You should’ve asked

How men and women see household and household chores chores are naturally very different.

Consider a men’s workplace if he works from home or he’s a handyman or he’s doing some work. To a woman that would be an absolute mess, with random bits and pieces and useless stuff. But a man always knows where his 10/14 wrench is. The woman comes in, sees this mess, puts some stuff where she thinks it belongs and throws the other stuff away (maybe a few $100 of tools and work). The man, after such act, will be rightfully angry and furious.

Now consider women’s laundry. There is wool stuff, there is cotton stuff, there is glitter stuff, there is synthetic stuff, there is stuff that is “hand-wash” only, there is stuff that can’t be washed, there is stuff that can’t be washed with detergent, there is stuff that has to be ironed right after washing, there is stuff that can be tumble dried, there is stuff that can’t be, there is stuff that needs to be placed in special bag before washing etc. In comes a man, and at “inspired” by this article, only sees a pile of laundry and throws it all into the washing machine, ruining a few $100 of dresses and clothes. Do you think the wife will be happy? Would any of you be happy if men ruined your expensive dresses because he wanted “to do better”? Or would you be rightfully furious?

The division of labor existed through the dawn of time. Some people do some things, other do other things. They do what comes natural and get better at doing that. Normally, women do the chores, and men do the craftsmanship. There are, of course, inverse situations. The woman could be doing the craftsmanship and the man doing the chores. The woman fixing the plumbing and hanging up shelves, the man separating the colors and cleaning in every nook and cranny he can get to. That could work too.

Or you could suggest a more “egalitarian”, but less efficient approach. Where both do 50% of each other’s house work including chores and craftsmanship. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone doing it like that.

But to suggest that men, in addition to the house work they provide, also have to do your part of the housework, but most importantly do it up to your standard, is wrong. I can assure you that most men can do the housework you mention, but their standards are less. Not having a clean shirt won’t be a big deal to them. Having clean dishes in the dishwasher won’t be a big deal. Having dust bunnies behind their bed? Also no big deal, because men don’t care about such stuff.

There really aren’t much options if you consider this approach. Either find a man that has a high standard for things you value, try to bring up some of their standards to yours so they can strive to achieve them (could be through explanation, reasoning, scheduling, ergonomics, etc) or delegate some tasks to them that they can execute quite well (like grocery shopping or cooking for adults).

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