I'm primarily responsible for washing dishes, cooking, cleaning bathrooms, laundry, and general house cleaning. There are days when it is joyful and there are days when it feels bleak and oppressive. I CAN NOT IMAGINE what lifetimes felt like for women of my mother's generation.
Women of my mother's generation had a lifetime of this work forced on them, work which grew exponentially with each birth, many of which were unplanned. I'm looking at a few years of the current arrangement for a family of 3. My mother did it for 7 people for three decades.
If I had to stare down that 30 year tunnel, knowing full well my economic security hung in the balance, that my husband was missing in action much of the time, I'm not sure I would survive it. Men, do ALL the housework for a year. Only then will you understand what I'm getting at
The reactivity of women about men not doing their share of housework is born out of the lived experience of cleaning a bathroom for years only to watch it get wrecked by people for whom your work is INVISIBLE. And the "you knew what you were getting in to," argument is bullshit.
I have the luxury of having negotiated my agreement to take care of the house. My partner @thinkplay is our primary wage earner. Having agreed to this arrangement (and being grateful for it) does not change the drudgery or endlessness of it. The seeming invisibility of my work.
If my partner just assumed I would do all cooking and cleaning, childcare, along with my career, if I had NO CHOICE based solely on my gender, that I had to do it, it would be sickening, exhausting and oppressive. Why men can't muster the empathy to see this shocks me.
House work is not optional for any man. It is a moral failing to see it otherwise.
This post is available in article form on Medium. medium.com/@remakingmanho…
Mark Greene is the author of The Little #MeToo Book for Men and Remaking Manhood, available at Barnes & Noble online and Amazon.
At Barnes & Noble Online: barnesandnoble.com/w/the-little-m…
At Amazon: amazon.com/dp/0983466963
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