Savage Love
Just as you can say things
such as "pansy-assed," Dan, and it's funny, your boyfriend can shop and cook
for you and it's charming. But cooking and cleaning for a boyfriend when you're
a woman is not so picturesque. It's just old and tired. I understand where your
reply to Just That Into Him is coming from. I am bisexual and I like to shop
and cook for my girlfriend—in fact, there are a lot of things I would do
for a woman that I wouldn't do for a man (e.g., lingerie and pumps). It's not
that I don't like men as much, it's just that being a stereotypical woman in a heterosexual relationship is expected of me, so it's not a turn-on, it's just
business as usual. Cleaning up after men might be practical, but it won't
enhance the average het couple's sexual relationship.
I suspect your reply to JTIH was just a coy,
humorous way of making her realize that if she gets serious about mess-boy, she
will be picking up after him, just like his mommy.
Messy In Canada
I wanted to make a brief comment on your response to JTIH. While I am all for
people taking up whatever relationship roles make their twosomes, threesomes,
and foursomes work regardless of gender, completely discounting the
discrepancies between which work is deemed masculine and which is shoveled onto
women seems a little unfair. There's a reason feminists feel their leg hairs
pricking up when people suggest a woman follow around after her beau and pick
up everything he drops carelessly behind him: They've been doing it for
centuries, and it's a hard role/expectation to escape from. Straight men just
expecting their girlfriends to do their laundry if they buy them things creates
persistent inequity. And how many times a week do things around the house
really need to be moved and killed?
That being said, on an individual level, we can only go with the dynamics that work
for us. But a quick sentence peppered here or there sympathizing with girls who
keep finding the same expectant straight guys could do wonders for fag-feminist
diplomatic relations, instead of just dismissing the idea of gendered work
altogether.
A Not So Angry Feminist
First off, as a card-carrying feminist and all-purpose angry lady, let me say that
I'm COMPLETELY okay with what you had to say to Just That Into Him. There's
nothing wrong with a healthy division of labor as long as there's some attempt
to be equitable, and as long as the efforts of both sides are truly
appreciated.
That said, if you and your significant other live together, with other roommates,
and your habit is to let your SO pick up the slack for you on a regular basis,
YOUR ROOMMATES WILL NOTICE. If you ice the suck cake by constantly complaining
about how filthy everything is—while, again, never lifting a finger
yourself—YOUR ROOMMATES WILL NOTICE. They might eat your suck cake
uncomplaining (as might your SO), but you haven't fooled them. It sucks.
Cranky
I'm a 23-year-old female living with my boyfriend of about four-and-a-half years, and I am
incurably messy. Just am, always have been. My boyfriend, however, is a total
neat freak. He had a problem with my living style at first, but we've worked it
out nicely: I make sure to keep his areas free of my clutter, and every few
weeks or so, I'll get out of his hair while he goes on a cleaning binge and
picks up all of my crap. In return, I do everything I can to make his life
easier—cook, run errands, etc.—and I try not to nag him about
habits of his that I might not like (playing video games, for example). It
works out pretty well. No reason why people should get up in arms just because
the sexes happen to be switched around. It's a personality thing, not a gender
thing.
Blessed With A Cleaning Boy
Your advice to Just That Into Him didn't strike me as wrong because of its misogynistic overtones.
It struck me as wrong because it totally ignores the resentment that builds up
when one person picks up after another person. Did you not have parents or
something? Did you never see the look of frustration in your mother's eyes when
your dad left some socks out on the dining-room floor? After a certain point,
the woman gets fed up of feeling her cleaning goes unappreciated and starts to
nag. The guy responds to this with resentment, and you've got a really, truly
massive problem on your hands. While intensive cleaning (scrubbing the
bathroom, cleaning the stove, etc.) may be the work of only one partner,
picking up after yourself is something that should be expected of every adult.
Sensitive Engaged Man Envisions Nagging
I am a strong heterosexual woman. And I feel that no woman should ever clean up
after a man. Period. Full stop. The end. That's all, folks!
We are all individuals, responsible for ourselves and our messes. It's sweet that
your boyfriend plays the little lady around the house, Mr. Savage, but trotting
him out as an example to all women everywhere isn't going to win you any
arguments or friends. I don't care what sort of sexist role-playing scenarios a
couple of homos get up to behind their closed doors. When and if I ever marry
or move in with a man, I will make it clear from the start: I take care of
myself, he takes care of himself.
Never Doing His Laundry
I am not going to accuse you of being misogynist, but I have to
point out that once the honeymoon is over, what seem like tiny issues can
practically destroy a marriage. It may not be the clothes on the floor for all
couples, but I know from experience that if neither partner wants to pick them
up, then the one who ends up doing it can end up bitter and resentful. JTIH
needs to assess her true feelings about mess and household duties, and be
up-front about what condition things must be in generally for her to be happy,
and not just who is going to do what. Laundry is a lot less of a pain if the
dirty clothes are found in the hamper, for example, and not strewn throughout
the house. Furthermore, for all she knows, this guy "picked up" his place
before she arrived, and he's generally much messier. This discussion need not
happen right away, but it should happen when things begin to get serious, for
example if they are moving in together. There should be ground rules early on,
before an unbalanced housework load becomes an ingrained habit.
And incidentally, for what it's worth, statistics show that women
still do more than their share of unpaid work in heterosexual couples, even
when both are employed. The ratio becomes more equal with higher educational
status. So this may not be fundamentally a gender issue, but the culture
certainly presents us with an apparent uphill battle for women.
Catherine C
You knew you had it coming, right, Dan?
While your boyfriend picking up after you works for you and him, it's unlikely JTIH
is gung-ho to act as mommy to a middle-aged man. After all, you don't like
cleaning, do you? Presumably she doesn't either. If JTIH doesn't want to clean
up after the dude, nor come out and say he's a slob, how about giving him a
gift certificate for a couple of sessions with a maid? He'll get the point that
he's living in a pigpen, and that JTIH's obviously not going to fix it for him.
A Not Very Angry Woman
I'm a slob, my boyfriend is a slob. We're both in grad school, both work, very busy. So our
apartment was a disaster. It was embarrassing to have anyone over. So I went on
Craigslist and found us a maid. How can we afford it? Glad you asked: Our maid
pays us. He's this nice, middle-aged, submissive man, not much to look at, but
he comes to our house once a week and scrubs the bathrooms, does the dishes and
laundry, and anything else that needs doing. And he pays us $100 each week for
the privilege. Every once in a while, I give him a spanking. Hate housework?
Get a slave!
Slob Problem Solved
I'm a feminist woman and have been living with my boyfriend for two years. When he first moved
in, I couldn't believe how messy he was, and in spite of myself, I cleaned up
after him. I picked up his clothes, emptied ashtrays, scrubbed the bathroom.
But after a few months of him watching me do this, I think he got the hang of
it. I still do all of the down-and-dirty cleaning, but he now knows that
laundry belongs in the hamper, and dishes in the dishwasher. He cooks me
dinner, I scrub the pans. It's an equal relationship, as you say, we're just
both doing what we're good at.
Katrina