From time to time, the topic of housework will come up. As we all know, housework is rarely divided equally between partners in a heterosexual relationship. The bulk of the drudgery -- vacuuming, laundry, loading the dishwasher, cooking dinner, dusting, and so forth -- falls on women. There is a constant struggle in many heterosexual relationships between women, who see a need to make their homes clean and presentable, and men, who may like their homes clean, but would prefer not to do the work necessary to keep them so.
This is often presented as an ineludible truth of the male-female divide. Women, after all, took care of the caves on the savanna while men were out hunting wooly mammoths, plus women had to see minute clumps of dirt when they were foraging for the corn buried in the sands of the Sahara. It's just evolution, we're told, part of the yawning chasm that separates men from women.
But then again, there could be another explanation. Consider, if you will, this bit of national news from CNN:William Batson knows firsthand that when friends visit, they're likely to gather in the kitchen. The 6-year-old regularly invites guests into his play kitchen to prepare pretend meals, wash dishes or stow food in the refrigerator.
Yes, indeed, look at all the male chefs. Because, you know, why would you look at all the dads out there? It's not like they'll have to cook, right?
"The stove talks," says William, who lives in Phoenix.
Mary Batson bought her son a kitchen set before he could walk. She thought it was a great toy, although her husband, Alan, had doubts.
"He rolled his eyes," she says. "I said, 'What are you thinking? Look at all the male chefs."'
I suppose I shouldn't quibble; after all, the article does say: The idea of boys playing in kitchens seems more palatable to parents today than in earlier generations, probably because of how they were raised and how they run their households, says Dr. Michael Kaplan, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut.
So that's something, I guess.
"Men are reshaping and rethinking their roles," he says. "They are doing much more (cooking and housework) than they ever have."
Still, I think the fact that boys playing at cooking is national news is telling. Boys aren't supposed to cook. They're not encouraged to cook. They're encouraged to pound on things and fight. Girls, contrawise, all get a kitchen set at some point, even if they don't particularly want one. Because we all know that girls love to cook, and play with toy vacuums, and toy irons, and toy washing machines.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, incidentally. My daughter went through a phase when she wanted to play at domesticity, and that's fine; she's going to grow up to cook herself dinner many, many times in her life, even if she doesn't end up cooking for anyone else. But boys are going to grow up, too, and they're going to have to vacuum and dust and iron and clean just the same as girls do, because there's not always going to be someone around to do it -- to say nothing of the fact that it's not fair to expect someone else to do it.
I am willing to entertain the idea that there are some inherent differences in the nature of men and women, but there's no way for us to know right now. The fact is that we encourage our daughters to see themselves someday taking care of their household -- cleaning, cooking, diapering the baby, and so forth. And we encourage our sons to do anything but -- for it is still national news that a boy would deign to want to imagine something so girlish as cooking. We can't raise our children differently and expect them not to show differences when they grow up; we can't raise our boys to expect someone else to do the drudge work of daily life and then expect them to pitch in equally.
The solution, as always, is feminism -- it should be no more national news that a boy plays with a doll than that my daughter likes dinosaurs. It should be expected that we're going to raise our boys to imagine themselves someday cleaning, and our girls to imagine themselves someday welding. We need to make sure that we do not limit our children's imaginations, or it will be their futures themselves that we limit.
(Via Jezebel)
This is often presented as an ineludible truth of the male-female divide. Women, after all, took care of the caves on the savanna while men were out hunting wooly mammoths, plus women had to see minute clumps of dirt when they were foraging for the corn buried in the sands of the Sahara. It's just evolution, we're told, part of the yawning chasm that separates men from women.
But then again, there could be another explanation. Consider, if you will, this bit of national news from CNN:
William Batson knows firsthand that when friends visit, they're likely to gather in the kitchen. The 6-year-old regularly invites guests into his play kitchen to prepare pretend meals, wash dishes or stow food in the refrigerator.Yes, indeed, look at all the male chefs. Because, you know, why would you look at all the dads out there? It's not like they'll have to cook, right?
"The stove talks," says William, who lives in Phoenix.
Mary Batson bought her son a kitchen set before he could walk. She thought it was a great toy, although her husband, Alan, had doubts.
"He rolled his eyes," she says. "I said, 'What are you thinking? Look at all the male chefs."'
I suppose I shouldn't quibble; after all, the article does say:
The idea of boys playing in kitchens seems more palatable to parents today than in earlier generations, probably because of how they were raised and how they run their households, says Dr. Michael Kaplan, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut.So that's something, I guess.
"Men are reshaping and rethinking their roles," he says. "They are doing much more (cooking and housework) than they ever have."
Still, I think the fact that boys playing at cooking is national news is telling. Boys aren't supposed to cook. They're not encouraged to cook. They're encouraged to pound on things and fight. Girls, contrawise, all get a kitchen set at some point, even if they don't particularly want one. Because we all know that girls love to cook, and play with toy vacuums, and toy irons, and toy washing machines.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, incidentally. My daughter went through a phase when she wanted to play at domesticity, and that's fine; she's going to grow up to cook herself dinner many, many times in her life, even if she doesn't end up cooking for anyone else. But boys are going to grow up, too, and they're going to have to vacuum and dust and iron and clean just the same as girls do, because there's not always going to be someone around to do it -- to say nothing of the fact that it's not fair to expect someone else to do it.
I am willing to entertain the idea that there are some inherent differences in the nature of men and women, but there's no way for us to know right now. The fact is that we encourage our daughters to see themselves someday taking care of their household -- cleaning, cooking, diapering the baby, and so forth. And we encourage our sons to do anything but -- for it is still national news that a boy would deign to want to imagine something so girlish as cooking. We can't raise our children differently and expect them not to show differences when they grow up; we can't raise our boys to expect someone else to do the drudge work of daily life and then expect them to pitch in equally.
The solution, as always, is feminism -- it should be no more national news that a boy plays with a doll than that my daughter likes dinosaurs. It should be expected that we're going to raise our boys to imagine themselves someday cleaning, and our girls to imagine themselves someday welding. We need to make sure that we do not limit our children's imaginations, or it will be their futures themselves that we limit.
(Via Jezebel)
