on housework:
Beneath my friend’s seeming envy that day lay a profound skepticism. She didn’t genuinely believe I was lucky. Sure, she’d like to not have to do quite so much of the housework herself, but a male partner doing it - unless following strict and very detailed instructions - is completely out of the question. A man in the 21st century who knows where the vacuum cleaner bags are, or understands how to programme the washing machine is still an object of deep suspicion. It’s not natural, and it’s certainly not manly.
(...) As Madeline Bunting pointed out in a recent article in The Guardian, despite all the apparent progress in equal opportunities, society has never thought about redefining men’s roles. Women are allowed, in theory, to be equal with men, but only if they become more like men. Nobody ever suggests that men should change to become more like women - and why would they, when feminine = inferior?
(...) Often these kinds of household disputes seem to be solved by employing outside help - in effect, a paid wife for both the man and woman. But this only masks the problem rather than addressing it: employing someone - almost always a woman - at ridiculously low wages is just another way of expressing how inferior a woman’s ‘natural’ role really is when compared with the important male world of work and career.
(...) Early feminism tried to liberate women from housework and domestic chores, but what Betty Friedan and co forgot to point out was that some things, whether or not they are boring or menial or dirty, whether cooking, cleaning, washing, tidying, mending or child-rearing, will always need to be done. Saying that they are not worthy of women’s time hasn’t yet changed who does them; it has just ensured that the general perception of anyone - man or women - who does housework is entirely negative.