Thursday 6 August 2009

MCP Watch: some of them can do housework

Further to the Quick Hit yesterday about The Egalitarian Index, I was pretty unimpressed by the "house husband" Checkpoint called upon for comment yesterday.
"I've got two hands. I can dust and vacuum at the same time. You don't see any women doing that." (I paraphrase)
That's right, women are well known for their widespread inability to multitask. Plus it is an oft stated biological fact that women only have one hand.
"I like to get it all done in one go. Women take lots of coffee breaks. I don't do that, because I like getting it done and then having spare time." (again with the paraphrasing)
Because coffee breaks are not spare time, and a man's spare time is of infinitely more value than a woman's coffee break.

Yes, I'm grumpy.

4 comments:

Anna said...

If housework is so effortless and easy, why aren't men falling over themselves to do it? Hmmm.

A Nonny Moose said...

Because it's work for lower class citizens, silly. A man only lowers himself to do housework when he absolutely must, and that's when a woman has "failed" to do it (because they're too busy doing selfish things like bringing up a kid, having a job outside the home, or looking after sick family or...or...)

DPF:TLDR said...

I do have some sympathy for these men - being good at housework is something to be proud of. And there is a rather persistent meme out there that "men suck at housework, they don't know what they're doing", one which I think everybody has an interest in overturning. So, really, I'd love to see more stories of men expressing pride in their skill at housework, it'd just be nice if they didn't so by denigrating women, or even one specific woman.

Julie said...

I agree Hugh. My partner does most of the housework these days and does take quite a bit of pride in it.

I suppose though that there are some men who feel they have to sort of overcompensate for doing women's work, and so they grunt it up?