Feminism and housework and hoarding and Flylady...

[solidgoldbrass]

I would love to get some feminist perspective on this because I am struggling at the moment. I have always been a housework avoider, always had a messy house, and I used to say that it was a good way of making sure any man i shagged never got any ideas about me being a little home-maker for him.
It's gradually dawned on me that I actually have a bit of a problem WRT hoarding, and I would like to sort it out, I know some MNers love Flylady but one look at the site made me queasy because it seems so very much 'Women! Embrace housework, it';s your destiny.'
Any thoughts anyone?

Ah, "the dog ate the hoover" excuse.

Chip, that's interesting stuff. Flylady as a whole still gives me the ick, however. But, I have to confess that for the last week I've adopted the 'it didn't get messy like this in a day, so it won't get tidy in a day' motto from flylady and it does seem to be working. Instead of my frantic binges, 20 mins a day is devoted to sorting shit out; most of the big clearing has been sorted so now I'm actually having to look for shit to do. Cleaned behind the bin last night - probably for the first time since I moved in.

I dunno if it's going to bring about the feminist revolution any quicker but who knows - perhaps I can dismantle patriarchy if I'm not drowning in laundry and scratching at allergies?!

Cake, which thread???

this one

now you've turned me into a stirrer, time

Oh my god - the description of that iron! A 'premium sports car'?! 'Exudes masculinity'?! The shame of it. 'A practically unbreakable tool' - surely a description of the twunt who came up with this marketing campaign, rather than the iron!

Newsflash Phillips: men don't don't iron because the tools are too girly - it's because they've got someone else to do it for them.

Personally, I don't iron, and haven't touched an iron for a decade. Modern fabrics simply don't require it.

"A practically unbreakable tool' - surely a description of the twunt who came up with this marketing campaign, rather than the iron!"

yy, fly, i'm a big fan of doing 'small and often' too. It's def reduces procrastination.

Making a manly iron is one thing, but marketing it to us is continuing to make it our responsibility!

You should submit the problem to Phillips, SAF. They'll probably come up with a 'manly' campaign, in which a perfectly reasonable prostate exam is rebranded as 'akin to a tour in Vietnam' and 'what they all did in Apocalypse Now' in an attempt to make them feel all heroic and exuding of masculinity.

I'm a little late to return to this thread but may I commend to you another hoarding discussion over in Chat called 'Calling all Hoarders - Why?' in which there is an excellent example of the cleanliness next to godliness issue being espoused. In an intentionally very supportive way, but it rang a bell with what someone said here about it being a wifely duty. I have a little tooth itch about it and I thought it might need a feminist injection (bibbity's tried already!)

This thread is for me. I've just read a post about feeling guilty over wasting things and it made me want to cry. It's not just guilt though, I feel utterly ashamed when I come across things, in particular, gifts for DS that are now too young for him, that were never worn/used/played with. My instinct is to shove it all away again.

We're moving in a couple of weeks to a smaller flat. We have to move as DP has recently become disabled and can no longer cope with the stairs here. My mum has been coming round twice a week for months to help me clear out some junk. She is super organised and I'm grateful for her help, but I wish she didn't make it quite as obvious that she is disgusted with me ... not DP, just me.

I've gone through stages of thinking there was something wrong with my brain too. I'm on citalopram so it's not depression causing this domestic inertia. I think it stems from watching my mum work when I was a child. She was, and still is, a 1950s style housewife. She won't even let my dad make a cup of coffee or change the toilet roll, yet she moans relentlessly about having to do everything herself. My dad will point out that she won't allow him to do anything but she can't see it. She was a total misery guts when we were kids, making a huge issue about us 'watching her work'. Now I can see she makes work for herself and she has unhealthy beliefs about being idle and feels guilty for being happy.

I've tried FlyLady too many times to bother with it again. If I start it I feel obliged to read all those fecking testimonials she sends and listen to her radio show . I also have a problem with moderating my behaviour. If I've committed myself to do something I will do it to the letter and then burn out.

I find this sums up perfectly what happens when I try to get organised.

Good thread to bump - having a bit of a downer ATM that the house is never going to get clean, that half my stuff is going to be in storage or lost forever, that we're never going to have the money to sort out decent furniture or storage or get around to a stage where we can accessorise, and it's going to be stuck looking like a student house for ever. It's home, but it's not home, not like my mum's house was.

Probably just the mid-afternoon slump hitting me, and it's cold here as well, but it's just shit being so useless at cleaning sometimes.

ok I have a good clear out once a year, or 2 years maybe, could be 3? well anyway, I live on a street with only 13 houses on it, so as you can imagine we all pop into each others houses have coffee and a gossip etc, I am the fourth messiest person on the estate and would like to be in the top 5 tidiest, its not like we have a competition or anything, it is for my own snobbiness gratification. the problems I have is, I'm lazy, I would much rather gossip over coffee, and i have 2 ds who are also messy. i will say now i have joined the fly lady page, i clutter a lot too so i hope this page will help me with my
snobbiness goal.

Excellent thread! I've always been a sorter, giver away/seller of things of no use or ornament.

Hovever, having lived with a hoarder for a decade I'm only now (8months later) re-realising that I can choose what I have in my life and that act of active choice is soooo liberating!

Plus, I've become convinced that with every load of useless tat/surplus I'm shedding the equivalent in physical weight from my body (ten years of oversized dinners rather piled it on)

Great incentive for me

Flylady is about habits. I find it effective as a tool for nag free culture change that spreads through the entire family. E.g. My dd does flylady kids challenges. They're a bit varied, always achieavable, and not coming on the back if a million other requests from me. Flylady says clean sink every night - and that is explicitely m DHs job every night.

She is very big on 'you can't tidy clutter', and on challenges like chucking 24 items. I find when I'm off flylady I hoard more.

It's a variant of the pomodoro method, if you wanted a differen presentatio.

i think that whether you live in a tidy or messy house is up to you.

if it's so dirty/messy that it's interferring with your life, then it's an issue that needs addressing. other wise it's no body else's business.

and it shouldn't be up to anyone else to 'judge' the men or women for it.

sadly, there are certain people who judge 'the lady of the house' on how clean it is, that's their problem.

if your only deterrent to doing housework is that you don't want to be a 1950s housewife, I think it's safe to say that you're not - now decide whether you cba to tidy up or not.

I've not read the whole thread, but I wanted to comment on a couple of issues.

1. I took ADs for a while a couple of years ago - I was very concerned that they would make me less 'me' or less creative and imaginative. The lovely doctor assured me they wouldn't, and she was quite right. For about 5 days I was 'more' me - in that I was me with bags of energy and far more willing to speak my mind than usual (and was absolutely loving it - kept thinking 'no wonder people take drugs, this is fabulous'), and then went back to being 'normal' me.

1. FlyLady is nauseating, but extremely effective. I feel I now do far less housework (I do the weekly 'home blessing hour' and DH keeps the kitchen clean) and the house generally looks much better. Huge amounts of her daily tasks either take about 2 mins, or I can look at and think 'don't have that problem'. I save my favourite podcast to listen to while I do the hour, and so it's actually a bit of a treat, in an odd way. I do feel uncomfortable about cleaning in front of DH, though - for some reason, that makes me feel like its rather exploitative - so I prefer to do rooms he's not in.

Oh, this might be a tip that helps someone who needs to hoard food.

DH seems to need to hoard food, which I find extremely stressful, as it goes off and is wasted. We now have it sorted, so that he only hoards dry goods, tins and frozen things. My family still find this fascinating and amusing (they love looking in our cupboards when they visit and counting how much of everything we have), but at least none of it is rotting.

I do feel uncomfortable about cleaning in front of DH, though - for some reason, that makes me feel like its rather exploitative - so I prefer to do rooms he's not in.

GrendelsMum could you explain that? Who is being exploited by whom if you clean in front of DH?

OK I have had a look at Flylady and I'm already pissed off with it. 'Get dressed down to lace-up shoes'? Who the fuck wears lace-up shoes indoors? That's not going to help keep the carpet clean, is it?

Though I can see the point of the timers: that seems to work.

am marking this thread as i'm watching. will comment when have read more of previous posts. very interesting discussions posters, thank you x