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?

At least she got a piece commissioned in that far right rag Spectator so it was all worth it in the end totally bizarre.

This thread is a good example of how the sexism affecting women, particularly mothers, is completely invisible to a lot of people.

Well as long as the left have rows like this among themselves the Labour party remains unelectable.

I think that's about it nevertrustaninja

Her affront was at OJ's assumption that a) we all have more free time and b) that teenagers are a labour saving device. And by the way I'm firmly committed to teaching household jobs to children but anyone who argues it saves time or effort is not someone whose opinion I value.

@nevertrustaninja you forgot Julie Bindel who jumped in with something about sex work; I think replace 'cleaner' with sex worker and the left something something something. The whole thing was entirely bizarre.

a) we all have more free time

Some people do, many do not.

b)that teenagers are a labour saving device.

Certainly for me and many like me it was. My mum used to work nights and long hours. There was a rota and jobs were divided. I learnt to cook dinner for my family thus saving my mum an extra job when she'd sometimes get home around mid-night. I discovered at uni some people didn't even know how to make a bed, defrost chicken, shower regularly... it was a revelation to put it mildly.

I see you have left out the part of my post that deals with that point.Your mum did you a huge favour when she taught you to coo but I very much doubt she found it easier or quicker than doing it herself. We taught our son to cook from around age 11 and he's now reallyinto it but at the time it was a massive pain in the arse.

Cook.

At least she got a piece commissioned in that far right rag Spectator so it was all worth it in the end totally bizarre.

Well no doubt he'll squeeze a column out of his latest mansplaining episode in the Guardian soon enough, so a fruitful episode for both. Meanwhile the number of working class women they were both using as a weapon to hurl at each other asked to contribute to the broadsheets on the issue will likely remain at 0.

Certainly for me and many like me it was. My mum used to work nights and long hours. There was a rota and jobs were divided. I learnt to cook dinner for my family thus saving my mum an extra job when she'd sometimes get home around mid-night.

Arranging this will have involved labour. Even given that you were inclined to do it in the first place, which clearly not all teenagers are, you will have needed to be facilitated to learn those jobs, the rota drawn up and enforced. That was work, for the person who did it. It sounds like it was your mother. Her labour should be acknowledged.

Thus, if it's not in place already, what Owen is airily telling Sarah to do (and it 100% was her he was telling, not her and her partner, which is sexism he's rightly being criticised for) it will involve work. While the teens becoming better at domestic stuff is desirable in itself, it is not going to solve the problem of the household facilitator being exhausted by it.

Our son cooked tea once a week and we always made sure it was on a day when either I or partner was off work because neither of us had the energy to supervise him (teenage son) after a day at work. Of course we never told him that - we told him what a big help he was and how we wouldn't be able to manage without him.

@BlackberryCane I do think it was a bad faith argument on both sides tbh.

not her and her partner He was talking to her as it was HER on Twitter who'd quote tweeted him initially. He wasn't airily telling her to take on the extra load because she's a woman and that's what women do. I am no fan of Owen but distorting the optics to point score is really unbecoming. And rightly Sarah was told that it should not fall on a domestic worker if her husband and kids are lazy. Sarah had said the cleaning had been KILLING her - I don't know how anyone else does things but then if I were HER I would address it with my family - you know, like how families should communicate. That the mental load and domesticity usually falls on the woman is a factor but in this specific instance I could not imagine moaning on Twitter that cleaning is Killing me yet my 2 teens and husband aren't helping. I would have told her to talk to them too! As I said - I could not imagine being in a relationship with a man who 'can't see what needs doing - I am not going to parent/police my partner - if it gets to that the relationship is over. I am not Sarah's intended audience so up until that blew up I didn't know too much about her and apparently I was all the more better for it.

This thread is a good example of how the sexism affecting women, particularly mothers, is completely invisible to a lot of people.

I totally agree. It really is invisible.

Also agree with PPs that teaching kids household tasks takes months or years of consistent effort (mental load) when it would be easier to do the jobs yourself. Mental load also applies to the thousands of other skills that kids must learn and which disproportionately fall to mothers to teach.

Maintenance cleaning is a con - no point paying someone to ‘clean’ a house that needs to be cleaned beforehand. I prefer my deep cleans once a fortnight - yes they are more expensive but you get better value for money and I have paid my cleaner 20% as requested to ensure she keeps her full wage while furloughed.

Yes - always the mother's job and always the mother's fault.
'She's making a rod for her own back' is rarely directed at men with regards to parenting.

yes and of course its only cleaning that gets this treatment because cleaning is seen as women's work and is also the only thing that is relentless and never ends

as always the result is women shout at each other while men shrug their shoulders and pick up the pile of clean washing that needs folding and move it to another chair.......

Can I make a helpful suggestion? There are certain phrases that instantly demonstrate the user to be a moron. One such is "white feminism".

It is utterly pointless to argue with morons. Leave them alone until they get bored and go back to playing Kerplunk with their dog, or however it is they spend their time.

He was talking to her as it was HER on Twitter who'd quote tweeted him initially.

Sorry, but no.

Sarah Ditum mentioned having more cleaning to do both because of the presence of the teens and the other adult. He doesn't mention the other adult dong more as any kind of solution at all. The idea that he actually meant Sarah and her partner should both split the labour of managing the teens equally is implausible in itself given that he demonstrably doesn't understand the invisible labour that women do.

But even if we were to accept your version of events, he still advocates a solution to the problem that doesn't involve the male in the house doing more domestic work. That if anything makes it worse! There is no possible assessment of this that doesn't involve Owen doing some sexism. You are distorting the optics in trying to suggest otherwise, simply because you agree with his original premise.

Nope - he's too busy enjoying "childless privilege". Honestly, the state of it all.

@RoyalCorgi You are welcome to disagree with me but do not imply that I am a moron.

Is exactly what I take issue with, wrt to cleaning. I addressed this in my first post. It is NOT the case that capitalism has corrupted noble self sufficiency with cleaning. Hiring a cleaner is in fact disrupting a status quo whereby the work is violently extorted from one class of people by another.

The argument being made is that this is a narrow perspective in only consider male/female as classes. It ignores other types of class which come in to play with work, in this case the capitalist/proletariat class differential.

The Marxist influenced argument says that an economy based on wage work is inherently disadvantageous for workers. If that is true, feminism made a significant error in seeing freedom for women as being found in joining men in that inherently disadvantaged position and strengthening the position of capital. Assuming that difficulties in the relation of women to men could be solved by putting themselves in the same position as men only works, in a big picture sense, if men are in a good position. If they are not, then it strengthens the position of the class exploiting the workers by hastening the capitalisation of the economy.

That's not really true. A century ago, lots of people employed "domestics" (mainly women) not just the very wealthy but also the middle class

Yes, there has been some back and forth on this, but it doesn't really change the sense of the argument about capitalism, in fact the Victorian period is a rather stark example of the structural problems of capitalism. Again, it's not so much about particular working conditions.

There are certain phrases that instantly demonstrate the user to be a moron. One such is "white feminism".

Agree. It means 'I support oppressed groups to a point, but not to the extent that they should achieve true equality'.

I would never describe childlessness as a privilege, especially when I have no idea of that person's situation or whether it's a choice. I do think being a parent is a privilege and that teaching a child vital life skills can be very satisfying. But it's also exhausting and exasperating and as far as I'm concerned, anyone who claims it's an easy solution to a messy house could probably do with a few life skills lessons of their own.

Floisme There are some discussions I read esp on that thread that made me wonder if parents even like being parents or even like their own kids. If being "childless" is a privilege - and I take issue with the wording childless versus e.g. childfree; then why did they bother in the first place. I don't think anyone goes into parenting expecting it to be matching clothes and skipping through quaint villages 24/7...

“Of course it is her husband's responsibility too! But him being lazy and leaving it all to his wife does not mean that”

“her husband and kids are lazy”

“ Sarah married a layabout who doesn't pull their weight.”

So it’s men’s fault for not pulling their weight then? That’s why folk are employing cleaners during a pandemic - because of men