Why do Women, and Not Men, Get Judged for a Messy Home

This is the exact conversation both my mother and I were having recently. We were reflecting on the pressure of living with men versus not living with them. Currently, both my mother and I are separated from our partners and we have noticed the difference in our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health, not living with men. Many men are messy and yet, they are given a pass while women are not that easily forgiven for a messy home. Three published studies showcased that women consider housework a women's responsibility, especially if they are living with men. When my mother got separated from my father, she made a list of the inequality of unpaid household labor she did additional from her time spent on work for years, I mean, a list where if she didn't do these task, other people would have gotten hired to do such domestic affairs, such as sweeping, vacuuming, washing dishes, cooking, feeding pets, doing laundry, preparing meals, cleaning bathrooms, dusting etc. you get the point. I spoke to one lady who mentioned that her husband expected her to have the cars washed and cleaned as well. According to the Department of labor data, women on average spend 2.3 hours a day on house tasks, and men spend 1.4 hours. These strong believes of expectations for women are standards held when living with someone. The honest truth is that my mother and I feel relieved from the need to live with a man, the worry and or stress chores, decisions and actions on what we are going to eat, cook? The exhaustion of constantly worrying about having the house clean etc. is something I reconsider if I even think about getting together with a male. If I ever do for some reason, get together with a man, I will have different expectations from him, and I will not tolerate such inequality, because I rather be alone. I feel content and happy being a single parent! 

Inequality Makes Everyone Feel Bad

When it comes to inequality much like we are facing in the Minneapolis stand up to abolish old paradigms that isolated experiences to many on the content of injustice facing our country toward a specific race or people of color, studies have found that people who feel they're getting away with something, experience fear and self-reproach, while people who feel exploited are angry and resentful. And yet, as we saw in the nine minute video of office Derek Chauvin officer who is charged with the death of George Floyd, men are more comfortable than women with the the first scenario and less tolerant than women of finding themselves with the short end of the stick. When it comes to Gender and Families, we notice men resisting to help around the house, and Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams, leaders in the field of family studies, state that it is in men's interest to resist. "By passively refusing to take an equal role, men reinforce a separation of spheres that underpins masculine ideals and perpetuates a gender order privileging men over women." The picture below depicts my family and the different gender inequalities we have all faced in our lifetime on this planet earth together. 

Moms and Work

What happens to families, the children, when the mother after giving birth must go to work to support her family. Many mothers who have been interviewed on the topic said they felt enormous amount of guilt and tension between their work and family commitments. American mothers who worked for companies that provided flexible schedules and paid maternity leave described themselves as fortunate and 'lucky', they felt privileged. Typically and unfortunately elite employers elect to offer helpful work-family policies to certain workers. In most cases these opportunities were only held to high educated, and salaried employees. Leaving the rest of the employees out of luck. Although, everyone understands the importance of family, why then, do only a few in the workforce have these privileges? 

 

Sex, Gender and Friendship

We all have a variety of established friendships; some are close, family-like, acquaintance, or based on task or leisure activities or even on social media like Instagram. Having friends who are of similar sex, ethnicity, intelligence, economic status, and sexual orientation does not mean that those friends are more successful friendships. There is no scientific evidence or data supporting the idea that homogeneous friends outlast heterogamous friends. As young as 3-4 years old develop a preference for particular playmates. The older we get, our interest for primary socialization become complicated and our focus derives on themes of satisfaction. Most people prefer same-sex friendships because of the similarities posed between same sex friendships. Boys tend to be less affection toward one another and tend to describe their friendships in terms of loyalty, helping, shared activities and awareness of each others needs. Girls on the other spectrum, tend to describe themes of closeness, verbal sharing acceptance, and emotional sharing. Take a look at my daughters friends as well as some of my friends from both college and church. 

Sex, Gender and Emotions: Boys don't cry

Our Western culture often has a perverse idea that is unreasonable of binary gender emotion. The widely believed design we all bought into is the stereotype that to be masculine, emotion can't be shown, otherwise it is a feminine behavior and shown to society as weak. This stereotype has infected humanity and become a power social force in constructing and reinforcing the false belief that it is a 'sex' category that will determine whether the person is more reasonable or emotional. This normalization of the effectiveness of society and institutions inhabiting this false aspect of a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others has polluted our human nature. We as a society act as if boys, men alike are not in fact not conditioned with being flesh and blood; basically of being human. If not that, then what are they? Do males, not have the same capacity as women to experience, the senses? The aptitude in which we all as human beings have a sensitivity to or intuitive understanding of our own characters, based on what our natural ability derives, has nothing to do with 'sex'. We all have those tendencies and males should not get pulled from, or removed from the truth, only because we have played part in those false characteristics and stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.