Forty years of feminism – but women still do most of the housework

[Neoma]

Brace yourself for the most maritally divisive piece of news you'll hear all week: married women do more housework than their husbands. Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank shows that eight out of 10 married women do more household chores, while just one in 10 married men does an equal amount of cleaning and washing as his wife.

Just over one in 10 women – 13% – say their husbands do more housework than they do, while only 3% of married women do fewer than three hours a week, with almost half doing 13 hours or more.

In short, the gender imbalance is alive and thriving in the British household, according to the IPPR, which says its research shows that, for real equality, society needs to see men to pick up the vacuum cleaner and do their fair share.

More at Link

Well, they're British, but I doubt it's much different here in the U.S.

[appleannie1]

1. It is the same in the US but it has been improving. I used to teach a class at my home. One night

one of my students stopped what she was doing and asked "Is your husband doing the dishes?" I answered "probably". She looked shocked and asked "How did you get him to do that". My answer was simple "He eats here too". However. I don't allow him to do the laundry unless I am sick and he totally forgets we have a bathroom.

[Warpy]

2. The oldest Boomers found themselves new women but they were married to the same old men

and those men still considered themselves entitled to the full time services of an unpaid maid. We were the generation who found out "having it all" meant doing it all.

I'm glad to say things are changing, albeit at a very slow pace. Younger men on the whole are more interested in pitching in and doing household chores like laundry, dishwasher loading and unloading, and even cooking and without constant nagging followed by gushing over them when they actually get off their dead asses and do something.

IOW, if I were to take complete leave of my senses and want to remarry, I'd be a cougar. The younger variety seem a lot more egalitarian than their elder brethren.

[HockeyMom]

3. My Dad must have been a very unsual man in the 50s

especially as a "macho" longshoreman. He cooked. If wash need to be done, he did it. If he cooked dinner, Mom did the dishes. If Mom cooked, he did the dishes. If the floor was sticky and needed to be mopped, he mopped. It was pretty much whatever needed to be done was done by whoever was around or had the time to do it. It worked out to be about equal that way. My Mom also worked back in the 50s when I was little. Dad got home from work earlier than she did from her office, so he started to do things when he got home.

Well, Dad was a DEMOCRAT. Is that the difference?

[MADem]

23. I was raised that way, too. I guess it's why I don't "get" a lot of stereotypes, particularly when

it comes to TV ads. The hapless husband fretting over opening the frozen dish and putting it in the oven? The idiot who is paralyzed in front of the fridge because he doesn't know what to "do" for dinner?

I'm screaming at the TV, saying "What in hell is the matter with you assholes? Make some friken pasta with vegetables, or beans and rice, or something! It's NOT rocket science!"

[Gman]

4. If women leave the housework to men

women know what the house will look like. Men go not need to nest. In a primal way, they're happy with just about anything.

of course the natural answer is they could help. But the outcome would be no better than getting a child to help. No, actually a child would do better.

Don't mean to butt into this forum, but it's a running discussion my wife and I have. So we've separated chores. I take care of things outside, she does inside. And there's a lot more that needs minding outside. It's a bigger area, large lot and constant work if we want it to look nice. I also probably cook more too. I'm home from work usually first. She works a long hard day, I have days I work out of the house. In short, we have an arrangement for what needs to be done and it works.

[snooper2]

6. Yeah, because us stupid men don't know how to use a sponge

Odd how I and all my married male friends all do housework without even "thinking" about it..

I think the problem here is people's opinions are skewed as most posters are retired and from a different generation. Go out and talk to a bunch of couples in your 30's. You'll find a lot more guys grabbing the swiffer and matching socks together than you think! And we had a small get togther at our house on Saturday. Marty and I did all the prep and cooking, our wives did work making margarita's

[Gman]

7. Well, then you've been trained well

as for parties, and we throw some big ones a couple of times a year, I do the prep work. Regardless, I could never meet her standards for cleaning house so she does it.

[snooper2]

8. "trained well" , I guess some PC folks would take offense to that...

LOL

No, I learned how to wash clothes and clean dishes by well, doing it living on my own. My mom didn't even "train" me, I grew up in a slobby house. Shit, we had egg incubators on the kitchen table in winter time

[kestrel91316]

5. My BIL is a very capable house husband. He LOVES to cook,

so dinner is his responsibility. My sister does the grocery shopping most the time, and helps in the kitchen at holidays, and does desserts (which are not everyday). She does the kitchen clean-up.

They both vacuum and do laundry, and he diapered the kids as much as she did.

Their work schedules for 25 years have put him at home at dinnertime when she isn't 3-5 times a week. It just worked out that way and he's a gem. He was a capable, independent bachelor before marriage, and it helps, I am sure, that he is a liberal Democrat.

[MADem]

25. Come to think of it, mine is too.

My sister is lucky. He used to cook as a kid for a summer job, and he's good. He also LIKES to shop for groceries--he's a thrifty so and so, and he maps out the sales and goes from place to place getting the best deals.

He used to do most of the cleaning--now that they are both retired, she's picked up some of the slack in that regard.

[ZombieHorde]

9. I do dishes, laundry, and garbage, but I almost never vacuum. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. I know there's the patriarchy thing, but could it also be because...

... in general women are somewhat cleaner?

At my college there were coed dorms, but there were dorms that were all guys and all girls dorms. Believe me, the girls' dorms were clean. The guys? Uh... and the smell...

[Neoma]

11. My dad and husband disprove that theory...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

12. They're great exceptions? nt

[Neoma]

14. They both know how to work as a team.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. I think that's part of our problem in the U.S. - we don't work as teams

We are into this independent, isolated focus. Everyone is supposed to do everything alone. I think that's why Hillary Clinton was so attacked about mentioning the village. There's an anti-village mentality in the U.S.

[Neoma]

19. Being independent and going into isolation isn't entirely a bad thing.

You can get a lot of amazing things accomplished that way. It's only bad if that's all you do with your time. Need to breathe fresh air once and awhile.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

26. Americans live incredibly isolated lives already. Do they need a little MORE isolation?

Here are 3 articles on that. And I can post more.

Study: 25% of Americans have no one to confide in

Americans have a third fewer close friends and confidants than just two decades ago — a sign that people may be living lonelier, more isolated lives than in the past. In 1985, the average American had three people in whom to confide matters that were important to them, says a study in today's American Sociological Review. In 2004, that number dropped to two, and one in four had no close confidants at all.

"You usually don't see that kind of big social change in a couple of decades," says study co-author Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Close relationships are a safety net, she says. "Whether it's picking up a child or finding someone to help you out of the city in a hurricane, these are people we depend on." Also, research has linked social isolation and loneliness to mental and physical illness.

The study finds fewer contacts are from clubs and neighbors; people are relying more on

Continued here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-22-friendship_x.htm


Despite our inter-connectedness, we're now more alone than ever.

There are more than 300 million of us in the United States, and sometimes it seems like we're all friends on Facebook. But the sad truth is that Americans are lonelier than ever. Between 1985 and 2004, the number of people who said there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled, to 25 percent, according to Duke University researchers. Unfortunately, as a new study linking women to increased risk of heart disease shows, all this loneliness can be detrimental to our health.

The bad news doesn't just affect women. Social isolation in all adults has been linked to a raft of physical and mental ailments, including sleep disorders, high blood pressure, and an increased risk of depression and suicide. How lonely you feel today actually predicts how well you'll sleep tonight and how depressed you'll feel a year from now, says John T. Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and coauthor of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. Studies have shown that loneliness can cause stress levels to rise and can weaken the immune system. Lonely people also tend to have less healthy lifestyles, drinking more alcohol, eating more fattening food, and exercising less than those who are not lonely.

Continued here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/20/lonely-planet.html

The Lonely States of America

•More than half, 53.4 percent, do not have any confidants who aren't family. In 1985, 80 percent had at least one confidant who was not family; now only 57.2 percent do.
•The average size of Americans' social networks decreased by a third between 1985 and 2004, from 2.94 to 2.08; basically this means the loss of one confidant.

Though they are mostly into documenting not explaining, the authors do put out a couple of hypotheses. The main culprits are work time and commutes. Both have increased since 1985 and both take time away from families, friends and voluntary participation. As women entered the workforce in bulk, the total number of hours family members spent working outside the home went way up. As people fled the cities, suburbs and exurbs boomed and so did commute times.

I do suspect that this study overlooks one simple contributing factor, the decline of real geographic communities — places where people grow up where their parents grew up, where non-nuclear relatives live near by, where friendships and acquaintances go across generations.

More at: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500159_162-1762234.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody

[Neoma]

28. Ah, well, I don't believe that isolation equate loneliness 100% of the time.

The first article you show me is six years old and at the end, mentions how there are more entertainment options and says that the social networking online might counter this effect. The article might be a bit outdated there.

The second article has some wonderful quotes in it,

"The connection between single living and loneliness is in fact quite weak."
(snip)
"Loneliness can be relative: it has been defined as an aversive emotional response to a perceived discrepancy between a person's desired levels of social interaction and the contact they're actually receiving. People tend to measure themselves against others, feeling particularly alone in communities where social connection is the norm. That's why collectivist cultures, like those in Southern Europe, have higher levels of loneliness than individualist cultures, Cacioppo says. For the same reason, isolated individuals feel most acutely alone on holidays like Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving, when most people are surrounded by family and friends."
(snip)
"So how many friends do you need to avoid loneliness? There's no magic number, according to Cacioppo. An introvert might need one confidante not to feel lonely, whereas an extrovert might require two, three, or four bosom buddies."

The third article is an opinion piece where he responded to the journal article, 3 years later. The study he's citing was a bit hard to get to, as his link is dead, but I found it without having to chuck up $14, due to free registry, thankfully. In the American Sociological Review, the study says:

P.9(361) "In general, the core discussion networks in 2004 are more closely tied to each other, are more frequently, and are longer-term relationships. Even more than in 1985. The discussion networks we measure in 2004 are the closest of closest ties."
P.21(373) "Possibly, we will discover that it is not so much a matter of increasing isolation, but a shift in the form and type of connection." ..."The evidence that we present here maybe an indicator of a shift in structures of affiliation."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

29. I don't know if isolation could be good for human beings with human needs...

I know that it's shown to be unhealthy in every study on isolation. The studies show it, so I have to take it into consideration.

[snooper2]

13. It depends on what you are talking about, Women leave the bathroom in a mess

Public ones at least..

Here's even a study (from 97') about germs
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/25/health/really.html


I worked at a number of fast food places back in the day and we always flipped for who had to clean the womans bathroom. Cars as well, men tend to keep their cars cleaner. Now women on the other hand I think try to keep the interior of the home more neat. Of course these are all stereotypes so oh well

[Whisp]

15. I know why.

back when I had a full time job and a kid to look after, come home to make dinner, do chores, ragged tired. flop, then all over again - always exhausted.

if I went to a public bathroom during those days the last thing on my mind would be to 'clean up' there too. I never made a deliberate mess but no way I was going to pick up there too! lol.

Husband does the bigger nastier stuff so it all sort of works out. I sure wouldn't want to get rid of a fallen tree in the yard, etc., search out that little mouse visitor, etc., the stuff that he does.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. Women use more stuff in the bathroom lol Not to mention that we use lots of paper

I accidentally walked into the men's bathroom at a club, and the first thing that struck me (on the nose) was the smell of pee. ew!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

18. That's an interesting article. I think areas that don't get a cleaning

such as doorknobs, end up filthy.

[ZenLefty]

20. I can only speak for my own household.

Everything is split pretty evenly except the damn laundry, which I am forbidden to do. I keep breaking Laundry Rules. My girlfriend runs that laundry room so tight you have to fill out a mis-matched sock report.

It's okay if she's out of town for me to do my own laundry, but not hers. I can wash my towels, but am under strict written instructions about the sheets. Bras and panties? Can't even THINK about washing them.

I've tried to learn these laundry rules but that always leads to frustration and, oddly, more rules.

[MADem]

21. In my household, none of us do the housework....

...until it gets pretty cluttered, then we all pitch in until the next time.

We do have a "If you messed it up, clean it up" rule. And everyone does their own laundry.

[Neoma]

22. Can't use the "If you mess it up..." rule.

We have cats.

[MADem]

24. Ha ha!

No one can get a cat to do ANYTHING!

We had cats, now dogs--if a dog does something "inconvenient" (which wouldn't happen unless we were all gone out of the house--a rare thing) the first one who finds it gets to deal with it!

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. My standard of "clean" is about 1/4 of my wife's

So I do housework until I think it's clean, then I try to do 2x more.

... but the house is still half as clean as she'd like. C'est la vie.