Men who don't/won't do housework - is anyone to blame?

[Thurlow]

I'm hoping I can explain this clearly!

We all know there are threads beyond count about men who don't pull their weight on the housework front, or who expect their wife/partner to do it all for them, almost regardless of whether or not the woman is working or a SAHP.

Sometimes on these threads posters say "you shouldn't let him get away with it" and similar comments which often gets called out as victim blaming which, really, it is in that specific situation. But it did get me thinking.

Surely there has to be a reason why so many men don't feel as if housework and household admin and even childcare is their responsibility and that it is still absolutely fine, in 2015 Britain, to expect the woman in the house to do it all. Is someone at heart to blame for it? (Apologies for the use of the word 'blame' as I suspect this is a lot stronger than I mean, but I can't think of quite the right word).

Is it the parents who raised the boy in the 1970s, 1980s, even 1990s who is responsible because they somehow taught him, deliberately or subconsciously, that women do all the work?

Is it, very occasionally, a woman's fault for not putting their foot down early enough in a relationship? But then surely there has to be a reason why they feel they can't do that - is it their parents who are responsible for raising them to feel they can't put their foot down? Is it back to the parents who maybe taught (again, deliberately or subconsciously) a girl she had to do everything, or taught a boy that he could ride roughshod over a woman's complaints and continue to insist she did everything?

Or is it just such an ingrained societal response that teaches girls as they grow up to do housework and not be confrontational, and boys that they don't need to do as much?

I don't quite like the last thought - so many men now do do their equal share of housework, cooking and parenting that simply saying "because society" or "because patriarchy" seems far too simplistic.

I hope I've managed to phrase that well. I definitely don't want to suggest in anyway that it is simple the woman's fault and she ought to put her foot down. But it makes me curious (and frustrates me a lot) that there still seems to be this ingrained inequality that both many men continue with, and many women feel they have to come to somewhere like MN and ask if they are U to expect their OH to do more around the house.

to be equal

to be equal

My dh's mil is from India and believes housework's a woman's job. Doesn't care that I work full time, have a long commute, and that we need my job to break even. She'll still keep comparing me to my sil in India who has three live in maids and works 4 hours a day. Thankfully my dh isn't an idiot and will do most of the housework as he's entirely home based (and prob better at it!)

Dervel, your post at 13.52 about communication, compatibility and respect is really empty, because men who don't take responsibiity for housework don't communicate about it. they don't even know what they are doing themselves. this conversation has never happened:

Man: I love you
Woman: I love you too
Man: let's live together. I want to get married and have a family with you
Woman: I would like to get married and have a family too. Let's talk about how all this will work. My career and hobbies are important to me and I hope that you will support me in being able to continue doing them, and seeing my friends and family. that means that although I will live with you, and love you, and even bear your children, I won't take the part that your mother and every mother you have ever known, took in the house, of being everyone's daily 24 hour dogsbody. This means you will have to step up a lot more than your father ever did.
Man: I don't fancy doing that, really. My dad has a nice life. My mum does everything, and gets up at 6am on Christmas day to put the turkey in. I know you want to work and everything and I quite like the idea of being able to tell everyone you're doing well. But can you just do the woman stuff as well please? Like all other women? Because I'm not going to. I'm certainly not going to remember to. If you ask me to, I'm going to call you a nag and sulk and make your life really hard.
Woman: well no, I don't really fancy that, so, I think we'd better call it a day.
Man: fair enough. bye.

"It's not that it's difficult per se to phone the dentists, or cook the spag bol, it's the fact that it takes up mental bandwidth to remember to do it, when it needs doing and getting all the bits and pieces needed for it."

Oh god yes this is true.

I have DTs and describe myself as a feminist. My DP is so careful not to offend women that it's actually irritating. So when our DS and DD arrived simultaneously they were welcomed into a very pro-women, pro-equality household where domestic labour was joint responsibilites.

From the off, from the fucking cradle, DS was more demanding and lazier ('lift me mummy carry me!') than DD; 18 years on, having seen exactly the same parents as his sister, DS is house-work shy, to put it mildly.

But to be fair to him he's also said he wants to marry a SAHM and have 4 kids with her precisely because he has seen how "hard" family life is when both parents work FT and there is no 'SAHP' to ensure nice dinners, clean shirts, and a tidy house. This is a boy who by choice wore his sister's summer dresses, and played with Barbies

DD's choice at the moment is not to have kids at all and to have a career

It's so weird. It really doesn't feel like conditioning, it feels like they were born that way - and of course two people do not a statistical research project make; but it has really REALLY pushed my belief in the primacy of nurture, to the limits.

There may be a huge dose of nature in there bucking, but it's worth remembering the interaction of nature and nurture. Had your DD been born lazy, would she still be lazy today? Are women allowed to be lazy? I don't think so. It's likely she'd still be lazy at heart but have a whole wealth of strategies for working around it and would berate herself regularly for her tendency not to want to have it all and do it all.

The women I know who claim to be 'lazy' are in fact far more industrious and organised than a lot of supposedly very capable men I know.

I can see I'm neither use nor ornament here, I'll leave it well alone. Best of luck.

I think part of the problem is that when I was growing up girls were (quite rightly) told by schools etc that they could have academic and career aspirations just as much as boys. Society backed this up as we increasingly saw women (in real life and on TV etc) with prominent roles in politics and having professional careers etc. I don't remember school ever telling boys (or girls) that the role of men in the family would have to be any different from their fathers/grandfathers or seeing many examples on TV etc of men doing childcare/domestic tasks as the norm (in fact this unusual behaviour was the subject of quite a few comedies).

The result of this (and I'm sure many other factors that are also being discussed here) seems to be that women increasingly have careers that are just as demanding as their husbands but still feeling responsible for making sure household chores are done (even if not doing all of it themselves) whereas many men feel that they are doing lots of housework because they do more than their fathers did.

The point about what happens when a woman goes on maternity leave is interesting. My own experience was unusual as we'd already decided that DH would be a SAHP when I went back to work. However, he did expect me to spend time 'teaching' him how to do lots of the baby related tasks that I had just been expected to know/work out and initially leave lists of household chores that needed to be done 'just until he got the hang of it'. What I saw from most of my friends was that (even where previously their husbands had done quite a large share of housework) once they were at home with children they assumed full responsibility for domestic tasks and the position never really changed back when they returned to work. I'm not sure if this is because the perception is that if they returned to work part time they must have spare time, something to do with perceived 'contributions' to the household or perhaps at some level both parties saw it that the woman had now taken on her proper role as mother and therefore had defaulted to the traditional domestic role.

Yy Chunky - I think both of your suggestions about what happens with Mat Leave are spot on, actually.

Dervel - maybe lurk and read and come back onto the thread later on? It's always interesting having some different POV put forward

No worries Olenna that wasn't a flounce btw, I learn a lot from perspectives I have come across on fwr. I just like to avoid frustrating people.

I read an article (will try and find the link) which reported to have undertaken a study as to why, even when both the man and woman in a relationship are working full time, the woman is still doing the majority of the housework - particularly the unnoticed stuff.

In fact, the study found that as the women's working hours and salaries increased (in relation to their male partner) their share of housework also increased. Why would this be?

There was then a whole theory around this. To summarise - by doing the housework, women feel (subconsciously or otherwise) that they are "performing" femininity (caring, nurturing etc). They do this because they still want their partners to see them as "different" or feminine, in the face of the fact that their roles outside the home may be fairly indistinguishable or "genderless".

In other words, women want to be equal to men yes, but not the same. Though they may well rationalise that they want a man who takes the domestic stuff in his stride, they actually don't want gender lines to be blurred to much. There can be conflict between the rational and emotional responses to the issue of gender roles in a hetero relationship.

Finally, the study had supposedly gained statistical evidence that the couples in which the woman did the majority of the housework (regardless of whether she also worked outside the home) had sex far more frequently than the couples who were always keen to maintain equality in this area.

So basically, it all comes down to sex

No this article was not in the Daily Fail. Just thought I'd throw it out there....

Have read about half TFT.

When I was on Mat leave I suggested to dh that I didn't pick up any more household tasks as it may be hard to revert to normal afterwards. He agreed.

When the kids started school we agreed to divvy up and share the thinking.

It is so, so, so nice to turn round on a Sunday night and two sets of the week's school clothes are washed and ironed. He must think the same about me when I freeze two sets of the week's packed lunches.

The other person doing half the thinking involved in running a home, in raising kids is great.

And yes to whoever said what's attractive in a useless man? My father and brothers are also very capable.

I think I read that study about the split of housework, but my understanding was that women ended up doing more housework in order to smooth the relationship's path. As if they were subconsciously trying to avoid emasculating their partners as they sensed that the men were threatened by their independence. I could be wrong on this, but it's interesting at least.

For my DH I do think a big part of it is laziness and procrastination. But I also see that it would be so peaceful to have someone else do the shit work and the thinking in your home life. For all the minutiae to be someone else's problem. I wonder if there was someone else around to lean on, if I (a rather lazy procrastinator too, by nature) would lean and lean and lean the way DH has learned to while I've been SAHM and now part time/self employed.

That's quite an interesting point agap and like you, I think maybe the answer is yes. Reason being that although there are some jobs we both do, like cooking and childcare, DH and I also have quite clearly delineated spheres of influence for other things. Some of this is traditionally gendered. Eg I do all the washing and putting away clothes and the thinking for the entire family, and he does all the machinery and heavy lifting (I have physical limitations that mean I can't really do the latter anyway, but even if I didn't I frankly still wouldn't because I don't want to). Some of it isn't. Eg he does all the ironing and I'm in charge of the money, to the extent that he has a savings account that I put money into, and he doesn't even worry his pretty little head about what's in there because it's Not His Problem.

But we both get quite whiny and almost childish sometimes if the other one ever asks us to do stuff or even venture an opinion about the other's 'sphere'. Not always the most sensible way to do things, although we do have a more even split in housework and childcare than almost anyone I know. But we definitely both 'lean' in the way you mention.

Like Atlas, once you take on a burden you are lumbered with it for good.
A man is often in a position to 'trick his partner into willingly making the wife work her problem
Having shouldered the burden she is unable to shed it

The point was made a while ago on the thread

No-one will judge them if they don't

But I think this is crucially important.

Regardless of who does the housework it's the women who are judged on the level of cleanliness.

Also talking about percentages I think is a false premise.

My dp does say 90% of what is actually done.

But I'm sure he didn't do as much as households where a samh does 90%.

Ie he does all the hoovering but only does it weekly whereas women I know who do it do it daily.
Same with the bathroom. He won't clean it more than monthly. He does 100% of that ask but spends several hours a month less on the task than a 100% woman who does it daily!

Lightbulb- I think you make a couple of good points. I'm not sure whether nowadays people actually judge the woman for an untidy home etc where both parents work but most women I know feel that they will be judged. I think this is partly through experience of either being judged or hearing people judge others but also partly a subconscious feeling that the state of the home and family is our responsibility.

As mentioned upthread, I am in quite an interesting position in that my DH was a SAHP whilst our DC were very young whilst I worked long hours. He did most of the housework/childcare etc. We have now effectively swapped roles (except that he works shorter hours than I did and the DC are not babies but still young enough to need lots of care). I have noticed some definite differences in our approaches to the job. The house is by no means spotless on my watch but I do tend to clean/tidy as I go along (ie wiping down the kitchen surfaces whilst the kettle boils, wiping down the bathroom sink whilst DC are in the bath, hoovering whilst the bath runs etc). DH did housework as a series of separate tasks- so the bathroom would be cleaned thoroughly every week but (except for children's 'accidents' obviously) not at all in between. Similarly he would do a daily clean of the kitchen worktops but leave small amounts of mess from lunch/snacks in between. I think part of the difference comes down to the fact that he would happily invite someone in for coffee with the place in a mess whereas I feel the need to run round doing an emergency clean up if anyone calls to ask if they can drop in.

This is all really interesting. But I can't shake the feeling, reading it, that there's an underlying assumption that they are men and thus somehow inherently selfish and lazy, and that's why.

Does that not make anyone else slightly uncomfortable?

I'm a woman. I'm shit at most of the assumed traditional 'female' roles around the house and don't care very much about them. I don't feel that being a woman makes me in anyway care more about tidiness or cleanliness. I'm probably quite selfish and lazy when it comes to things around the house too.

The flip side of assuming that all men are just selfish and lazy is assuming that all women are, say, unselfish and hard working.

Surely neither assumption is right?

I think there are very few feminists who haven't had to deal with this, even those of us married to the 'good guys'. Mine DH is great compared to most but what we had wasn't 50%; this wasn't acceptable to me and I couldn't see how it could be acceptable to him. We had the usual discussions about my apparently having higher standards and his just 'not seeing' what had to be done, and we had one go at a roster: I wrote it, he ignored it.

I could not then and still cannot understand how anyone can watch their partner driven to despair without accepting the basic premise that housework must be shared. This all caused so many problems that I said I'd leave if he didn't change and so I did. That's when it hit home. Things since then have been much better, pretty much 50/50. But DH knows this is a line in the sand for me and we have both learned to split things reasonably and in a way that reflects our strengths, pet hates and work patterns.

This might seem drastic but I could not live without the level of respect a fair division of labour implies. I could not bring up my DC to see it either. My DH was indulged by his mum, but I was brought up in a very sexist household too. I saw it for what it was and changed? Why shouldn't men be expected to challenge their conditioning too? Feminists have had to do this for centuries.

Happyon - that is a fucking excellent point about questioning one's conditioning. I'd always assumed that dh was a 50/50 guy because he was brought up by a single Mum. However, his extended family are very sexist in their outlook so I perhaps shouldn't credit his upbringing.

I remember once having a discussion about housework and he said something along the lines of it being obvious for partners to share the load. He actually thinks most men do I reckon. He clearly doesn't read Mumsnet.

"that there's an underlying assumption that they are men and thus somehow inherently selfish and lazy, and that's why."

Really? Or is there an underlying assumption that our patriarchal society defaults to an assumption that women are workhorses and men are looked after, and it is quite an unusual person (quite an unusual man) who will make the huge efforts required to go against the grain of society by taking a myriad of small decisions, every day, that are actually to one's disadvantage?

I agree with maudlin. I think it is easy to default to a 'men are just lazy' line, but the fact is it is just easier to not bother doing something you were never expected to do in the first place. In fact it is simpler not to be exceptional and just fit in with the standard roles then to make the conscious effort to be different. This goes for women as much as men. If societal expectations were reversed I don't believe women would do anymore housework than men.

Hell yes, I'd sit back and ride that gravy train

The "underlying assumption" that I will own up to, is that women are not responsible for this, which is what I think Thurlow is suggesting. I have seen so many women banging their head against this brick wall, and there are just no techniques that work to get a man to pull his weight at home. I have seen countless threads on here about it, and there is hardly ever ta positive change in the man’s behaviour. The only time there is, is when the woman threatens to leave, and means it. I do not blame the women who do not dare to risk their relationship and their children’s home on this point. And that is what it takes.

the people who can change this are men. And they don't want to. they really don't want to.

I am very weary of this. I have given a huge amount of thought to this particular issue.

I would love to get in a room with a load of old school second wavers and hear their thoughts on where we've ended up with the old "wages for housework" demand. It's such a raw issue for me and so generally ignored.