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If my wife wrote this article, I'd be furious. I agree: This article is blatantly sexist, and the author is essentially complaining about her partner not tele
by JPKab 9y ago
If my wife wrote this article, I'd be furious.
I agree: This article is blatantly sexist, and the author is essentially complaining about her partner not telepathically reading her mind to "sense" her completely arbitrary standards for cleanliness in the home. She makes a big point of how she "controls the budget", and yet I have a strong suspicion that she wouldn't allow her husband to do so if he offered.
Let's be clear: Socks laying on the floor doesn't affect people's health. The standards of cleanliness adopted by western women (starting in the middle of the 20th century) were created by a patriarchal consumerist advertising industry working to market new chemical household cleaners. They are, scientifically, wholly excessive and even counterproductive. I say this as someone who keeps my home clean and uncluttered, and washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen every night.
Edit: The marketing psychology used for this prays on people who measure higher on tests for neurotic tendencies. From a statistical perspective, the distribution for women on this trait is significantly to the right of men. For more examples of "purity" marketing to people higher on the neuroticism scale, see numerous illogical products that are environmentally damaging: bottled water, soap with "cleansing beads", "flushable" wipes, etc, etc.
If I wrote a blog post ranting and raving about how my wife never wants to manage the maintenance of our vehicles, and how I'm emotionally tired of trying to get her to keep track of the mileage of her vehicle to ensure she gets an oil change, I'd be called a whiner at best and sexist at worst.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me tire of the self-proclaimed Northeastern intelligentsia. You can package this up as a well-written, intellectual essay all you want. It doesn't change the fact that this is no different than the person at lunch whining about their spouse to their coworkers while they all roll their eyes.
- EarthIsHome 9y ago> Socks laying on the floor doesn't affect people's health. You're missing the point. She mentions that the clean house isn't the goal, the clean house would "simply be a bonus" > complaining about her partner not telepathically reading her mind to "sense" her completely arbitrary standards She also makes the point that she has told him what she wants.
- brighteyes 9y ago> You're missing the point. She mentions that the clean house isn't the goal, the clean house would "simply be a bonus" But all she actually asked for is the clean house, that's the communication problem here.
- orthecreedence 9y agoNo, she asked for a cleaning service. Not a clean house.
- CaptSpify 9y ago> For Mother's Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service. I don't see her quoting what she told her husband, so we only have her summary to go off of. I think the details would be important here.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoHer instructions are clearly clear enough to her husband, who makes one call to a cleaning service before Mother's day.
- philh 9y ago> The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labor of a single task that had been nagging at the back of my mind. The clean house would simply be a bonus. The clean house is presumably a goal, here. Otherwise, the obvious solution is not to clean the house. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having the clean house as a goal. But it's important to know what your goals are, so that you can decide which actions will further your goals.)
- ZenoArrow 9y ago> "The clean house is presumably a goal, here." The goal is to reduce the mental burden of having to think about the cleaning.