Housework Isn’t Gendered
How Teamwork Makes Families Flourish
The tradwives of the Internet, with their videos about how they’re taking care of the house, having children, and taking care of their men, are the big thing on the right-wing portions of the internet. What betrays their stance of the stay-at-home-mom elite is that they have a job—they’re influencers. They’re marketers, they promoters, they’re hardly the submissive persona that they advocate for.
What does this tell us?
The feminists were right that women want to make something of themselves in the world, and have an impact beyond having children and raising them. The moves to try to separate gender-roles into these neat traditional categories has never been particularly appealing. Raising children and domestic chores are, of course, necessary.
So, if the housewife isn’t an appealing position, then what do we do?
The answer is the abandonment of associating work for women and work for men. A man in a relationship should be willing to help around the house as much as a woman should go to work and make money for the household. There is nothing intrinsically feminine about sweeping the floor or doing the dishes, nor is there anything intrinsically masculine about earning a paycheck.
One of the biggest drawbacks that happened with women entering the workforce is that women are now expected to go to work and take on the household chores. Earning more degrees, and taking on so much work, it’s no wonder that so many women are abandoning men completely.
Raising a household takes a lot of work, and the cost of living makes it hard for families to live off a single-income, nor should they necessarily want to live off one-income. In situations where there is a one-income household, one parent is there all the time, and the other parent is absent much of the time. As much as it’s good for a child to have interaction with his mother, interaction with his father is important as well.
It’s also important for children to have role models. A daughter who sees her mother going out into the world, making choices of her own, and having her own independence is important for her self-worth. She should understand that her place isn’t just to raise children and be subservient to a man; she’s her own whole human being.
And sons should see their fathers contributing to the household; sometimes being a good man means making a meal for the family or even cleaning around the house. There should be nothing feminine about making sure a living-space is clean and happy.
A family should also foster happiness. And what makes people happy is choices. It’s not whether or not you take on certain kinds of work, have children, or don’t have children. It’sthe feeling that you’ve been able to make the decision for yourself. The more that we eliminate the assigned-rules of what men and women are supposed to do, the more people can fit themselves into the roles that they are best at and drawn to.
The more couples see themselves as members of a team rather than employees with assigned roles, the more we’ll see families flourish.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Actually, housework is strongly generated gendered, the sexes have different preferences for what tasks they find more enjoyable, and ignoring that has real detrimental consequences for both individuals and relationships. The sexes are not interchangeable and trying to act like they are can leave you with a relationship closer to that of siblings than spouses.
Guys Who Do Housework Get Less Sex https://share.google/vsPweJS6bevcGKono
From the article: Where did the myth originate about husbands who do laundry getting more sex ?The authors explain that the misleading media accounts are based on research that failed to take into account how couples divide household chores. While it may be true that men helping around the house increases sexual frequency—how men help makes a difference. Maintaining the car, mowing the lawn or shoveling snow seem to be more arousing than ironing or shopping for dust ruffles. According to the authors, among heterosexual couples, expressions of sexual difference create sexual desire. Gender-linked tasks are far more sexually charged than prominent egalitarians like Naomi Wolf and Sheryl Sandberg would have us believe.
Does this mean husbands can behave like slobs and let their wives do all the washing, cleaning, cooking, and shopping? Definitely not. The authors warn that a man who refuses to help out with core chores is likely to create strife and conflict in the marriage. And with so many women working full-time, what might be best for a couple’s romantic life may be unworkable and unfair in real life.” Each couple will have to work it out for themselves. Not an easy task. Egalitarian “peer marriages” where couples share all domestic tasks equally can be quite happy, report the authors—though they tend to take on a “sibling-like” tonality that “undermines sexual desire.” End Quote.
https://www.psypost.org/study-suggests-that-men-and-women-actually-prefer-not-to-split-household-and-childcare-tasks-equally/
A new study suggests that the unequal division of household and childcare tasks within partnerships may reflect men’s and women’s actual preferences. For example, the study found that women enjoyed childcare tasks more than men did and also reported a greater desire for responsibility for these tasks compared to men. The findings were published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.
Among both samples, men enjoyed tasks to do with outdoor labor and home maintenance more than women did. Women preferred cleaning, food prep, family scheduling, and home decorating. Moreover, this pattern mirrored the way the participants wanted these tasks to be divided — women tended to prefer men to take care of home maintenance tasks and men preferred women to take care of home decorating tasks.
The participants were also asked to indicate along a scale whether they would prefer to be the breadwinner within a partnership, the homemaker, or to share these roles equally. Across both samples, although 56% of men and 56% of women chose the egalitarian option, 36% of women chose a response closer toward homemaker and 35% of men chose a response closer toward breadwinner.
You nailed....maybe 60% of the issue? But you make the mistake many make when discussing gender roles, which is one size rarely fits all. Also, you miss the point that, while the 'Trad Wives' are surely influencers, they can still be "the submissive persona that they advocate for". And yes, the feminists were right that "women want to make something of themselves in the world" but then you suggest that raising responsible children does not something provide that impact or that satisfaction ("...beyond having children and raising them." ????). I've seen enough kids and adults that are absolute proof of the need for some seriously focused child rearing, whether it is the mom or dad doing the raising (best if it's both). I suggest that housewife IS an appealing position.....for some.