cleaning by gender
Oct. 10th, 2007 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishPandagon commenter Jeff Fecke nails it like Digby:
I’m a slob. And I prefer things neat to dirty. But I live on my own, and that means that I let things get dirty. Guess why? Because as a boy, I was never told that my value as a human being was directly tied to how neat I kept my house.
This is almost exactly right. Growing up, Mom and Jamie and I did weekly (or maybe biweekly?) house-cleaning, featuring vacuuming, dusting, and bathrooms divided in some fashion. I usually dusted and sometimes vacuumed. I never did the bathrooms, with the result that I actually had to rely on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
uilos to teach me how to clean a bathroom some years ago. (Yes, that is rather deeply embarrassing.) But keeping a clean house was never really made my responsibility. I was delegated to. I never owned those tasks. They weren't a part of me. Verdict: vacuuming is done when people are coming over (so, about once every three months), because that's what prompts me to notice the hair-between-the-toes (not really anything else, just the hair); bathroom is cleaned when I remember to (every month or two); and I think I dusted once when I got tired of having dusty bookshelves.
I was, however, told that my value as a human being was directly tied to how neat I kept my room-- not clean, per se, but neat. (Like most kids I had a perpetually messy room. Draw your own conclusions.) This is why, when you come to my house, you see very little in the way of clutter. Because god forbid I allow anyone to see Stuff, Just Lying Around And Being Untidy.
If I’d been told as a child that a dirty house reflected poorly on me as a man, I probably would be cleaner, but more neurotic about it. And that wouldn’t be a positive thing. And it isn’t a positive thing for the women who are dealing with it, because they were told, in so many ways, that a clean house proved their worth. Gee, I wonder why men don’t see dirt the way women do?
I’m a slob. And I prefer things neat to dirty. But I live on my own, and that means that I let things get dirty. Guess why? Because as a boy, I was never told that my value as a human being was directly tied to how neat I kept my house.
This is almost exactly right. Growing up, Mom and Jamie and I did weekly (or maybe biweekly?) house-cleaning, featuring vacuuming, dusting, and bathrooms divided in some fashion. I usually dusted and sometimes vacuumed. I never did the bathrooms, with the result that I actually had to rely on
uilos to teach me how to clean a bathroom some years ago. (Yes, that is rather deeply embarrassing.) But keeping a clean house was never really made my responsibility. I was delegated to. I never owned those tasks. They weren't a part of me. Verdict: vacuuming is done when people are coming over (so, about once every three months), because that's what prompts me to notice the hair-between-the-toes (not really anything else, just the hair); bathroom is cleaned when I remember to (every month or two); and I think I dusted once when I got tired of having dusty bookshelves.I was, however, told that my value as a human being was directly tied to how neat I kept my room-- not clean, per se, but neat. (Like most kids I had a perpetually messy room. Draw your own conclusions.) This is why, when you come to my house, you see very little in the way of clutter. Because god forbid I allow anyone to see Stuff, Just Lying Around And Being Untidy.
If I’d been told as a child that a dirty house reflected poorly on me as a man, I probably would be cleaner, but more neurotic about it. And that wouldn’t be a positive thing. And it isn’t a positive thing for the women who are dealing with it, because they were told, in so many ways, that a clean house proved their worth. Gee, I wonder why men don’t see dirt the way women do?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 01:40 am (UTC)I have a strange reaction to housework. I'm not that huge a fan of it but I hate having messy/dirty living space. And I'm not willing to pay someone to do what I am perfectly capable of doing on my own - maybe this would change if I had the income to pay someone to come in a vacuum once a week for me.