In spite of all the social advancements of the past 50 years, when it comes to the division of labor with household chores men still aren’t carrying their weight of the load. Women tend to do more than half of the work, and there is nothing on the horizon that’s going to change that anytime soon. University of Houston Director of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Dr. Elizabeth Gregory suggests taking a page from the 1970’s and negotiating a contract for who is responsible for what. “Actually think about it in advance instead of thinking ‘oh, we’ll be equitable,’ and not working out the details of how that’s going to happen,” she says.
Sound drastic?
Four out of five couple couples fight about housecleaning chores, and it’s one of the leading causes of divorce. No matter how advanced we become this remains another area, like pay equality, that persistently lags behind.“People do studies all the time and they find that women tend to do more.There was one study recently in England that said women do 60% more household chores than men,” says Dr. Gregory.
So here’s a thought for the weekend, men. You like to do manly stuff that requires muscle, eh? You like working with machines, huh? You like shiny, silver stuff, don’t you?
Clean the oven this weekend.