Pop-feminists judge the male sense of household cleanliness by the standards of the Feminine Mystique. This becomes obvious when we compare one of Shere Hite's complaints against men, made in 1987, to an observation Betty Friedan made in 1963:
Toying with the question, how can one hour of housework expand to fill six hours (same house, same work, same wife), I came back again to the basic paradox of the feminine mystique: that it emerged to glorify woman's role as housewife at the very moment when the barriers to her full participation in society were lowered, ... -- The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan, pp 228 - 229
With some justification, therefore, we might now suggest that, while most men are more casual housekeepers, they are also more efficient.
Most men are more casual about housework because they learn different priorities, different ideals.
Women get their ideas of the ideal house from magazines like Better Homes & Gardens. In such magazines, dust and dirty glasses fairly shriek by their absence.
But men seldom read clutter-free magazines. Male-oriented periodicals are filled with megabytes, wrenches, chips, sheet metal, plywood, screws and pistons. They read what they know from their common male experience will improve their chances of attracting a mate. In the magazines men read, "immaculate" is more likely to refer to a souped-up car than a man's "space."
The standard of the Feminine Mystique was an artificial one set by the manufacturers of household products more than 40 years ago. The Women's Movement was supposed to free women from this. Yet, that men don't live up to that standard is a pounded-to-death theme in the pop-feminist's assault on men. Why? Are women inherently "better" housekeepers than men?
Friedan, the woman generally credited with starting the modern feminist movement, might not agree. Like the cowboy movie hero who rides off into the sunset with his six-shooter on his hip -- an image that has influenced the character development of young men for decades -- the Meticulous Mom is a media myth promulgated by advertisers to sell soap, wax, detergent, vacuum cleaners and mops:
Women's standards of good housekeeping did not spring only from a female tradition, but out of advertising campaigns aimed at women. This standard has now become a part of the mainstream female ideology, and pop-feminists are accommodating it to the extent it allows them to bash men.
Why should they do this? Why would pop-feminists want to emphasize how men don't live up to the standards of a mystique feminists argue generally oppresses women? Do they want to force women back into the oppressive roles of the feminine mystique, or do they have some other hidden agenda?
Pop-feminists are demanding laws requiring men to pay their wives housewife wages: "In the United Kingdom and other countries, there is a movement, 'Wages for Housework,' which advocates the idea that the husband should pay the wife for her services within the house -- especially if she works fulltime at home, doing the child rearing and cooking, cleaning, etc." (Women & Love, St. Martin's Press mass market edition, 1989, Shere Hite, p 383)
Thus, pop-feminist complaints against male housekeeping habits have nothing to do with the work itself, but with manufacturing excuses to force men to subsidize women even more than they already do. Rather than granting credibility to their unwarranted complaints, we should suggest they find out why men marry.
Do men marry for housekeeping services? Unlikely. A once a week maid service could be cheaper and more convenient. Do men marry for sex? No. As Warren Farrell points out, marriage means infrequent and poorer quality sex for men. (Why Men Are The Way They Are, Berkley edition/September 1988, Warren Farrell, Ph.D., pp 171 - 172) A twice a week whore would probably be more satisfying and cheaper.
Essentially, pop-feminists are trying to reduce women to the role of subsidized whores and housekeepers. If they succeed, men might be better off boycotting marriage.
But men already pay their housewives something more valuable than money -- time. Women who don't have a job outside the home have time to do things. Time to read, study, think, create, compose music, invent, and build and reshape the world. Instead, many spend six hours a day doing a job that "can be capably handled by an eight-year-old child." (The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan, pp 245)
Women have never had it so good. That doesn't mean their lives cannot be better. But turning them into subsidized housekeepers and whores with "wages for wives" is not the way to do it.
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