Can Men Have It All? by Suzanne Braun Levine

Author:Suzanne Braun Levine [Levine, Suzanne Braun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

Helping or Sharing?

One male participant in a panel discussion about dividing up the chores put it bluntly. “She always complains, ‘He always leaves the toilet seat up. Why doesn’t he put it down for me?’ Why,’” he wanted to know, “doesn’t she put it up for me? Fair is fair.”

But what exactly is fair?

The crucible of equality is in the details—of housework. No matter how many gadgets and systems are invented, the time it takes to clean the toilet or fold the laundry or scrub a burned pot remains unsatisfying and unpleasant.

To their credit, men are doing more of the housework than they used to do. Every year a few minutes are added to the average number of hours men spend doing chores (it is up to 9.8 hours per week in 2011 from 4.4 hours in 1965, according to the Pew Research Center). For the most part those minutes come off the number of hours that women are doing (down to 17.8 hours per week in 2011, from 32 hours a week in 1965).

One explanation for the continued gap between what men and women take on is men’s inability to really “see” what needs to be done. “If men cannot see the tasks,” sociologist Polly Fassinger observes in an essay in Men, Work, and Family, “they are unable to take part in them.” By interviewing divorced couples she was able to confirm that only when men have to set up house on their own do they become fully aware of women’s “invisible” work—“the logistics and routines of family care.” This is one skill that can be learned only by doing.

Robert, the teacher from Minneapolis, is the main meal man because he gets home first. “Mealtime is always a source of tension and frustration,” he says. The scene is familiar: “No matter what time of day it is you’re always gearing up towards bedtime, and anything that holds up dinner then holds up the rest of the works. I want to be able to make dinner, have my three-year-old eat it, sitting at the table, not running around, and have it be over with.”

Despite the pressure, he keeps an emotional distance from the process. “It’s not like, ‘I slaved over the stove.’ It’s more, ‘We asked you what you wanted. You told us what you wanted. Now you won’t eat it.’ That’s very frustrating.” Then, with a sigh, he adds, “You don’t want to just make grilled cheese every night.”

Fassinger made another important discovery about housework. While the divorced men she interviewed found running a home hard to do on their own, their ex-wives found it just the opposite. “Some mothers felt less stressed about the upkeep of their home,” she writes, “because they no longer were frustrated by their spouse’s participation (or lack thereof).…Their husband’s delinquent or irresponsible behavior with regard to household chores had caused considerable tension.” In other words, the women were experiencing some relief from a major item on the Dreaded Tape—or what Fassinger describes as “the component of family care that involves motivating or nurturing those who work with you.

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