Working women tell men they're useless at housework 'because it makes them feel more feminine'

 

 

By Liz Hull

Last updated at 7:01 PM on 22nd November 2009

 

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Working women have long complained that their men don't pull their weight when it comes to household chores.

But a man's lack of effort on the domestic front could actually be a myth created by their wives, researchers have found.

According to a major new study, female breadwinners exaggerate their partner's uselessness around the home because they feel guilty about devoting too much time to their career, and not enough to their role of wife and mother.

 

Women make their partners do more housework because it reduces their guilt about having a career, a new study has shown

 

By nagging their man into doing the housework women feel more feminine because they can control the traditionally female role of maintaining the home and family, experts say.

'Working women who provide the majority of the household's income to the family continue to articulate themselves as the ones who "see" household messes and needs as a way to retain claim to an element of traditional female identity,' Dr Rebecca Meisenbach, professor of communication at Missouri University, told the Observer.

 

 

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'These women are struggling with the intersections of their status as the breadwinner and other gendered societal expectations.

'By highlighting stories of how men have to be told or asked to do specific chores in he home, these female breadwinners are making sure they still fit gender boundaries of a wife as someone who manages the home and children.

'By directing the housework done by their husbands, they maintain a sense of control over the traditionally feminine sphere of the home.'

Dr Meisenbach questioned 15,000 American female breadwinners for the study, which is due to be published in the journal Sex Roles this week.

Only women without children under 18 said they did not feel a strong sense of responsibility for the home.

Little research has been carried out into the role of the female breadwinner globally.

The only report conducted in Britain, in 2007, found that 14 per cent of homes had a female breadwinner, although recent estimates say around four in ten women now earn more than their partners in the UK.

Dr Meisenbach said most of the women she interviewed did not resent the fact their husbands were neither breadwinners or home makers, instead they relished the control they had over them when it came to domestic chores.

She said: 'They (the women) all gendered their partner's behaviour with comments like 'He's a man, they don't see that there is a mess.

'But by gendering his behaviour they were also gendering their own as women and mothers, instead of breadwinners.

'Over 60 per cent said they enjoyed the control they experienced, explicitly noting how they were different from the "1950s housewife" or even from female friends within the traditional gender norms.'

Although expectations of family roles are more fluid than they have ever been in Britain, the traditional perceptions of men as breadwinners and women as home makers still prevail.

A poll conducted last year found that 32 per cent of young people agreed that it was the role of women in society to be good wives and mothers.

And women who earn considerably more than their husbands often note that their relationships suffer as a consequence.

Professor Janet Reibstein, a psychologist and author, said: 'Our respect for our partner rests on whether they are fulfilling their gender expectations.

'Higher-earning women struggle to respect their low-paid men because social prejudice says that a man should keep his woman.

'Women want to be in charge of their lives and careers, but they also have the contradictory need to know that their man will look after them if required.

'When that's not happening, a woman's sense of femininity and a man's sense of masculinity is often threatened.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229990/Working-women-tell-men-theyre-useless-house-make-feel-feminine.html#ixzz0XcRq4gOP

I don't have a problem with people bucking social trends at all, but I think this sort of resentment is just a sign of emotional weakness on the part of the women.

 

Professional men do the same sort of thing with their wives - come home expecting the house to be spotless, when there are 3 kids running around. Housework isn't a job that can be squared-away and "finished", it's an ongoing process. Unless there's egregious laziness going on, people need to be sensitive to the fact that most chores don't get a "DONE" stamp applied to them.