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?

Housework is generally a feminist issue, but here the issue is a lot of ideas (including feminism) which are holding you back from doing what you need to do. And I suspect that you could replace the word 'issue' with 'justification' or 'excuse'.

Re the madness, no, it's not madness. It is more like being stuck in a comfort zone which is ultimately not helpful- that's all. Calling it madness is just creating something to panic or worry about, which can distract you from actually changing anything. At some point you just need to actually tackle the mess. It's dull and unappealing, but procrastinating just makes it worse.

I really agree with BoF last two posts.

My thoughts are that FlyLady is unfeminist but her system is still a good one for all of that. The reality is that most women are in charge of the housework and the shit work so it makes sense from a business point of view to focus on the people who do most of the work. I obviously think it should be unisex but I get why and that it's not.

A good alternative (if you have the iPad/iPhone) is the app home routines which has all of the FlyLady steps but without the drivel. I really like it.

Can I suggest unclutterer? Its a good website that focuses on getting rid of stuff, the thoughts behind getting rid of things and how being tidy gives you more time to enjoy the things you want to enjoy. The forum is also excellent and includes threads like the Thing A Day where you get rid of an item or group of items every single day. So you throw out or ticket stubs or clothes you won't wear or send some bottles to the recycle bank or whatever. Lots of good support and advice too.

My grandmother was a hoarder as was her DPs deceased wife. I can't begin to describe the effect it has had on my mothers and her DP's health dealing with everything after the deaths.

An interesting thing I've noticed is that my Dad seems to have relaxed about certain housework standards since being single again.
The pots being washed all the time was an annoying feature of my adolescence, there would be rows if we didn't wash up immediately. When we visited recently I discovered he's started washing up just once a day.
He's also seriously decluttered all his books and eats ready meals. Things he would not have stood for before.

Because he wasn't the one responsible for it all I think. Not that he didn't clean or cook, he did, but I think having to do it all the time has made him see what a pain in the fucking arse keeping on top of the shitwork really is.
Whereas I think women are still conditioned societally to think we're genuinely supposed to do all this stuff, with ease, and that there's a moral side to it ('slattern' etc.) men just either clean or don't clean.

And I still feel a little guilty about DH ironing his own shirts even though due to time and organisational reasons it's the only regular housework he has responsibility for.
DH has been sceptical about the minimalism, but I've told him, I'm the one who has to clean all the stuff, I'm the one who has to remember where everything is, I'm the one who's here most of the time, therefore it's mainly my decision.

Cooking varied amazing meals from scratch is a Stepford brain-washing pressure too. Some cultures have street food or restaurants as normal, most have staple foods around which other foods fit, rice, pasta etc. Having your own oven was not always the norm in industrial Britain ircc, that's where the hotpot dish developed from, it would be put together at home and then taken to the bakers and then collected cooked at the end of the day.
Chip shops are a huge part of British culture and it's quite normal to have fish and chips once a week.

There's a class element to this as well, we are conditioned to expect to live the lifestyle that required money and staff 80 years ago and it is the women who this continues to fall to.
There seems to be a problem accepting that actually we're mainly working class, the whole middle class guardian-reading domestic goddess thing is a marketing scam.

Early morning ramble, just some thoughts.

Interesting post TimeWasting

I am another hoarder, and I am finding that flylady is working for me - though it irritates me greatly. The system is really about establishing habits - simple things like bringing a load of washing down each morning and spending 5 minutes emptying the diswasher while preparing breakfast make housework a lot easier. When it is a habit you do it without giving it any headspace rather than it being an item on a long list of tedious chores. Decluttering saves time as you gradually work out where everything is and where stuff belongs.

Recently, I prepared a delicious and complicated fish pie from scratch. DH complimented it, but then pointed out that I had deadlines looming, had spent over an an hour preparing it, not counting the time trawling shops for ingredients, and we are skint but it would have cost a lot. And sainsburys do an adequate fish pie ready meal for about a fiver. He was wondering if we could justify going to so much trouble to cook (he does the bulk of the cooking and shopping, he was not having a go). Since then we've been buying more and more processed food, or doing simple pasta and store cupboard sauces. It makes life a hell of a lot easier, but I know I've irrationally felt embarassed meeting people I know at the supermarket check out, as I buy a heap of processed food. It means much less organising, planning, scrubbing of pots and pans.

Before we became parents cooking was something we enjoyed as a form of relaxation, housework could just be left until there was something interesting on the radio, it all worked. But needing to have food on the table at the time dd is hungry, and food that is healthy and that she will eat, makes it a chore. Especially as cooking anything complicated is v. difficult while simultaneously toddler wrangling. When I was a child, even very small children would play outdoors with neighbours - that is not an option for us. We accumulate endless stuff indoors in an effort to occupy her, and that is a lot of the clutter we have. The pressure - and it is mostly pressure on women - is to entertain and amuse children, while preparing healthy meals from scratch, and keeping a spotless home as seen on tv. While working full time and finding time to present ourselves well with all the grooming and shopping that entails.

It is flipping impossible. No wonder so many women who aspire to be middle class need prozac to cope.

thank you timewasting - most coherent/persuasive explanation i've ever seen of why it's not worth doing from-scratch cooking all the time.

when i first gave up full-time work i took up baking and "proper" cooking and it cost a fortune and was incredibly time-consuming. and once i'd mastered it (can make pavlovas, tablet, scones, highest victoria sponge my family have ever seen, etc, etc) i found it really boring... but i do still end up feeling i have to justify the fact that i'd rather buy a jar of pasta sauce than make it from scratch!

I was going to suggest going on a Freecycle binge. Stick stuff up on there on a day you're at home and you can have it off your hands in a couple of hours, in exchange for a warm glow, which makes the getting rid much less difficult.

My other suggestion was a skill-swap - do you have a neat-freak non-judgy friend who could come and ruthlessly sort things for/with you in exchange for a favour? I've done this before for a messy friend and actually found it quite fun. I think an outside eye on your own clutter is always pretty helpful and someone else will get it done way faster than you.

another advantage with flylady is that it gives you a feeling that you are done - even though in the early days the place is still a tip, it is always noticably better, and that feeling of guilt, and work undone, goes away.

the old maxim " a woman's work is never done" is because you could always clean more and always do some mending, ironing, whatever. It makes housework feel like drudgery because you never feel that you've done.

I like a tidy house, but hate housework and also hoard.

I find the easiest way to have a clear out is to do it under pressure - i.e. when we've got someone coming round in a couple of hours - makes me considerably more mercenary about what I'm willing to throw out.

If it's any consolation, I judge men who live in dirty houses.

Regarding the feminisms issue - women are hoarders / men are collectors.

Don't have time for a really long reply but SGB - just wanted to say I am exactly the same and can totally relate to the feeling that what if my brain is just wired up wrong - this sounds drastic, but I'm actually waiting to get around to making a doctor's appointment to see if I can be referred for CBT or something, because I'm so chronically disorganised that it's really affecting my life and making me anxious now (mainly because I leave "things which need to be done" until way, way after the generally acceptable time to do them and then try to avoid the consequences by ignoring them) and the untidiness seems to be both a symptom and a catalyst. Plus unless I sort out how messy it is here there's a real chance my landlord might kick us out, and FFS, I can't seem to change even for that. Nor when my HV was banging on about social services last year.

I saw someone cutting their hedge the other day and it crossed my mind that I literally cannot fathom just how anyone can get through the menial everyday jobs for long enough to be able to even think about the once-in-a-long-while jobs like painting woodwork. I actually don't understand how people can have spotlessly clean houses either (though I don't want it to be spotless anyway)

Ha. You are me too. I used to think/joke that being messy was somehow being a bit feminist. Now I worry/realise I'm just living in a big bloody hoarder's mess.

But throwing things away is very hard for me.

I recently threw out a bin bag full of clothes, it was so difficult, I was so proud.... but it didn't really make a dent. I'm probably not going to be a size 12 again. If I am, all the clothes will be out of date. But I can't bring myself to throw out all the size 12 clothes! Argh.

BertieBotts - I was like that until recently and found that citalopram helped, as well as running, mindfulness and flylady. Make an appointment with your GP in the AM.

I suspect for all its irritating language that flylady is targeted at people with some form of mental health issues. Here is the starting point:
flylady.net/pages/begin_babysteps.asp

And if your landlord is on the way try this:
www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_CrisisCleaning.asp

I know, I cried when I read the first step of flylady's babysteps. ("How to make your sink sparkle. Step one: Take all the dirty dishes out of the sink" )

I've got a lot better at throwing things away recently but I'm still really messy. I'm semi open to the idea of ADs but I'm worried about them changing who I am. That's probably ridiculous though (and a whole other thread really)

Bertie: Yes, I am terrified of ADs myself, I don't want to 'not be me' and also I know that getting the 'right' dosage takes time and there are side effects and all sorts.

the language is a bit cringy, but I think it's a sensible and practical guide, to organising yourself to sort out a house that's got out of control. Now I just need to follow it - except for the sink sparkling. I don't think flylady itself is anti-feminist, more the patriarchal backdrop where women are judged for the state of the house.

SGB, maybe your attitude to housework (and mine for that matter) is a kind of notwellness and maybe it isn't. I used to work with substance misusers, and a very common kind of therapy is MET (motivational enhancement therapy) and it has a very high success rate. It seems to me that fly lady is really MET dressed up in lilac and girly platitudes.

I think you are right to look at your attitude to it as the issue, and not the actual mess/clutter. If you clear the clutter up but don't change your attitude, the clutter will all just come back. So it is not about doing more cleaning up. It is about doing the same amount of cleaning up in an organised, structured way that isn't overwhelming.

My house is an absolute tip by the way, and will remain that way until October.

Everyday Minimalist is my favourite minimalist blog.

Miss Minimalist is quite good too.

I used to have so much stuff, even when we got rid of things, we always bought more. Books off the flea market I never read, ornaments, I had 3 garlic crushers at one point, and I've found decluttering to get easier and more exhilerating as time has passed.
Not buying more things has been a challenge too, but I think I'm getting there with that too.

I can relate to housework and cleaning being a tough feminist issue, it's the one constant big source of arguments between me and DP. I am reasonably tidy, not massively but OK, and not a hoarder. DP is terrible. All 3 dds are terrible. I feel compelled by feminist principles not to do more than half the housework. Feminist socialist principles also make hiring a cleaner problematic for me. So I argue with DP about it. and eventually when I shout and shriek enough he does his half.

(he is fantastic on doing half the childcare and all sorts of other things, but he is a slob, and worse, he does lots of DIY which is super-messy. He digs out cellars etc for fun ).

I think SGB you have one advantage if you are single then you don't have that (as I feel it) almost moral obligation not to do it all on feminist principle. So that's a start.

Flylady though, I can't go near such patriarchal crap, it's terrible. Anything that assumes it's a woman's role, I think should be avoided.

Flylady's book Sink Reflections is much clearer to follow than the website.

The Routines are good for helping to reduce clutter. Just adapt them to your own lifestyle.

I've just taken a look at flylady and while the tone makes me want to claw my eyes out, the routines seem sound, and a lot like the things that I'd been brought up doing, and have had to institute as houserules here, as DH was brought up by hoarding, messy, chaotic, dirty people, who frankly made him embarrassed and confused and chaotic himself. Things like clean out the sink and wipe down the counters before you go to bed (waking up to a clean kitchen starts the day in a calm manner, and you've always got a clean mug for coffee), emptying the dishwasher on a morning while you wait for the kettle to boil, never leave a room empty handed, etc. Habits are good cos then you're doing maintenance work without stopping to think about it. Usually as a feminist I think stopping to think about things is good, but if I stopped to think about how boring it is having to feed myself, and why should I have to do such a thing three times a day, I'd starve to death. Ditto cleaning/tidying.

We do kitchen, bathroom, and hoover all floors once a week, or every two weeks if we have a really busy weekend (then we do a sort of swish and swipe). I used to be a hoarder, but found a transatlantic move with only 2 suitcases good for that.

Habits can help, SGB but I think working out why you're hoarding/developing tactics to help you release things will be more important for effecting real change. You're right - bits of string do 'come in' handy sometimes, but what if you had a ball of string that you kept in it's own place in a cupboard, and then if you were ever tempted to keep a bit of string you could say to yourself "I have enough of that."

From what I've seen of hoarders they either have a great fear of scarcity or a great guilt about 'wasting' things. You need to change your brain about having enough of things, and it being a wonderful act to free things to go to other places.
Freecycle is great for that. If you're keeping something cos it might come in, advertise it on freecycle and someone who wants or needs it NOW will come and get it. So it does 'come in' - just NOW instead of 'someday', and for someone else instead of you. But that's fine! Because you have enough.