Stop Blaming Men for Not Doing Housework

In a time where we cannot acknowledge that men and women have fundamental differences, there are perpetual laments that women still undertake more hours of unpaid labor than men, even when both parties work full time. The complainants say that men should cook more, clean more, take care of the kids more, and then gender parity will be achieved and women will be free — free of their mental health struggles and free to participate in the labor force.

According to the New York Times, women’s unpaid labor in the world was worth $10.9 trillion in 2019. The Times posits that all of this work is taking a toll on women’s mental health. This could be true — keeping a clean house isn't easy. However, it is also a fact that women are more predisposed to depression and anxiety than men anyway.

A cartoon series I came across states confidently that women are not born with a propensity to take on the mental load of organizing a household. According to one panel, women are “not born with an all-consuming passion for clearing tables,” just as men are not born with an “utter disinterest for things lying around.” Later on in the art sequence, the narrator chastises the cartoon man for not remembering all the details about the new cartoon baby that has come along.

Here’s where I agree with the feminist cartoonist. The mental load is real, men sometimes do not take on their share of it, and dads are often praised (by women, no less) for doing the bare minimum for their children. However, the comic does not acknowledge basic realities about women. Women are more natural caregivers. Women are innately more bothered by a dirty home. Women do seem to relax and enjoy leisure time less. These features do not change if a woman simply changes her environment by going to the office.

Unlike women, who entered the workforce in droves in the past 50 years, men have continued doing what men have done since the industrialization of labor. They go to work, for longer hours than their female peers, to try to support their families. When the week is over, they do not have the time nor energy to play the role of second mom. However, they will mow the lawn, fix a toilet, or take the car to get maintenance. And yes, they will try to enjoy some leisure time.

Women, on the other hand, will not prioritize leisure time. According to one study, “mothers engaged in leisure only about 16% to 19% of the time that fathers performed childcare and routine housework.” This rings true for me. I had to consciously choose to stop shouldering the mental load that I did not know I had been carrying. Also, I learned to (gasp!) embrace leisure time, even if it meant not having dinner ready. There are not enough hours in the day to be both a competent worker and a full time stay-at-home wife. Plus, the advent of the washer and dryer freed up hours of women’s time — why not embrace them?

My husband never had this conundrum in the first place. Why? Because he is built to be a provider and father, not a nurturer and a mother. Even so, society tells us women that getting out there and earning money, just like your husband, is the path to happiness and security. But according to the literature, this arrangement and its fallout on the division of household labor only causes strife, especially if the wives feel unsupported by their husbands:

“egalitarian and full time employed wives perceived less support from their husbands when domestic labor arrangements were more unequal. The wives who perceived less support in turn experienced lower marital and personal happiness compared to wives with more equal household labor arrangements. Trends suggest that the relationship between unequal division of labor and perceived support did not hold for traditional and non-full time employed wives, who also did not suffer in terms of lowered happiness.” (emphasis mine)

Put another way, women who worked part time or not at all did not feel that the division of labor in their home was unequal. They felt supported by their husbands because they were supported, both financially and emotionally. Plus, by having more time to tend to the home, these women were likely a lot less overwhelmed. Even so, according to Pew Research, most couples in America (77%) agree that “children are better off when their mother and father both focus equally on their job and taking care of the home.”

In the Pew survey, only 7% of respondents said that society values men’s contributions at home more than those at work. For women, 31% said women’s contributions at home are valued more than work, while 20% disagreed, stating the opposite — that paid work was more valued. From the data, it seems that caring for children and elderly relatives is not perceived to be valued in the US. In a society that outright shuns the societal contributions of stay-at-home moms, is it any wonder that both women and men want to ditch uncelebrated household tasks?

It is difficult to know how to change our values so that at-home work is valued more than paid work, especially when there are those in the older generations who sneer at solutions such as longer parental leave for both mothers and fathers. But I think a good place to start is 1) letting fathers discuss their families at work without giving them the hairy eyeball and 2) providing pathways for women to enter and exit the workforce more easily, without penalizing her for child-related time gaps in her resume. In an age of remote work and AI, maybe we can all work a little bit less and a little more flexibly.

In the meantime, let’s not get mad that husbands are not wives and that wives are not husbands. We are all just trying to make it.