SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home She's Unhappy, He's Watching Tv, Blah Blah Blah

THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 26, 2007

She's Unhappy, He's Watching Tv, Blah Blah Blah

BY TNR STAFF AND TNR STAFF

The Times has a sure-to-be-widely-emailed story up today about how men have become gradually happier since the early '70s, while women have become gradually less happy. While I applaud the light these studies shine on the real ways in which policy hasn't caught up to culture (as the story points out, very correctly: "Although women have flooded into the work force, American society hasn't fully come to grips with the change. The United States still doesn't have universal preschool, and, in contrast to other industrialized countries, there is no guaranteed paid leave for new parents"), it's annoying the way (usually male) writers tend to twist them into the same tired old "women are overworked and virtuous, men are beer-drinking, TV-watching slobs" paradigm--it's Marge and Homer, Edith and Archie, Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen, etc. The author concludes: "Inside of families, men still haven't figured out how to shoulder their fair share of the household burden. Instead, we're spending more time on the phone and in front of the television. This weekend, I think I may volunteer to do a little dusting."

It is certainly true that women do more housework than men and that men should take responsibility for making a better balance. I just hate the idea that that's the best thing a man can do to make his wife happy--as if the feminist movement was only about getting men to pick up after themselves a bit more. Men are not children; women are not their mothers. Get over it! There are more important things at stake here than dusting.

--Britt Peterson

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 16 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

16 comments

- dubyadoubte

September 26, 2007 at 12:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I believe tonight I will empower women by cleaning the bathroom. Now if I could only get some to come up to my apartment....

- ratnerstar

September 26, 2007 at 12:45pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

...working, combined incomes, etc, hire a goddam maid and quit arguing. Men are biologically incapable of doing housework except in a barracks under relentless harrassment. So, ladies, focus on something easy like destroying Global Jihad.

- ChanRobt

September 26, 2007 at 12:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Actually, I have a job and my wife does not. Nevertheless, when I get home, I clean up dinner dishes, fold laundry, etc., together with my wife. We both mind the little ones and we split up to put them to bed. The 1950s are long gone - women ditched their negative stereotypes twenty years ago; what else do we have to do to get rid of ours?

- dhauck

September 26, 2007 at 1:14pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I wouldn't scrub a floor if you paid me and I was the same way when I had two cents to my name - I'd spend one cent paying someone else to scrub. I agree with Channy - even the house cleaners have house cleaners. I just don't know anyone like this (slacker Dad, harried pissed off Mom), although I do catch glimpses of these species in my life - men who aren't involved, who live to work - there are a whole passle of them here in NY. I avoid them like the plague. Maybe I just hang around a group of families whose Dad's are all ga-ga over their kids and live to spend time with them. People tend to find like minded people.

- Wandreycer1

September 26, 2007 at 1:43pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I shaved my bathroom floor this weekend before the Sonoma Hooker showed up. She appreciates that gentlemanly aspect of my behavior, although ignores it mostly, given that she lives in the country and has more urgent concerns, like the skunk that comes in the cat door and sprays her sheep dog once a week or so, or the various fractions of moles, voles, snakes, mice, rats, and birds that her cats bring to her and leave on or near her bed as gifts. (She is a provider to more than humans.) This city boy's cats have begun heeding my lectures and now lick their (own) butts in a timely manner after using the box. They were beginning to resemble little mobile fur-covered anti-Febreze odor distribution units. Also, apparently cleaning the floors involves more than merely pushing a vacuum over the throw rugs once a week. I dropped something and had to get down on all fours to find it. A revelation. Fridge vegetable bins? Not good. In summary, then, I have a long way to go before qualifying as a bourgeois cleanliness-obsessed feng Stewie-practicing Martha Stewart clone, except with a smaller penis. So sue me.

- williamyard

September 26, 2007 at 1:45pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

for goodness sakes man - hire someone! You and your friend have much more important things to do than worry about Martha Stewart or vegetable bins. Life is way too short for bathroom floors.

- Wandreycer1

September 26, 2007 at 1:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I keep interviewing maids but they balk at the outfits I want them to wear.

- williamyard

September 26, 2007 at 1:53pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Self-reported happiness data is considered notoriously unreliable. People record huge variations over the course of a day or week, and there are many other problems with it. The article doesn't even mention these, and assumes people accurately report their happiness level. All right, there's my humorless rant of the day.

- epicciuto

September 26, 2007 at 2:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

that was one of your funnier efforts :) In 48 years, I have only had a few unhappy weeks, maybe two or three,in my life. That was when my first fiancee broke up with me. I remember telling some lady friends that, because of that, I was really down in the dumps for a long time. One gal asked me how long it was and when I told her, she just about flipped. She told me that her last break up was 2years ago and she still hadn't gotten over it. What could I say? Three weeks seemed to me like an eternity before the old joie de vivre returned. To her, I was a callow, emotionally stunted cad.... She was probably right...

- MrCookie1

September 26, 2007 at 2:45pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

just raise your effing kids, fellas. that would be a big profound not superficial change for the better.

- psantillana

September 26, 2007 at 3:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

that would be my biggest wish. Too many dads, for whatever reason - yes, I know that there are crazy spouses out there who live to bedevil the divorced dad's lives - are not present in their child's lives. Maybe that lack of responsibility is a variable in the study, while the moms, usually saddled with the yeoman's work of raising the kids, is registering lower on the happiness scale because of that sole burden..

- MrCookie1

September 26, 2007 at 3:57pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I thought people had kids so that you'd have people you could order to do housework without paying them anything.

- miceelf

September 26, 2007 at 4:36pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The answer is universal housekeepers. Who will clean *their* homes? Universal helper monkeys.

- jhildner

September 26, 2007 at 6:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

And by "helper monkeys," I meant kids.

- jhildner

September 26, 2007 at 6:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

HA! Have you ever tried to get a child to clean up their own mess, let alone yours? Better to just use a real monkey. The best part of it is after they get done cleaning you can eat them for dinner.

- blackton

September 26, 2007 at 7:04pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close