Wow, so it looks like I should be celebrating today. Researchers have found out men actually enjoy doing the housework. Maybe I should go out and buy a new bottle of disinfectant spray to mark the occasion. Pull the other one – I've never heard such sexist tripe. Read on...
Men are happiest sharing the housework.
This is the great finding by research academics at Cambridge University.
They found though extensive questioning – basically asking how many hours men spent on various household chores – that men actually like doing the housework.
The 'like factor' doesn't come out of the goodness
Men will do their share of the housework because it means domestic arguments in the house decline and overall their home is a much happier one.
What the researchers are therefore alluding to is these men are escaping an ear-bending from their wives or girlfriends about not doing chores by simply getting on with them. Seeking the quiet life then basically.
And bless their little cotton socks, the researchers also found that men feel a little bit guilty if they don't do their share around the house. Another reason put forward by the researchers is men are recognising the equality between the sexes.
Okay, enough already. Did I not notice that we had suddenly slipped around 50 years back in time.
So here we have 'academic' researchers at one of the top universities in the country spending their time on this kind of sexist drivel.
I feel they must have spent far too long in their classrooms and not enough time in the real world.
I think there are many explanations for why men do more housework these days. We live in a very different society to a hundred years ago, even 50 years ago, when it was considered women's work to keep the house tidy and make sure dinner was on the table.
Women are out working these days and so in the case of couples living together the onus is really on both people, male and female, to get the housework done. Some women may still like to do the bulk of the work, but I don't believe many men living in a household where both people are working can really justifying the women doing all the housework on top of their job.
Men are living very different lives to even 50 years ago. It is no longer the case that men are moving out of their parents' home where mummy does all the housework and straight into a house with their wife. They are setting up home on their own and so are forced to do domestic chores around the house.
The final point is, these Cambridge university researchers are setting out their research as something that all women should be celebrating. Hooray, we are meant to say. I can down tools and let my partner get on with the dusting and vacuuming. However, all they have done in summarising their findings is divert the same sexist thinking which brought about women having to do all the housework in the first place, in a slightly different direction.
The reason the men are doing their share of the housework now according to the researchers, is just as sexist. I find the fact they are allegedly doing it for a quiet life rather offensive.
Are they really suggesting that relations between the two genders have actually moved on so little? I could be wrong, and maybe some households are still operating under sexist laws, but I would like to think we have progressed a little more than these Cambridge boffins suggest.