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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism and housework and hoarding and Flylady...

274 replies

solidgoldbrass · 30/07/2011 23:23

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?

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Cleverything · 01/08/2011 13:32

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StewieGriffinsMom · 01/08/2011 13:48

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swallowedAfly · 01/08/2011 13:56

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BertieBotts · 01/08/2011 13:56

I've just seen this, BTW - for anyone in the Midlands. Groupon carpet steam cleaning deal.

I'm finding it easier doing housework now DP is here. It's because he does do it though, so I feel I should match his effort or I'd feel guilty, though he never moans at me for not having done it, sometimes on his way to work or something he'll say "Do you mind doing X before you go to bed?" or "Put a wash load on tonight and I'll hang it up in the morning."

We should have a library of baby clothes as well. I'm hanging on to DS' old stuff because I love bright coloured baby clothes and I'm worried if I lend them out, I'll lose them all. But this is probably ridiculous because any future children we have will be in a good few years anyway, we might even be better off financially then!

sakura · 01/08/2011 14:34

None of us minds going to someone's house to clean and help out, but none of us wants anyone else to see our homes... so how would that work?

Cleverything · 01/08/2011 14:45

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StewieGriffinsMom · 01/08/2011 14:52

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sakura · 01/08/2011 14:59

Yes, but I don't want any of YOU LOT seeing my MESS

StewieGriffinsMom · 01/08/2011 15:11

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EvenLessNarkyPuffin · 01/08/2011 15:43

Change the hoover bag/clean the removeable filter SGM

If you want it to smell noice, stick a drop of essential oil in the hoover bag/cylinder.

I hate cleaning. And washing. And ironing. And dusting. The tidier the surfaces are and the less stuff you have, the less time it takes to clean, wash, iron and hoover.

I used to have the EU laundry mountain. I went through every item of clothing and realised that:

A) lots of the stuff was too big/small
B) lots of the stuff was very seasonal eg thick coats or summer dresses
C) you only need so many pairs of jeans, tshirts etc.

I got rid of stuff we hardly ever wear and eg baby clothes that were grown out of. I got the useful but out of season clothes clean and packed away in vacuum bags. I put the 'I will fit these again' clothes one size off where I am into a box. I packed away bedding and towels and kept out two sets per person/bed. I gave everyone a limit eg I only need a maximum of 3 pairs of jeans. What happened was that suddenly instead of K2 I had a small hillock of washing to do.

Dishwashers are amazing. I have an empty sink. Not because of Flylady. Because all the dirty stuff is in the dishwasher.

blackcurrants · 01/08/2011 16:24

I definitely think we have more STUFF than our forebears had, and that this is part of the problem. I, too, set laundry limits. DH used to be a bit of a hoarder and when I said "You have 30 t-shirts. You wear less than 20% of these tshirts. Get rid of the ones with stains/holes, and then ask yourself how much you like the rest" it was a bit of an eye-opener for us both.
I did the same thing to myself re: jeans. Jeans I only wear with 2 tops? Gone. Jeans I will one day fit into? Gone. Jeans I am keeping because they were expensive, damnit, even though they don't fit well? Gone.

I think the resounding message of this thread is that once you've got less stuff, you can have a tidy house, and THEN you can institute habits to keep it tidy ( cos you really do have to do something every day to prevent the piles). The thing about the daily work is that it can be half a job and look alright - because you've not got that much to do, cos it's fairly tidy to start with. But getting a clear house, and teaching yourself that routine, if you're a hoarder and an avoider- well that's hard. And that's where the flylady stuff comes in handy, because she has a system for perfectionists (eg teaching them to do half a job, with her 15minute buzzer idea) and she has a way to teach tidy habits to people who can't face even starting.

I cringe at the self-help aspect of some of it, but it's a bit like my attitude to sugar (give it to me, all of it, now give me more of it, NOW) - when I realised that, yes, it was disordered, and yes, I hated what it made me (getting fatter, sugar junkie, mood swings) and yes, I was embarrassed about it, but actually it wasn't going to change unless I made a conscious decision to change it... that was when I started to look for solutions.

BertieBotts · 01/08/2011 17:35

I find it easier to do half-jobs when I'm on my own as well, XP always used to come across my half-sorted piles of laundry, make a huffy sound and then move them all into one pile. So when I came back to it, I had to start again!

WillieWaggledagger · 01/08/2011 17:42

yes SGM - i hate hoovering so part of our arrangement is dp does hoovering and i clean the loo (which he hates, i don't mind). i hoover about once a year

swallowedAfly · 01/08/2011 17:51

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BitOfFun · 01/08/2011 17:51

Eleven bags of clothes to the tip so far today Grin. this thread has been a good kick up the bum- I'm quite enjoying this chucking stuff out, it's very freeing.

BelleDameSansMerci · 01/08/2011 18:02

I bloody hate bloody housework... And I'm a hoarder too. I just want someone else to do it all. Have a cleaning lady but that just means the house is tidy for two days of the week.

I did have one of those glaring revelation moments though. I actually don't believe I should have to do housework. Where did that imperious attitude come from? It's outrageous really. Can't even blame my mum because I used to do a lot of housework as a child - my mum gave me extra pocket money if I did it before she got home from work. Maybe that's the problem - I expect to be paid for it?

SuchProspects · 01/08/2011 18:34

SGB I know I'm late to this thread and your immediate crisis is over, but I was interested in your association between hoarding and slovenly housekeeping and their relationship with feminism.

I'm pretty slovenly at housekeeping but I'm not in any way a hoarder. I'll let things pile up because I procrastinate and am lazy about it, but when I come to clean things out I'm happily ruthless. I have, from time to time, thrown out important documents or things that I later could have used. But I've never regretted it because the bother to replace them was a lot less than the bother of keeping mounting piles of crap potentially but unlikely useful stuff. On the other hand I haven't picked an iron up in years. I frequently choose my clothes out of the "airing cupboard" and there are corners of our kitchen under jars and kitchen equipment that haven't seen a cloth since we moved in.

So I don't really see hoarding and poor housekeeping as the same thing. I also think the sexist pressures on women about the two are different too.

The housework thing is very much a matter of judging women on something for the sake of it that a man would not be judged on in the same way. It seems to be a way of not only ensuring men are served in the domestic sphere, but also of keeping women busy so they don't have time for anything external. The domestic service role is still a moral issue for women, a way to judge how "good" we are. I'm pretty bloody minded about the way people perceive me from that perspective so I laugh at suggestions that I "should" have a cleaner house etc. And I share your (if I read you right) horror of spending much of my time trying to meet a standard that I have no personal interest in achieving. At the same time, as I get older and with the arrival of children, my standards have gone up slightly. This is mainly because an untidy house is more difficult to live in, but also because I've come to appreciate how much my immediate environment impacts my general level of happiness and I want a better looking house. Still, I'm all about short cuts and since I'm married I very much don't see it as "my role" no matter who else seems to. I haven't read the Flylady site, but from your description I don't think I could stomach an approach that tried to reinforce that moral judgement of women.

Criticism of hoarding seems less of a moral judgement in our society and more of a mental health one. I'm not so sure I think hoarding is so much an abnormal behaviour as simply a normal one that is not suitable in a non-scarcity environment; something that has only become a widespread issue in the last 50 - 100 years. And so we have pathologised an otherwise normal desire. I'm not saying that hoarding isn't a problem in today's society, just that many of the people today who we shake our heads and murmur sadly to each other about (not you I'm sure Grin) would have been seen as wise and valuable members of communities in the past. And, of course, women are generally more likely to be labeled as "broken" by our society. I concur with some one else's thought much earlier in the thread that women "hoard" but men "collect". I think that is a reflection of the fact that generally we accept men to have wider acceptable behaviour norms than women.

So that's my shallow (long though this is - Blush) feminist view of housework and hoarding. For your personal situation I have little to offer other than - please don't try to keep the house clean/throw away your stuff just to meet others' expectations. Try to keep your goals to things that are important to you and your family.

talkingnonsense · 01/08/2011 20:34

This thread has been fascinating, and I particularly agree with the point made that chores, like cooking, become drudgery because you have to so them, and you have to do them every day, and they have to be healthy and contain fruit or veg, and then cleared up after, and then probably someone doesn't even like it, and it is just so SO dull.
The only helpful tip I have is save the ironing until you have about an hours worth and then do it in front of a guilty t v pleasure - I currently use glee or the oceans 11 movies! And then I make the dcs put their own stuff away.

EvenLessNarkyPuffin · 01/08/2011 21:13

DH does 90% of the ironing. I iron trousers. He hates ironing trousers.

solidgoldbrass · 01/08/2011 21:47

I have to say: there are male hoarders (aren't there a few boxroom posters on here who have issues with hoarding husbands?). Right now I think I might force myself to read through Flylady with notebook and pen in hand and note down the useful tips while ignoring the guff - unfortnately the first place I looked last time was the one that said 'Do your hair and make up and then start cleaning!' which is utterly ridiculous.

Mind you, I remember when I was at ante-natal class and we got given this bit of paper to write down our 'daily routine' on and I was totally unable to do it, and the midwife looked at me like I was wierd.
I don't have daily routines because my days are so varied. No, it's not that I''m so SPESHUL it's that some days I am working out of the house eg leaflets or surveys, some days I am preparing trade goods for an event, some days I have a writing or copy-editing job on, and most nights I have chat/text/virch work. And these days are not divided into regular patterns, and obviously paid or paying work is far more important than fecking housework.

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VictorGollancz · 01/08/2011 21:52

I live alone in a tiny - but perfectly adequate - space with no carpets and I still can't keep the place tidy and clean. It's not an allergy as such but I seem to have been left with a sensitivity to dust/hair/ming as a hangover from a very severe bout of eczema. I itch like fuck if the flat isn't reasonably clean. I literally bleed as a result of my slatternly ways.

So I've stopped buying stuff. I realised that not only was I spending money that I don't have, but I was spending it on shit that clutters up the place, stops me from finding the things I already own and stops me from vacuuming cos there's shit all over the floor and I have to clean the place before I can vacuum.

I also instigated a rule that I have to use the shit I already own. Some of this perfectly usable, totally finite shit has survived three house moves. Why the hell do I have three moisturisers? Well, I know why, it's because they were expensive gifts and I don't want them to be gone. So I don't use them. And then they get old and manky and they have to be thrown away anyway. So now I have to use the shit. I'm down to two bottles of shampoo and only one soap as a result - this is a vast improvement on the small branch of Boots that previously resided on my bathroom windowsill. Only when it is gone can I replace it.

I like to link it to feminism because so much of my shit is 'feminine' related. Does my partner have all this shit, the five shampoos and the mutiple pairs of jeans and 'smart' tops and 'casual' tops and gunky mascaras and all the rest of it? No, because he's a man. Of course, I can extrapolate it to include all the other shit that we share - like books and DVDs and whatnot - but it is the feminine stuff that really highlights the difference in the clutter.

Putting a halt to all of this means that not only am I sloooowly getting rid of the shit, but I am resisting the compulsion that society puts on women to buy so much more shit than anyone else. Consume! Buy razors and moisturising strips and fifteen pairs of tweezers because you keep losing them! Buy shampoo that is special, and then another one because the first one doesn't give you the glossy mane it promised!

Putting it in the context of resisting femininity makes me feel much, much better about it all than if I simply think of it as cleaning the goddam house again.

Cleverything · 01/08/2011 22:11

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VictorGollancz · 01/08/2011 22:59

Cleverything When I shared a house, I had a housemate who did a full grooming regime every day: hair washed and conditioned, dried, straightened; full tone, cleanse, moisturise and full make-up; legs shaved every day. She went through tonnes of shit and I think she's the only woman in existence who actually got her money's worth from a 3 for 2 offer. Me and my short wisps of hair - and my rather more laid-back approach to grooming - simply don't need that stuff. I don't know why it took me so long to realise that I was paying good money, lots of money in some cases, to buy shit and not use it.

Stationery is useful - but why not start writing those letters? What a lovely way to declutter your house! I love being able to give things away, it's the best part of decluttering.

I'd never looked at Flylady before this thread. I can't say the site does that much for me personally, but the 20 minute timing thing seems like a really good idea to start undoing the association of 'woman' and 'housewife'. There's no child or working adult so young or busy that they can't spend 20 mins doing housework.

solidgoldbrass · 02/08/2011 01:25

ONe of the worst things if you are a natural slob is, as someone posted upthread, you bust your arse having a big clean up and you are quite pleased because it looks a lot better but when a tidy person comes to visit - who hasn't seen it before you cleaned it - they still think it's a mess and are totally unimpressed by your efforts.

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sakura · 02/08/2011 02:32

Always keep the hoover out. THat way if someone pops in unexpectedly you can say, "Oh, hi.. was just in the middle of tidying up" Grin