One of women’s “favorite” topics — unpaid domestic work or so-called women’s work — is the focus of the second episode of the podcast.
Why it’s bad if your husband helps around the house. And why housework should be shared, not done by women. What happened in the good old days and what new archaeological excavations and studies show. We’ve all heard about the second shift, but what about the third? How do you calmly hand over some of the responsibilities to your partner without feeling ashamed?
So the first thing I suggest is that you stop using the word “help” to successfully share household responsibilities.
No more, “My husband helps me around the house, he’s so good!” No, it’s not help. It’s your shared housework, your shared care and parenting responsibilities. Shared. It’s not help, it’s part of his responsibility.
New research disproves the “man as hunter and woman as gatherer” information and relegates it to the category of myths. Here is a link to the article to read more about it: https://www.forbes.ru/forbes-woman/505065-usla-za-mamontom-kak-antropologi-dokazyvaut-cto-zensiny-proslogo-toze-ohotilis
The conclusion is the same: no matter how you look at it, the gender role distribution is very far-fetched as the only correct one. It is convenient to pull the wool over women’s eyes about their “destiny”, their innate caring, their indecisiveness, their tendency to make things, their small-mindedness, and their emotional instability, in order to subjugate them and make them serve men’s interests. (Emotional instability is especially funny, it’s not women who rush into a fight and can’t control themselves).
In today’s world, a woman has a triple burden: a regular job like a man, a second shift to serve the family, and a third shift to take care of her appearance. I think I will come back to the third shift in another episode and tell you what I think about makeup “for me” and beauty practices in general.
Boys in their childhood absorb the mindset that a woman actually exists to do all the housework. At the same time, we all know from experience the mindset that is put into the heads of girls. You must be able to cook, clean, wash, set, serve… That will be your responsibility, darling. In school, boys are trained to be workers, girls to be servants.
These roles are deeply ingrained, and it is understandable that men are reluctant to give up such an extremely comfortable model for them. Of course they don’t want to take on the responsibility (which should be shared), of course they don’t! After all, it is so convenient to have a free service that they are “entitled” to, as they have been convinced since childhood.
Because of the idea of the maternal instinct and the only purpose of a real woman that we have been given in our heads, it is extremely difficult for women to share the care of a baby with a partner. Supposedly a mother feels, or as her maternal heart tells her (aha). As if she has other hands, or as if she always knows why the baby is crying (not at all, at first it is absolutely incomprehensible why the baby is crying, attentive parents gradually learn to recognise the signals and correlate them with the needs).
Caring for a child is a skill that both mothers and fathers learn, and even oxytocin, the hormone responsible for bonding with a child, is produced not only by the mother who gave birth to that child, but also by adoptive parents and fathers, including those who do not give birth at all. Research has confirmed this. Link to the article to read more: https://burninghut.ru/materinskij-instinkt/
Realizing that the maternal instinct is a myth, that there is no innate ability for women to handle an infant, should help you feel comfortable sharing infant care responsibilities with your partner.
And besides, a woman, even a super-skilled one, might feel ashamed if guests come and the place is a mess. In theory, neither husband nor wife should be ashamed; if they didn’t have time to clean up the way they wanted to, what’s the big deal? In practice, however, the male partner is not ashamed, and the female partner feels uncomfortable, all because the attitude is clearly learned: cleanliness in the house – the direct responsibility of the housewife, her duty, and a good husband only helps if the wife does not fulfill her duties. He may even be pitied, as if he had bad luck with his wife.
I suggest that you pay attention to these 2 areas that you still need to work on in your mind.
Learn firmly that household duties are shared, and do not feel so-called individual shame if something is not done on time, because it is not your individual responsibility. And calmly share the care of the child with your partner, not worrying that the man has no maternal instinct and will therefore do something wrong. You don’t have that instinct either, you learn to care for and love your child together.
I would like to draw the young listeneresses’ attention to the fact that times are changing, thanks to the feminists, more and more women are thinking about their rights and beginning to assert their boundaries, and as a result they are changing some attitudes in their families as well. Probably some of you haven’t experienced everything I’m describing, and I’m very happy about that! In that case, what you’ve heard will give you an idea of how your mothers and grandmothers were raised. Perhaps it will help you understand them better, and thank them if they reconsidered putting such limiting beliefs in your head.
That’s all for today’s reflection on the topic of household responsibilities. In the next episode, I’ll try to address the statistics, the cost of housework, and move on to strategies for sharing housework in practice. I’ll talk about my personal experience and provide a checklist for you to check yourself.
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Our e-mail address is: help@belarus.fm
