypes is harmful and unfair to both women and men.

Men however, are not financially penalized by it. Women are.

The circles thing is bothering me too, most people's "circles" where you could claim to reasonably have a close knowledge of who does how much cleaning/cooking are like 4-5 other families/households at most (their parents, siblings, best friend(s), and maybe a couple of colleagues), why are people authoritatively presenting from their "circle" as if it's a representative sample of the whole population?

@Lessthanaballpark

Neither are compulsory. I have no issues with lazy men as I'd never choose to live with one.

What if they turned lazy after you married them? Or what if there were 5 men left in the world and 4 of them were lazy?!

I divorced a lazy man. I'd divorce this one if he showed up to be lazy after marriage. And if only lazy twat men were left in the world I'd be happy to pleasure myself rather than waste my time with one of them.

@littlepattilou can I have a medal too? For having a partner who does more caring and housework than I do?

He like me grew up in a household where his mum worked. However unlike mine she didn't do any housework so he grew up in a filthy house as his dad wouldn't do it. He hated it do when he moved out he learn to clean. (Oh and he cleans the toilet more than I do.)

Incidentally he gets pissed off when we see friends and the man doesn't pull his weight. He's also noticed some interesting stereotypes in some soaps over domestic roles.

That exactly is what I am trying to say- the current system we have of work being divided based on gender stereotypes is harmful and unfair to both women and men.

I agree. And obviously there's a lot of structural inequality and employment discrimination beyond stereotyping within male/female relationships, around maternity/paternity leave and companies' willingness to employ women of childbearing age and welcome them back to the workplace, all of which contributes massively to women's domestic load and financial disadvantage.

@RedMarauder sounds like your husband deserves a medal- for learning to clean while being a man!

As others pointed out- the very fact that these remarkable "cleaning men", shall we call them, are being pointed out as being noteworthy is the reason we are having this discussion.

Also, it's not about "lazy" men. It's that women and men want to do different sorts of things, and their work and financial reward for doing those things are different. For example, a man might be "lazy" about emptying the dishwasher, but he would be willing to repair the roof. But the roof only needs repair once a year, whereas the dishwasher...

@Evelight to be fair I work in STEM and I am always a minority including by sex. So I have to fight continuously to be seen as an equal to men doing the same role in the workplace. I refuse to have the same fight in my personal relationships with men.

Incidentally my partner (I'm deliberately not married) ended up having a fight with his employer over his shared parental leave. They initially had difficulty in understanding a man was going to take it and they actually had to pay the enhanced pay he was entitled to. Luckily he's in a union and I'm blunt.

It's that women and men want to do different sorts of things, and their work and financial reward for doing those things are different.

Due to society's gendered expectations placed on boys and girls since babyhood.

Btw In developing countries working in a STEM subject is a way out of poverty with less class based barriers to entry.

It's that women and men want to do different sorts of things, and their work and financial reward for doing those things are different.

Do you really think those different wants are hard-wired though? Genetic? Lady brain and man brain? Fully, and in most men and women, independent of the effects of upbringing and external influence? I certainly don't.

[quote Evelight]@RedMarauder sounds like your husband deserves a medal- for learning to clean while being a man!

As others pointed out- the very fact that these remarkable "cleaning men", shall we call them, are being pointed out as being noteworthy is the reason we are having this discussion.

Also, it's not about "lazy" men. It's that women and men want to do different sorts of things, and their work and financial reward for doing those things are different. For example, a man might be "lazy" about emptying the dishwasher, but he would be willing to repair the roof. But the roof only needs repair once a year, whereas the dishwasher...[/quote]
I think thats a bit simplistic taht women and men want to do different type of things.
Almost no one I know "wants" to wash up, clean the toilet, clean up cat sick or change a baby nappy...but somehow the default position in many families that the woman automatically does it.
Interestingly a lot of the things that are more generally seen as male type jobs can be classified as hobbies (although not always) Cooking, Gardening, DIY etc are things that although useful (can) have an element of enjoyment about them which is not the same as washing greasy pans, or picking up dirty socks.

@lazylinguist @Fizbosshoes oh yes sorry, I didn't mean to imply I thought the differences were hardwired! not at all- quite the contrary. The differences are a direct result of stereotypical gender and class conditioning- which really picked up speed in Victorian/industrial revolution times and we can't somehow seem to shake off. There's no such thing as a "lady brain" which genetically enjoys cleaning.

Exactly @Evelight. I think lots of people do still believe in lady brain though.

Interestingly a lot of the things that are more generally seen as male type jobs can be classified as hobbies (although not always) Cooking, Gardening, DIY etc are things that although useful (can) have an element of enjoyment about them which is not the same as washing greasy pans, or picking up dirty socks.

Oh man. Yes!! So true!
And I don't know about gendered expectations. I have never worked "very part time"-even when I was part time I also freelanced to make ends meet, and I have did all of the everything as a lone parent-mowing, DIY, car stuff as well as the dirty pants and washing up! Even now I have a bf (of some years standing) he is rubbish at DIY, and hates gardening, so I still do it! (he does wash up more than me though, when he is here).

have did? Noo!

It's probably more to do with the fact that it's mostly women who take maternity leave and end up being at home every day. They get into routines, do things a certain way, and end up doing the majority because they find ways to do it efficiently and 'properly' which can often be a pain to try and hand over to a man.
It's usually easier to do it myself which is why I end up doing everything and get resentful about it. I don't help myself though.

@Evelight

"Imagine we lived in a society where we had an unemployment insurance scheme generous enough to actually live on. Imagine we had enough houses that someone on an average wage could afford to buy an average house. Imagine maternity leave was a social insurance that you paid into to get full pay regardless of your length of service, and imagine blokes had to pay into it the same amount. Imagine there was high quality, guaranteed, affordable 8-6 childcare available from the day maternity leave ended until the day a child left primary school. Imagine workers' rights were strengthened to the point where employers were punished for making people redundant or relocating them on a whim. Maybe at that point we could talk about the feminism of individual choices. But do you know what, it wouldn't bloody matter, because the majority of women would have had their options so broadened that nobody would be interested in policing each other's lives to give ourselves the illusion of control."

Exactly this. @PerspicaciousGreen what you went through at your workplace- the toxicity and hostility, a lot of women experience that. I am not criticizing individual women's decisions, and I totally get your comment about "not having that fight in me"- I was there too, and a bazillion other women.

Why tho? Is it ok that your workplace was so toxic and hostile that you made the "choice" to fully withdraw from the labour market? Is it ok that men (ok, who wants to talk about the poor men?) are by default the "main breadwinners", and have to shoulder the entire financial responsibility, because their wives and female partners are basically pushed out of competitive, high-earning workforces? is ot ok that so many men fgot through life having no or very little idea about childcare or spending time with their children? Is it ok that women have to leave -oh sorry, CHOOSE to leave promising careers to become SAHM (because they really really really like childcare, yes we do!) The mental health issues coming out of this alone are manifold and generational. Gender stereotypes at work benefit noone- expect a small minority of elite men and decision-makers.

I want to build on what @toomuchtooold (I actually don't see as much difference between what we are saying) is saying- imagine family-friendly workplaces where BOTH MEN and WOMEN are encouraged to develop their careers AND their families/personal life, health and well-being, not one at the expense of the other. Imagine where both MEN AND WOMEN were encouraged to spend time raising their kids (and please spare me the claptrap about the wonderful DHs who some folk are "lucky enough" that they spend the weekends with their kids), and both WOMEN AND MEN are encouraged and supported to develop rewarding, functioning careers giving them financial stability and resources. Too much to ask for? yes, seems like it is.

Meanwhile, thank god for female cleaners tho'.

@evelight I also agree with a lot of what you are saying and I think you're right, we're not that far apart in our opinions... I just get fed up that when these discussions come up, it always seems to be the life choices of SAHMs that are up for discussion first, and "societal expectations" is always the first explanation for our behaviour. And then usually followed up by "have you thought about your pension." It's quite condescending, and I suspect that it puts a lot of women off of feminism. I think most of us make the decision with eyes that are quite open, and for reasons that are as practically pressing as those of the women who choose to keep working, and it would be nice to hear that acknowledged a bit better in feminist discussion.

“My circle” is probably a mix of women doing far more than their share, a bit more than there share and it being equal (ish).

However I don’t know any families where the man does more than his share!

Yes I’m a mythical unicorn where we are 50/50 on most things. Yesterday he gasp cleaned the bathrooms because they needed doing, not because he was asked or told.
I grew up in a house with a very involved dad, interestingly he didn’t and his DB is useless.
In my circle there are still some very ‘old fashioned’ set ups where the woman does most things despite also working. However, I think the bigger disparity comes from the ones who are SAHP

In my generation (let’s say those born 70’s - 80’s) I think the women do, and are expected to do, more. There is also an expectation that post split women will do the lion’s share of the parenting. I’m definitely the ‘default’ parent, and contact arranged around ex’s work patterns.
Whereas I have two young adult children (one male, one female) and for them things do seem more equal. Ds lived in a mixed dorm for uni, and not one of them expected the chores to be split down gender lines. There were messier and tidier folk, but no male / female delineation.

My DH likes to live in a tidy house as the aesthetic is important to him, he is an Architect and can't stand mess. However, he is not good at detailed cleaning and he rarely helps with the Guinea pig cleaning out. He isn't here to cook for the DC in the week so I tend to do the cooking which in don't enjoy one bit anymore! I find that really exhausting after working as I have the Mum guilt about balanced meals every night, my two often don't like my concoctions, then you have all the clearing up to do...

@toomuchtooold I just get fed up that when these discussions come up, it always seems to be the life choices of SAHMs that are up for discussion first, and "societal expectations" is always the first explanation for our behaviour. And then usually followed up by "have you thought about your pension." It's quite condescending, and I suspect that it puts a lot of women off of feminism. I think most of us make the decision with eyes that are quite open, and for reasons that are as practically pressing as those of the women who choose to keep working, and it would be nice to hear that acknowledged a bit better in feminist discussion.

Yes, this. @Evelight managed to do a cracking job upthread of telling me why I made the choices I did and what I should have done instead. Because as a simpering bimbo of a SAHM, I can't actually have wanted to do what I'm doing, better get a nice big man/feminist to explain my life to me.

And I appreciate your post upthread about unemployment insurance, affordable childcare, etc. It is true that there are some things we as a society could do to make economic and societal forces more equal. It just bothers me that so often it's coming from the perspective of wanting to get more women into the workplace rather than getting some men out. It suggests that the end game is every person working as many hours as they can, rather than taking a look at how work is celebrated in our culture as a moral good in and of itself.

Personally, I think an under-considered issue of our age is the lack of higher-level part-time work. You're either a full-time-plus lawyer/banker/whatever, or you don't work. If both men and women could continue their career but cut back their hours, it would be much easier to construct a balanced household - or even just work a bit less because you fancied it and could afford it! I think it would do wonders for the nation's mental health, for parents or non-parents.

@evelight

Exactly this. @PerspicaciousGreen what you went through at your workplace- the toxicity and hostility, a lot of women experience that. I am not criticizing individual women's decisions, and I totally get your comment about "not having that fight in me"- I was there too, and a bazillion other women.

Why tho? Is it ok that your workplace was so toxic and hostile that you made the "choice" to fully withdraw from the labour market? Is it ok that men (ok, who wants to talk about the poor men?) are by default the "main breadwinners", and have to shoulder the entire financial responsibility, because their wives and female partners are basically pushed out of competitive, high-earning workforces? is ot ok that so many men fgot through life having no or very little idea about childcare or spending time with their children? Is it ok that women have to leave -oh sorry, CHOOSE to leave promising careers to become SAHM (because they really really really like childcare, yes we do!) The mental health issues coming out of this alone are manifold and generational. Gender stereotypes at work benefit noone- expect a small minority of elite men and decision-makers.

Oh, silly me, I didn't realise I was so mistaken about my own life! I didn't realise that actually I was bullied out of my workplace for being a woman, rather than (related example to not out myself) deciding that I as a professional musician was fed up of working "for exposure" and barely breaking even once I'd accounted for my time travelling to gigs and marketing myself - which I'd seen both men and women struggle with equally. No, no, you're right, I didn't choose to become a SAHM, I had to because as a woman I don't actually have any agency over my own life. My poor poor husband, supported financially by me for a year as a SAHD before I left my "high-paying competitive misogynistic career", finally getting onto a funded training course for his dream job but appreciating first hand the benefits of having a SAHP in the house and supporting my desire to have a break to consider my next move. You're completely right that me staying in work I didn't want to do any more would have been much better for my and my family's mental health than "choosing" to fully withdraw from the labour market. If only I, a silly little woman, had thought of these things before allowing myself to be buffeted about by the winds of fate and gender stereotypes. How true that the worth of a human being is in their economic activity and I am therefore worthless as a human but especially as a woman. Because no woman could ever make the right choice to be a SAHM. Only 100% female participation in the labour market (and 100% male participation in the labour market, of course! Got to be seen to be equally exactly the same!) could ever be the right choice. Silly silly me.

P.S. My pension's fine, thanks

Bother, please excuse messed up bolding. I'm sure you can figure it out! Must be because I'm a SAHM and therefore don't understand computers

@MiloAndEddie Unfortunately, the research indicates you ARE the mythical unicorn.
Here are my top five hits when I google "women domestic labour men": I encourage you to try it for yourself.
www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/parenting/women-gender-gap-domestic-work.html
www.researchgate.net/publication/227535858_The_Impact_of_Domestic_Work_on_Men's_and_Women's_Wages
"Dividing the Domestic: Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-National Perspective"
www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/covid-women-workload-domestic-caring/
@ColdTattyWaitingForSummer it's nice to think that our daughters are becoming liberated from the burden of unpaid domestic labour, and I love the happy image of women and men grunting away together in the kitchen, no thought of which set of genitals should be doing what. However, again, the reality is that with the pandemic, women are becoming even more marginalized into the household and financially dependent on men...

It doesn't matter how much you are put off by feminists, or how angry and unpleasant and shrill you find them, or how much you wish they would pipe down: women are being screwed over, and over, when it comes to work and economics. Some are doing it with eyes wide open, because they have experienced toxic misogynstic bullying workplaces and just have had enough, some are doing it with eyes firmly shut and singing "lalala I love vacumming and my DH isn't lazy and I could leave him anyway, and besides the cleaner comes every Wednesday so it could be worse"

I do a professional job part time. It's true it could be easier to find well paid part time work, but it is out there -- Mumsnet Jobs is a good place to look actually.

Part time doesn't work well with client-facing jobs where the clients are paying a lot of money, but then the "full time" jobs are really "all the time" in those.

@PerspicaciousGreen
It suggests that the end game is every person working as many hours as they can, rather than taking a look at how work is celebrated in our culture as a moral good in and of itself

I absolutely agree. I grew up in Glasgow in the 80s, and it was a lesson I learned pretty hard, watching the people who were just destroyed by redundancy and the loss of role - there has to be something else to life, you can't be deriving all your self esteem from a job that can be taken off you at the drop of a hat, regardless of your own performance. And it irritates the absolute shite out of me that women seem to be expected to swallow uncritically the idea that work is a moral good, and if we don't, it's got to be because we're deficient in political insight.

Personally, I think an under-considered issue of our age is the lack of higher-level part-time work. You're either a full-time-plus lawyer/banker/whatever, or you don't work

With my line of work, there just isn't enough demand for our labour for it to be worth to offer part time. Which is ironic, because I was one of those legendary Women In STEM, one of those scientists and engineers that the country apparently needs so many more of. I read a fair number of reports into the "leaky pipe" that causes women scientists to leave the industry, and in place of some actual economic analysis, there's always that fucking expression: societal expectations. Apparently women who made it through school science classes, undergraduate science degrees, labs, PhDs, suddenly on the brink of getting an actual job with some money suddenly remember that they're not supposed to be doing this, and then go and be a teacher. That's how it happens. Nothing to do with the fact that (many) science jobs are concentrated in one or two cities, that they are often relocated abroad on the whim of a new CEO, that even the biggest tech companies have a tendency to hire and fire with their funding cycle... if you're an academic it's worse, you're expected to work in 2 or 3 temporary positions for 1-2 years with no maternity or sickness insurance before you can ever hope to land a permanent job. Of course that stuff is going to affect women more than men, and the smart ones (I was one of the idealistic, stupid ones) get out and make a career in more family friendly industries before they ever have to worry about that stuff. I used to get asked sometimes by my professional body to talk to young women who were thinking about doing my degree subject. I used to put them off. I'd tell them to study something that had a proper professional membership like engineering where the profession itself gets to limit the number of qualified people, or something like medicine where there are jobs in every town and you can't be offshored. They stopped asking me to speak at those things . It seems to be part of the game to pretend you don't know all this and that STEM is a great career for everyone and You Can Be Anything If You Put Your Mind To It, which is just so bloody naive and useless fucking advice.