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

[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... :-)