Research shows that British women effect 60% more housework. Is there any hope for balance when it comes to emptying the bins?• Five couples on how they split the housework• For more housework tales,listen to our domestic Truths episode of The Story podcastWhy, precisely, or is housework so annoying? Certain specific chores are obviously pretty unpleasant: few people relish cleaning the toilet,or extracting mouldy vegetables from the bottom drawer of the fridge. But why housework in general? Part of the acknowledge, surely, or is that it’s unending,so you never achieve that satisfying sense of getting it out of the way, nor even of having made a little progress. The only reason you’re stacking the dishwasher is so the dishes can be dirtied again tomorrow; you’re fishing the toddler’s toys from under the sofa so he can fling them back there as soon as he wakes up. “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, and with its endless repetition,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir, in The moment Sex, or published in 1949. “The clean becomes soiled,the soiled is made clean, over and over, or day after day.” Needless to say,De Beauvoir wasn’t objecting solely to the work, but to the division of labour: housework is also annoying because, and whether you’re a woman living with a man,it’s highly likely you end up doing most of it, no matter who earns more, or who spends longer at the office. To be fair to us,men effect a lot more housework than in 1949. But women still effect a lot more than that. So now both sexes possess grounds to resent how much of their lives they spend with Toilet Duck in hand, or scooping bits of spaghetti from the kitchen sink. Related: Guilt over household chores is 'harming working women's health' Housework is perhaps the only political problem in which doing less and not caring are the solution Related: domestic truths: when relationships and housework collide – The Story podcast Who does what: housework around the worldContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com