The fact that women still do most of the housework in most families is not news. A 2003 study, for example, found women doing 23 hours per week to men’s 11, despite the fact that the women were earning as much or almost as much as their husbands. This seems to be one area where very little progress is being made. Various articles blame evolution (men aren’t “wired” to see dirt or piles of laundry because noticing details like that would get in the way during the mammoth hunting), parents (for providing old fashioned role models), and women themselves–a lot (usually for caring about such meaningless tasks, or being so unfair as to demand that men do them according to the female standard, aka “right”).
Me, I’d like to blame advertising. Seriously. Even in 2009, when was the last time you saw a man in any ad sweep, fold, scrub or clean in any way? Aside from Billy Mays demonstrating the Shamwow or Oxyclean, I bet you can’t come up with an example. In the world of advertising, men simply don’t do housework.
This is nothing new (I think I said that already) but the Swiffer commercials have really gotten under my skin. You know–the ones where the mop or broom forlornly tries to win back the affections of the woman who is now, apparently, dating a Swiffer. Since when did housework become romantic? In this version the woman even breaks up with her mop during a therapy session!
I find these particularly objectionable because no one should even try to pretend that housework and romance are the same, or that a woman might develop affection for a cleaning product. Seriously, didn’t we get over the idea that women looooove to clean in, oh, about 1975? Why is this ad campaign in existence, let alone effective?
Professor Bean
Professor Moss
Actually, when reading this I did remember a commercial involving a man doing the cleaning from years ago. Unfortunately, I am having no success in finding a video of it. Oddly enough, I think it was a Swiffer commercial. Methinks Swiffer has perhaps gone downhill in their ads.