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Incremental Progress But Still Progress: "Almost One-Third of Men Are Now Principal Shoppers in the Household"

Thu, 2009-07-02 08:45 — figleaf

Sadie of Jezebel says

n the last 20 years, household roles have shifted: whereas the supermarket used to be the woman’s domain, today “almost one-third of men are now the principal shoppers in the household.”

Read Sadie’s quote in context here.

This isn’t exactly breaking news to the principal shoppers in households. This is good news though.

The sooner we can get to really, serious equal divisions of labor the sooner we’ll get away from that egregious “there’s nothing sexier than a man doing [some item of housework].” And towards, oh, say, “there’s nothing sexier than having lots of spare time for each other because all domestic tasks done in half the time because we split the work.”

If you’re an adult you can click here to see a not-very-work-safe housekeeping image.

Thu, 2009-07-02 17:30 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink

What exactly does that figure take into account, though? In households where the shopping is done more or less evenly, are neither of them considered “primary shoppers”, are both of them, or does the figure only apply to households where it’s not even? Whichever of those is the case makes a vast difference in how the figure would be interpreted.

Thu, 2009-07-02 19:59 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink

My new URL is http://britisstillshameless.blogspot.com/

Plz to update sidebars and such!

Thu, 2009-07-02 23:24 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink
I’d suggest not stopping at trying to get men (and children) to do a larger share of domestic work. I think we should eliminate the systematic way in which these jobs have been made more labor intensive than they have to be. Since the evolution of “housework” in modern society was designed and rigged to enslave women, the solution is to redesign it in such a way to drastically minimize the time and labor involved, rather than solely trying to get men to share in the drudgery equally.
Fri, 2009-07-03 03:36 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink

My dad did the shopping for different reasons than to equalize house hold work. That is what we kids were for.

Fri, 2009-07-03 11:26 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink

Back when there was a significant other in my household, we split the work; mine was inside and his was outside. Seemed like an uneven division at the time, but you could not have paid me to take care of the yard, and I much preferred taking care of the interior domestic chores.

As five of nine commented, so much of the housework fell to the kids. My son loves to remind me of the time my friend responded with astonishment that we did not have a dishwasher. My response was ‘But I have four dishwashers…each one of my children!’

Wed, 2009-07-08 12:24 — 3046 (not verified) #permalink

One of the liberating things about a non-sex-roles-based division of household labor is that you can ask people to do the tasks they don’t mind doing so much, and then split the really awful ones evenly—thereby minimizing annoyance.

Any gender-based system, or rebellion against same, leads to people getting snookered into doing chores they particularly loathe. I think this is unequivocally a bad thing.

So I pay bills and sort mail and empty cat litter, and he vacuums and does laundry, and we split the garbage and dishes and cooking. If he pays the bills they don’t get done on time. If I do the laundry it doesn’t get done on time. If either one of us has to do all the dishes, s/he feels oppressed. So we have an arrangement that more or less maximizes job satisfaction, and that’s got to leave more good feelings available for sex.

(If only…work and kids just not cooperating right now!)

Mary Kaye

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