Owen Jones on Twitter today

[Bouledeneige]

twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1260134887165739009?s=21

A tweet that middle class people should pay their cleaner to not work quickly descended into 'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.' So frustrating the casual sexism. Why is it assumed women are responsible for cleaning their homes and not men. Most working women who can afford a cleaner do so because they have 3 jobs - their work, their childcare and their household. Why aren't the men they are married to taking more household responsibility?

OJ explained his situation - he is gay.

It is very difficult for a man who is same sex attracted to have their own child because their only options are adoption (difficult for anyone because you have to go through approval process) and surrogacy (discussed at length for many reasons on this board, but from a purely practical point of view, much more difficult than using a sperm donor).

None of this has anything to do with his gender identity. It is a consequence of sex.

I would have more sympathy for him if he didn't routinely deny that women need language to insist on sex based rights and protections. Having children isn't always a privilege or a choice.

I've probably confused something he's said then - apols to him if so. I thought he was of the opinion that TWAW and TMAM.
Obviously it is perfectly fine to be actually same-sex attracted, although many politically aware people deny this and say gender overrides sex (and sex is irrelevant). I'm not really interested in his own personal life, just more wanted to unpick what he was saying.

OJ wants us to acknowledge how his sexed body / sexual identity impacts on his ability to have his own children, but denies the sexed based oppression of women/girls.

Whilst I have natural sympathy for him - being gay does not stop a man’s desire to be a father - he’s a hypocrite and can’t have it both ways.

What’s ok for a gay man is a transphobic genital fetish for a lesbian. He manages to hold on to his male privilege and homosexuality whilst denying women or lesbians exist. You’ve gotta hand it to him, those are some impressive mental gymnastics he’s pulling off there.

Shocking revelation here but he's assumed the gender of his cleaner

LOJ tweets to confirm 'she' works 2.5 hrs per week to clean up his shit

He does think TWAW and TMAM pope, its just that he simultaneously believes the suggestion that he might therefore consider a physical relationship with a TM is homophobic. You can be forgiven for being confused though, what with that being a completely illogical position.

You’d have thought, given his contempt for hiring cleaners, he’d have offered to do the cleaning himself for his household? Like he’s expecting women to do. Too busy tapping away on a keyboard?

That’s actually infuriating. He had no choice but to have a cleaner because his flat mates didn’t want to divvy up 2.5hrs of cleaning between him and he couldn’t possibly say oh I’ll just do it all. Women whose partners don’t want to divvy up the housework with them should suck it up and do it themselves.

He’s a whole planet of hypocrisy wrapped up in an ozone layer of denial and delusion

I think I may loathe him as much as Jamie Oliver with his useful gems for those in food poverty like shell out for a whole salmon, it’s cheaper than buying fillets.

What gets me is that he was fronting over so little cleaning. Even in the unlikely event that he's done all of what the cleaner previously did, that's an extra 150 minutes in a week. On the more likely assumption they split it vaguely equally, and he lives with only two other people, that's an extra 50 minutes a week. And he had the fucking cheek to talk about how easy it is to fit the extra in.

I'm going to confess to still having my cleaners come. They are a husband and wife team recently relocated from Eastern Europe. The agency emailed me to ask if I still wanted them to come and I said yes, they live a few streets away. When they arrived they were really upset that everyone had canceled them but me, and they were now completely without any income and ineligible for any payments of any kind. So I increase their visits to twice a week. They come in with rubber gloves and disinfect my home. Minimal risk and they have some income. They hate not working and are very happy with the arrangement, are not exploited and now call me family. I realise this may annoy many but the three of us are very happy with this arrangement.

Thanks for letting me share my evil secrets

Yep-no kids laundry, mess created by and time spent on homeschooling, no having to prepare kids meals, shop for more than one person while remembering who will/won’t eat what, no fitting work around childcare and constant interruptions even when you’re trying to take a shit and no commute because he’s musing on a keyboard from home at the minute. No shit he’s got time to do a bit of housework.

And no emotional drain of trying to get kids, into and out of bed let alone motivate them to run the hoover round.

Life is easy when you’re single, without financial stress, only responsible for yourself and there’s only maintenance cleaning to do because you had a cleaner up until a few weeks ago? Again-no shit!?

Does he think being gay cancels out all other privileges he is blessed with?

That would be like me saying because I’m a single mum I don’t benefit from white privilege.

Does he think being gay cancels out all other privileges he is blessed with?

He has no problem being anti-lesbian. And if he’s saying that being gay means he can’t be in a relationship with a vagina owner then of course he’s transphobic.

Of course he tries to co-opt the concept of "lived experience" for his teenage years when his mum made him help out at home. The relevant "lived experience" in this situation is his mother's, not his. He says as a teenager "we devised the rota". I defy any parent of teens to imagine this as a labour saving device rather than another chore of teaching the kids what needs to be done in the house and making sure they do it. From the teen's perspective it always feels like they are doing more than they are.

Ds(13) hoovers his bedroom and the bathroom, landing and stairs about once a fortnight (that’s how long it takes for me to get sick of reminding and false promises and force the issue which takes energy). I dare say he may try and spin some story about growing up with a single mum and having to do all the housework but I’ll be outing him publicly if he spins it publicly.

Especially if your DS comes out with "we devised a scheme where I would hoover my bedroom ..." etc.

And if he’s saying that being gay means he can’t be in a relationship with a vagina owner then of course he’s transphobic.

Didn't he say it was homophobic to expect him to have a relationship with a transman? So he doesn't really believe that TWAW and TWAM.

Typo. Should have been "he doesn't really believe that TWAW and TMAM." Obviously.

Sanctimonious Morph made even more of a fool of himself than usual in that TV clip, didn't he? Hopefully the memes are being created as we speak.

Owen, mate, you're not a special exception whose employing a cleaner is different because your flatmates made you do it. Possession of a penis doesn't make your paying someone else to clean for you more moral than if a woman does the same.