How are we supposed to do ALL of this?

[cakestop2016]

Modern society is completely screwed up for modern women as far as I'm concerned. Why are we expected to go to work AND juggle all of the housework AND take care of the children's needs? Why haven't men caught up in assisting us? My DP is slowly learning that he needs to do more but why am I having to write him to-do lists, why can't he think for himself? Why does he fail to notice the greasy finger marks on the kitchen cupboards when he 'cleans' the kitchen?
why is it like this? Why does all the meal planning get left to me? I'm now seriously contemplating leaving DP and taking our DD with me because I can not live like this anymore.
what's the answer for modern women?

AFFECTIONS MUST NOT - Denise Riley

This is an old fiction of reliability

is a weather presence, is a righteousness
is arms in cotton

this is what stands up in kitchens
is a true storm shelter
& is taken straight out of colonial history, master and slave

arms that I will not love folded nor admire for their ‘strength’
linens that I will not love folded but will see flop open
tables that will rise heavily in the new wind & lift away, bearing their precious burdens

of mothers who never were, nor white nor black
mothers who were always a set of equipment and a fragile balance
mothers who looked over a gulf through the cloud of an act & at times speechlessly saw it

inside a designation there are people permanently started to bear it, the not-me against sociology
inside the kitchens there is realising of tightropes
Milk, if I do not continue to love you as deeply and truly as you want and need
that is us in the mythical streets again

support, support

the houses are murmuring with many small pockets of emotion
on which spongy grounds adults lives are being erected and paid for daily
while their feet and their children’s feet are tangled around like those of fen larks
in the fine steely wires which run to and fro between love and economics

affections must not support the rent

I. neglect. the house

That poem has nothing to do with what we are discussing IMO

Interesting - for me it goes to the very heart of it.

Where is the reference to behaviour which you know distresses the other people in your house, which they keep on asking you not to do, but which you carry on doing anyway because their feelings just don't matter that much to you?

I'd also question how far we are supposed to let "neglect" go.
As far as the floor never being cleaned?
No clean dishes?
No food for the children?

When two people have different standards they have to reach a compromise, but we can't possibly play who does the least so that we achieve equal work at home.

OK, so guardian of acceptable standards aside (AWESOME Title BTW)

What if there is one thing that winds you up - for example, in my case, it is leaving your dirty washing on the floor of the bathroom, rather than putting it one foot over in the laundry bin.

If there's one thing, that your partner does, that you find unbelievably annoying, are you not allowed to ask them not to do it?

Would it not be reasonable for them to not do it?

DP hates having toothpaste with a screw on lid. So we don't buy it any more. It's no big deal.

Unless DP has some massive issue with preferring dirty clothes on the floor, why wouldn't he also shrug, say no big deal, and put the dirty washing in the laundry basket? It doesn't even have a lid, it is literally no more effort than dropping it on the floor.

But to do so, is to have unnacceptably high standards?

when two people have different standards they have to reach a compromise

Which is exactly what I posted earlier - it is compromising moves us along. Greentomatojam gives another good example of this.

What did you think of the poem?

I am surprised no one had a stronger response to the poem, I think it is wonderful.

I first read it years ago in my 20s and it intrigued and drew me into thinking about economics/duty/love/the nature of 'home' for women. It stayed with me for years, in pre internet days I could never track it down, but key lines stayed with me. I was delighted to rediscover it as a wife and mother and I think it planted a seed that shaped the female roles I created for myself. It seems a million times more relevant to this thread than the shallow 'Monica' references that have been thrown in upteen times.

I have a reaction to the poem, and it's a kind of anger I think - perhaps I'm not understanding what she's trying to say, because I don't enjoy it at all.

I hate this worshipping the woman of the house in her domain as the heart and roots of a family. It feels like a backhanded compliment, like praise designed to make me be satisfied with that. Like that is my place.

It bloody isn't. I am a fully fledged human being not some idealised concept on a pedestal, not some romanticisation of the feminine in a kitchen - I see no reason why my feelings and responsibilities around our home should be any different to DPs.

That is interesting that your initial response was anger - it is a powerful poem and certainly uses female archetypes, but I think it subverts and deconstructs rather than celebrates the idealised concepts of womanhood. It recognises women's strength but also the timeless burden of responsibility for 'the house' and all that means. The last line is breathtaking and is a clear statement that as a woman, the poet has chosen break free, while recognising the consequences - the poet will not be the sacrificial sainted woman. That is what caught me as a young woman (and now as far older one). That is my interpretation, yours is just as valid, of course, and I may see it differently myself at different times. The language is rich and will take many different readings.

See what's missing for me in that poem, is any idea that anyone else apart from the female narrator is responsible for the house.

Which is fine if she's the only adult in the house, but if there's another adult there, what is their role?

Do they neglect the house too? Do they get the same negative response from the wider world when they do? Do they feel this burden and throw it off, the way she does?

I have a feeling the answer is no, because it's not their problem. The poem seems to be saying to me, that she recognises it's her problem and is rejecting it, but it feels fundamentally conservative to me because there's no challenge to the idea that it's her burden. Rejecting it is one way of dealing with it, but it doesn't fundamentally challenge the notion that the problem belongs to her.

I think the exploration of the trapping of women into roles “not-me against sociology” includes the role of society in the fictional roles assigned to women and the impact on the love for the partner is also there. I would say the very essence of the poem is challenging the relationship of woman and house,.

But without any reference at all to man and house.

It completely invisbilises men's role in that societal perception of women's role vis a vis home, domestic labour etc.

But it's a poem, not a sociological tract, so fine. But I don't think it helps the OP much in terms of exploring her problem. Her problem isn't with housework per se, it's with the attitude to it, of the other adult she lives with.

I think we all respond differently to different things. For me, poetry is powerful, and something I read as a young woman by a Scottish feminist stayed with me and very much helped me define my relationships with the men I shared houses with. American sitcoms, not so much. But we would be a dull world if we all liked the same things.

Great thread. I think if comes down to- men don't mind living in filthy squalor. Women do mind. Whether that's societal expectations and conditioning, well maybe. I had a total screaming meltdown yesterday when I was doing all the housework while three adult men in this house were still in bed at 11am. After I had worked all hours this week. It's not that they expect me to do it. They wouldn't care if it wasn't done. But I care so i have to do it don't i? I don't mean the odd mug. I'm talking stinking overflowing bins and bathroom mess. And rotting food clogging up the kitchen sink. And rotten stinking food in the fridge. They think I'm deranged and need to chill. I think they are fucking lazy and I just want to run away. Those suggesting compromise, please tell me how.

I think if comes down to- men don't mind living in filthy squalor. Women do mind.

Apart from me and Mug Woman - but I have always known I wasn't a 'real woman' Great that a feminist thread is used to judge & shame women who don't/won't conform to societal expectations.

IceCreamSaturday

In your case, yes I completely agree, it that the men don't care if they live in a pigsty.

I would suppose that many men 'don't care if they live in filth "

And yes I believe it is down to the way children are brought up in society as a whole. Boys in general are not brought up to think about it. Taking role models from family and indicators from media also.

Girls first role model is the there mum and then backed up by what they see around them.

If through us evolving through the decades still involves woman shaking of that role. It's a long process. I also feel that all around us media has gone slightly backwards in this too. Adverts films ect.

I watched the back for the weekend on tv, the family going through the decades.
It was clear that as society evolved, the daughter was given more freedom, the boy always had freedom and carried on getting more.

The mother got more freedom but was given labour saving devices to accommodate her freedom.

Although the daughter wasn't expected to walk in the mothers foot steps, as a role model the mother was still the one using the labour saving devices. So the cues are there from an early age. Then backed up by what is seen in media.

The mother in RL was the breadwinner and dh was the one who did the majority of the domestics. Whilst the mum did this TV show she found it very depressing.

When you look at how old she was, and when she grew up 80s teen, properly when the expectations on sex roles where being implemented at its height, in the 80s 90s

Programs and adverts reflected that, not massively but enough.

I remember one advert I hated. But looking back it was an indicator to society to normalise men who cleaned the house. The advert with a man being responsible for the cleaning of the house, ran for years. Other cleaning adverts were aimed at the family as a whole.

But now I only ever see women in cleaning adverts. Other then civit bang. But it's a very shouty bloke selling in a very masculine way, and only about the really big job dirt that could be masculine.

Mr muslce now, although originally a weedy man in under pants (which properly didn't do much good in making it seem OK for normal non weedy men to do the cleaning) but now Mr muslce is a muslcly cartoon guy giving the woman the products to do her job with.

Same with the kitchen towel advert , some bloke pops up to give the woman a kitchen roll to do her job with.

These are all indicators to girls to think about the cleaning, but boys will remain oblivious to them, or see it as the womans place to do it.

Advertising proberly changed because they were moving with the times in the beginning, and it's wasn't PC to in imply only women did it.

But as more actual research was being collected and used, it showed that the majority of women were still responsible for the cleaning. So the advert companies chose there target market to sell their products too.

I wonder though if the advertisers had continued to market to men and women, whether over time that that majority of women cleaning would have carried on going house

*Carried on going down

Don't know where house came from

I agree with i leave.

I dont think it's that men don't mind living in filth- i know plenty of blokes in house shares or live on their own and manage the domestic chores fine. It seems to be when they move in with a wife, or have children, that suddenly they slip into gender roles.

I think it's as simple as they don't see it as their job. Part of it is women enable by doing it in the first place- a pp got up and did the housework while the men stayed in bed. Why? Why not go out, leave them to it?

Dh and i compromise by doing the things we're good at. He irons, sorts bins, hoovers round. I wash up and do laundry.

Whatthese, you've lost me a bit there. I don't see how I've shamed or judged women. I don't think anyone should live in stinking filthy squalor, men or women. If I am making any judgement then I am doing it equally. I think it is an entirely reasonable societal expectation for men and women not to live in squalor. Do you really think there are no minimum standards?

Micah, if I 'went out and left them to it', they just wouldn't do it would they? Because it doesn't bother them. I would simply come home to it.

I also disagree that men don't like living in filth, obviously people are individuals and some don't mind just as some women don't mind but on the whole, most people want to live in comfort. What your idea of comfort is, varies from person to person, but filth isn't most people's idea of comfort.

What I do think many men are prepared to do, is live in a mess temporarily because they know that eventually, the woman they live with will crack and clean it up a) because women are generally socialised to be more safety and hygiene-conscious than men and so they care more and b) because women are judged on how their houses look in a way that men aren't and so they care more. At a gut level possibly without being conscious of it, men know this. They know that they aren't held responsible for how their homes look, so they don't feel much ownership of the task of keeping it clean and presentable. Their cars on the other hand...

What do you mean by this thread being used to judge women who don't conform to societal expectations whattheseithakasmean? I haven't seen much judgement of women who like squalor; no-one has said it's a bad thing afair. While the OP is told that she must be dissatisfied because her standards are too high, even though none of us know what her standards are like.

Can I just be clear, I was talking about the men in IceCreamSaturday house, that don't care about living in a pigsty. As she has clearly said, they think she's fussing over nothing.

I don't believe all men do.

I think there are many factors as to why women end up the default.

•AskBasil* you judged Mug Woman & shamed her in the whole office for not washing her mug as much as you think she should.

LOL.
Do you understand the meaning of the word shame?

Firstly, someone has to feel it for it to exist. Seeing as how she has no clue that I'm talking about her, she can't feel shame.

Secondly, I don't judge her for not washing her mug. I judge her for not bothering to leave her desk in a decent, reasonable condition for someone else who may come along to use it.

And if she were male, I would also judge her to be an inconsiderate person. It's not that big a deal - I've said on a scale of 1 to 10 it's about 1 for me, but I can look at it and objectively see that it's inconsiderate because she has been asked not to do it on several occasions by different managers.

So I'm not judging her for not conforming to socially constructed feminine norms. I'm judging her for doing something that she has been asked not to do on several different occasions. It could equally be something like moving someone's chair and not bothering to put it back each time - it's not about tidiness, it's about consideration for other people.

How would you characterise behaviour where someone does something over and over again, that they know distresses the person they share space with?

Still haven't had that one answered...