Asking the Right Questions

I was reading an interesting Fast Company article this morning and I wasn't satisfied with the conclusions of the study or the author of the article's interpretation of it. The article is about a scientific study that tries to elucidate the reasons why men tend to do less housework on average than women, even when women work full time.

In the study, they asked some very good questions. One was "how do you feel about the cleanliness of the room in the picture?" Men and women rated it similarly, telling us that men and women don't differ in their interpretation of cleanliness. Then they asked the same question, but added gender to the owner of the room. Is it a man or woman's room, and does that gender difference make a difference in how we interpret it? It turns out the answer is yes. When it's shown that the messy room belongs to a woman, she is judged more harshly for the mess than a man. And that's how the study was concluded. Question answered (according to the study). Our judgy nature towards women is the sole reason why women do more housework. Women are then penalized for messiness more so than men, therefore, they keep house better because they want to avoid social ridicule. The conclusion of the article's author similarly says that maybe we just shouldn't be so judgmental, and that will solve the problem, now that we know why we do it.

I disagree about the reason and the solution, because I think another critical question wasn't asked of the respondents in the study. The real answer we're now looking for, is now that we see that women and men are judged differently, what is the reason behind that judgement? Is it a good reason? Why do people think this way? Well, I have my suspicions, but the only real way to find out would be to ask both men and women how they themselves feel about the idea of keeping house. I'm certain that the answer to that question would be decidedly different based on the gender of the respondent.

The reason this detail bothers me is because I am currently a stay at home dad, and so I think I have some insight that others may not. While I probably do more housework than most men, and I have spent most of my waking hours caring for our children over the last half decade, similarly to the way that working mothers tend to still do more housework than their husbands, I tend to do more "man's" work around our house than my wife who has heretofore taken on the role of breadwinner in our family. In fact, she does almost none of these traditionally male things other than earning a living. She rarely takes out the trash. I can't remember the last time she mowed the lawn. There's not a single time I can think of that she fixed one of our cars or did any maintenance on them. Fine... by... me. I have zero problem with this because it just so happens that I enjoy doing these things, while my wife would retch at the idea.

I would bet money that similarly to the messy room questions, if you asked people to rate the state of repair of a vehicle in a picture for example, they would have similar answers regardless of gender. A broken tail light means the same thing to everyone, a car that's not in good repair. Then if you assigned a gender to the owner and asked the same question, you'd get different ratings as to the character of said person, with the man being judged more harshly than the woman owner. Why is that? Is it because we judge men more harshly about cars? Well, we do in fact do this, but I don't think the judgement is the reason for the behavior. I think it's the other way around. We judge men on this more harshly on this point because it's what men tend to do.

Men are judged more harshly in this regard, but that's not the reason men work on cars more often than women. If you asked me whether I like to work on cars, I would respond with a joyous and resounding yes. Sometimes because of circumstance and because I might be overworked in some regard, the idea of fixing my car isn't much fun at all, but I absolutely love the idea of the mechanics of automobiles, and the state of repair that my vehicle happens to be a point of pride for me. Another person's judgement of me in this regard is a reflection of my own preference as a stereotypical man. If it's something that I like doing and take pride in, a failure in this area is judged more harshly, and rightly so. If you ask my wife how she feels about cars and their mechanical bits, it's no different from the microwave or refrigerator. It's just an appliance. The idea of getting dirty and repairing said vehicle, or god forbid modifying it to improve its performance, sounds like a nightmare to her, just like interior decorating sounds about as much fun to me as getting a tooth pulled. Judging her over some activity that she has no interest in and has chosen not to partake in sounds silly to me.

This is not to say that people have to like these things just because of their gender. Turns out that I've bucked one traditional gender role by virtue of the fact that I thoroughly enjoy taking care of children and have made it my life. My wife bucks her traditional gender role by earning a living while I stay at home. We've each done so as our primary familial role for the last 5+ years, but the fact of the matter is that this isn't typical. This is fine with me. We should always be asking people what they want to do, not just what we think we would want if we were them or what we think they should do. There's the judgement that we might want to abstain from.

Bad or good is respectively dependent upon the presence of a victim or lack thereof. How do we know if someone is a victim? We ask them if they feel harmed in some way. This is the only way you can determine if someone has been harmed. We can't assume what we think is best for that person or all people because only they know what their preferences are. The preferences of men and women are, on average, different in some ways, and we need to acknowledge this fact if we're going to do what's best for the people whose interests are at stake. I'm not a victim because I do more yard work than my wife, just like she's not a victim because she does more dishes than me. It's what we both would prefer. Not that these are fun tasks always, but because one sounds better than the other to us. My solution is to stop trying to force women to be like men, and stop trying to force men to be like women. I think we'll all be a lot happier if we can come to that. Also, cleanliness is a good thing. Let's not stop being judgmental about it.