And so softly, I do the dishes, I feed the fishes.

[leahbobet]

The people, they are talkin' about masculinity, and the notion of the Real Man, and domesticity as it relates to that. Mostly because of the Superbowl ads this year, which I didn't see.

tithenai takes a different tack on it, and is smart about why men she finds attractive do the dishes.

She said the following, which made something go off in my head:

"Men I find attractive do the dishes because dishes need to be done. These men cook. They eat fruit. They make bread. They clean up after themselves, not to impress me, but because they are responsible, autonomous adults. Self-sufficiency, you see, is sexy. Not because it means they'll look after me -- an idea which frankly makes my skin crawl -- but because it means that they don't need me to look after them."

And WHAM. I have realized the disconnect between how Superbowl commercials, pop culture, the world views housework and how I view it with regards to who's doing what when to who.

People who leave dishes piled up in the sink, not seeing it as their problem, aren't, in my world, full adults. If they look at something that to any grownup is obviously a task needing to be done and don't see a task needing to be done, that...er, means they're kind of an idiot. Something is clearly wrong with their perception of the objective world if they can't put together dirty sock on the floor = unsightly and dirty sock on the floor = mine and come up with well, let's stick that in the laundry bag. Either that or they're not capable of sticking it in the laundry bag.

I'm a Batman girl. I like competence.* I find competence exceedingly attractive.***

So any guy who is trying to make me do the dishes all the time or can't handle his half of a household's work is making the argument to me that he is incompetent in some fashion, even if that fashion is just logic or consideration. If he can't handle a dish or a sock, well, sheesh, I can handle that even when I have the flu. It's not even a question of me having to take care of someone, like tithenai mentioned; it's just...really? I can do something without thinking about it and you can't do it at all?

It gets very hard to respect such a person after a very short while.


*Dudes who are applying to this office to date me, take note!**
**No, I joke. I am aware that nobody who reads this LJ is actually applying to this office to date me.
***Okay, it doesn't hurt if you're voiced by Kevin Conroy too.

Comments

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

You know, competence is sexy-- but for those of us with offspring, it's often hard to see the competence beneath the blanket of stuff one can't do.

For instance, you cite 'people who leave dishes in the sink' as not being real adults. I left a sink full of dishes (and a washer full of clean dishes) downstairs so I could come up and bathe the kid and then put laundry away for the kids and myself.

And I wonder, when my husband comes in, will he see the dishes I didn't do as a sign I don't love him, or the laundry put away and clean daughter as a sign that I do...?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I think the important bit for me in the people who leave dishes in the sink example is "not seeing it as their problem." And while I totally get your point, I think that in a household, it really gets apparent when someone's systemically not doing things not because they're busy or overwhelmed or there was something else that needed doing, but because they don't think it's their problem.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

FWIW, the follow up after I'd put Lillian in bed was,

"Honey, when the girl-child finally goes to sleep, will you PLEASE clear the washer so that I can do the dishes?"

(And now, the question becomes, do I get mad because he can clear the dishes himself, or do I thank him for being willing to load the washer and THEN go shovel...?)

Households are tricky.

[tchernabyelo.livejournal.com]

The "leaving dirty socks around" doesn't necessarily mean that a man won't do the laundry when it needs doing, it just means that said man doesn't have the same values as regards what is visually acceptable in their (own or shared) personal space.

Another example of this is bedding. We have five pillows on our bed. Two of them are removed every night as they are purely decorative and not there for lying sleeping heads on. Then in the morning, we (or one of us, depending on the day's schedule) make the bed, being sure to put those pillows back.

I freely admit that I have abslutely no idea why my wife considers these pillows necessary. She tells me the bed "looks nicer". I really genuinely cannot see why we spend those few moments every day moving purely decorative pillows.

Similarly, I think there was an old definition of a bachelor as "someone who washes up before eating, rather than after" - i.e men would leave the dirty dishes etc to pile up until they needed to reuse one of them, and THEN wash everything up in one big go. I've certainly experienced this.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there are still some gender/cultural differences in the equation. And perhaps because of those differences - the (nominally female) "a task needs doing so I wll do it now" vs the (nominally male) "I will do the task as and when it is definitively required" - women end up taking on domestic tasks. And men, therefore, are content to let them.

(Yes, there will be many many exceptions to this; I am talking in generalisations, and I don;t like doing it, but the debate seems to be based on, and indeed about, such generalisations. There are and always will be exceptions)

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

We put the decorative pillows on the bed, because they came with the bed-in-a-bag. Plus, being decorative pillows, they haven't lost the fluffy oomph that the regular pillows have. So honestly I do think it makes the bed look better....but we wouldn't have them if they hadn't come with the box itself.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

Nobody who is reading today may be applying, but you can bet that those dudes who do apply will at some point Google you, find this post, and realize that there are dishes that need doing :).

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

...you make that sound peculiarly like a threat. :/

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

[For clarity, they will realize that they need to do dishes to stay on your good side, not that they need to tell you to do dishes. Clarity is hard, which is why I'm not a writer :P ]

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Nah, sorry. I'm just insecure at odd moments this week. Don't mind me, honest.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The thing about self-sufficiency is that it always reminds me of that Heinlein quote about all the things a human being should be able to do, and this makes me want to jump up and down and metaphorically beat Heinlein about the head, because if everyone has to be a generalist, you lose all the advantages to mutual support permitting specialists. (I do databases of genetic information. These are tools to make tools to save lives. The complexity of the social support net work it takes for me to do that is huge; but so is the relative contribution I can make compared to what good it would do humanity as a whole were I a subsistence farmer.)

(Specialisation is not for insects. Specialisation is for civilisations)

I also twitch a little because I spend quite a lot of effort fighting off the OCDish tendencies that lead me to straighten all the books on a bookshelf because it's clearly my job to fix that unbearable unsightliness right now; part of my coping with that involves repeating to myself that it is OK for mature adults to differ in what they see as immediate priorities.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what Heinlein's metric is, but I'm not picky. Mostly it's the skillset of modern maintenance behaviours that a single adult living alone would be expected to handle: feed yourself, keep yourself and your space and your stuff reasonably clean, and keep on top of the bills.

[matt_doyle]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -R.A.H.

Which I neither agree nor disagree with, but I am a compulsive cross-referencer.

Now, coincidentally and unironically, I'm off to do some dishes.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Hee. Happy dish-killing.

(And yeah, I think maybe that's a little broad there, Heinlein.)

[matt_doyle]

I think the general principle is fine, but yeah, enough of his examples require specialized training that it doesn't really sound like a practical list... :-)

[c0untmystars.livejournal.com]

If they look at something that to any grownup is obviously a task needing to be done and don't see a task needing to be done, that...er, means they're kind of an idiot.

YES. THIS.

(why do I not have a "RAAAAAAR PATRIARCHY" icon?)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I don't actually get to use mine all that much anymore. Which is...actually kinda nice.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The difficulty is the definition of what is reasonable for any grownup. For example, my mother taught me that in order to have a house that could be considered livable, I literally had to scour every surface in the kitchen and bathrooms with boiling water once a week. This is not sane. My boyfriend B.'s parents considered it inappropriate for him to learn how to use a needle and thread, so that he spent a decade of his adult life throwing out shirts whenever they lost a visible button. I am now trying to teach him to sew, but we are having to work from a foundation of 'could not identify a needle by sight', so it is taking a while. This is also not sane.

Clearly, in these two cases, each of us has standards screwed over by the cultural definitions of masculine and feminine behavior that we were raised with. The real problems come in the edge cases, where I look at it and say, that so clearly needs to be done! because every standard I was raised with says it does, and he looks at it and says, what are you talking about, because his standards say that's a thing that's perfectly livable, and there is no objectively correct answer. It has taken me a long time to learn that there isn't; it's taken him a long time to realize there are reasons behind the kinds of, say, cleaning that I think ought to happen. And that's with each of us aware of the problem and actively fighting the way we were raised.

So I guess what I'm saying is 'obvious tasks are not obvious', and also that one of the major problems I have with the mindset of those Super Bowl ads is that they represent the whole system of learning what things really do need to be done and how to do them as an unmasculine, devalued, and devaluing set of not even skills but menial tasks. Which it isn't, and they are so not helping people to learn that.

[joane.livejournal.com]

"there is no objectively correct answer"

Yes, this, exactly. Once you get beyond a certain level of basic care (and I'm talking bugs/mold/salmonella-free as a basic because they directly impinge on health), the rest is just what you've been trained to see as an acceptable standard. Part of living with someone is coming to terms with the fact that things will not always be done exactly as you want them, unless you are willing to do everything yourself.

At our house we divvied up chores based on mutual preference. So he deals with everything dish-related, while laundry and bathrooms are my problem. But that means no gatekeeping by either of us as well. So if the pots sit in the sink an extra day because the boy is bogged down in freelance, I can either wash 'em or let it be, but I don't get to bitch. Ditto the laundry - if he runs out of underwear because I'm in grad school hell for a week, he can put in a load, but doesn't get to complain about how I'm doing things.

It's meant letting go of the concept that naturally my way is the Correct And Proper Thing, but I'd rather be married [to him, I should add, not in some desperate in-general-not-single way] than Always Right.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That is a point that is perhaps more thoughtful than mine. Thank you for it.

[haruhiko.livejournal.com]

Jezebel (I think) had an article on this year's Superbowl commercials and how there was a running theme of the ~poor men emasculated by feminism~ needing to buy said advertised certain product to reclaim their hairy-chested manliness-flavored testosteroni and cheese.

I just love how men growing up and acting like adults and not always getting their way and behaving the way conscientious, mindful people should behave are suddenly deemed "emasculated."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think the people who are saying there is no one right way are correct, and their rightness in no way means that there are not also lots and lots of wrong ways.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Well, I am the person whose house is a complete mess. I leave dishes in the sink for days on end (hey, it's an improvement from "weeks," which it was a number of years ago). I own a vacuum cleaner but I don't use it, and the only reason the laundry eventually finds its way into the basket, usually on wash day, is because it's easier to carry to the washer in the basket.

However, I am well aware of my tendencies, and this is why I choose to live alone.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I think it might also be a different story when one isn't putting someone else out. There's a difference, at least to me, between doing something just as a behaviour and doing something when one knows it creates more work or upsets another person.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

I like competence.* I find competence exceedingly attractive.***

I agree. For me, the parts of this post that resonate are less about how people were raised and how things are now than about how I would like them to be.

And, for me, that means I find people attractive who are aware of their own competence and who don't hesitate to use it, and who also don't hesitate to expand it. I don't mind someone not knowing how to do something nearly so much as I mind someone who doesn't think they could learn to do it, or who sees no reason to learn how to get things done. (Yes, I agree that defining what's necessary is tricky -- but I think it's part of who's compatible with my lifestyle.)

It also means -- and this is really important to me -- that they assume I am competent or could become competent as a particular task. I've found this far rarer among men than I personally would like. That said, I have a (male) furnace mechanic who taught me how to take the furnace apart and change filters, sensors, and nozzles, without ever asking me why I wanted to learn or assuming I would have a hard time learning or doing the task. I have a (male) car mechanic who listens to what I describe and taught me how to change fuel filters, etc. These should not be rare, in my world. Yet I'm still looking for a plumber (the last one -- male -- asked me if I was married as part of the plumbing diagnosis). (Luckily, my dad -- male, and not of my generation -- said of course I could fix my faucet myself and explained the process over the phone.)

I'm finding men who do housework a lot more common than men who assume I know what kind of car/furnace/computer/degree I have, these days. Even other women don't often assume I could have competence in these areas. But I am extremely encouraged by the ones who exist.