Why do women think that cleaning the house is really important and men don't?

Answer 1

Perhaps because women have higher standards of hygiene than men.

Answer 2

I have a husband and four sons and ours is the house where all of their friends hang out. One day I realized the absurdity of one person running around like crazy trying to clean up after all these people. I sat down and made up a revolving chore list that changed every week. After a while I started to notice who did the best job on certain chores and once age and ability were no longer an issue everyone was assigned permanent chores. They're all teenagers now and I'm confident that when they move out they'll know how to do pretty much everything within the realm of cleaning and household maintenance. Just this afternoon I took my 16 year old down to the basement to show him how to clean the filters on the air conditioning unit. They may never "care" about it, but unlike many men they'll "know" how to it. *L* I'm sure my future daughters-in-law will thank me.
I like my house clean and organized. Not because I give a darn what my neighbors or friends think of my happy homemaker skills. Not because I'm an obsessive compulsive, control freak. Not because I particularly enjoy cleaning. Not because I feel it's my job to pick up after everyone. Just because my home is my nest and I'm more comfortable in a clean uncluttered room. You work hard to earn the down payment, pay the mortgage, decorate and upgrade. So I explained to my sons that it's a matter of respect as well.

Answer 3

Apart from the usual hygiene reasons of it being important to have a clean place, there is another point of view to look at.

This is a generalisation so please don't take it personally. Woman are more sensitive and their perception to dirt is of a higher degree than men. Having said that there are men that are sensitive and do clean houses. To put it in the category of feeling - a woman would pick up the feeling of dirt easier than a male.

Just if you were to do a survey it is most likely more women than men would be particular about cleanliness.

Answer 4

It has to do with how you've been raised, but it also has to do with being male.


Men are more spacial and cluttered thinkers. This has been proven many times; men score significantly higher than women on spacial tests. Men prefer to skip steps when doing work that they can get away with skipping because they can spacially visualize where they are going.


Yet, men are more often very unorganized and do not tend to keep things neat and tidy because of this sort of spacial ability; they have no need to keep things nice and neat and tidy. They organize things in their head, not into neat little stacked piles and into the laundry basket.

You can train a man to be very neat and organized, and I suppose if he desires it he can also learn how, but it does not come naturally.



Women tend to seek order and cleanness as a sense of accomplishment, but also because their brains are not hardwired to handle a spacial clutter like a mans is.

And then of course women do the cleaning, and from there, there is no pressure on the man to change his ways, so he never develops any organization skills.


Women thrive in uncluttered, predictable situations by nature. This could be half the reason they'll doing better than boys in school on average.

Answer 5

(Really important compared to what? The continued existence of life on Earth? Do they? But I digress.)

Your question assumes that they do, whereas reality suggests that there is a continuum of caring about how clean the house is and not caring; a continuum (strongly but not perfectly correlated with the first) for willingness to actually do the cleaning, and that both of these are perfectly correlated with sex -- not to mention a whole bunch of differing criteria about what constitutes "clean" or "neat" or what parts of "clean house" are most important.

There are women who don't care, and men who do; there are people who care about dirt more than clutter, and vice versa, not to mention people who care about both or neither; there are people who consider it their responsibility and those who consider it someone else's; there are people who enjoy some parts of house-keeping, some who don't mind parts, and some who hate it all.

Much stickier than your question implies, isn't it?

Are there more women than men who care more about a clean house? Probably.

Why?

There are a gabunch of reasons. Since keeping the house clean has traditionally been seen as woman's work, people are more inclined to hold the woman responsible; thus, women tend fear blame more.

More women spend more time at home (that is, there are more women in couples who don't have outside jobs); so it's more "in their face."

Women were more likely to have been taught housecleaning, and so understand the sacred mysteries of the mop, and that most dreaded of appliances, the vacuum cleaner.

Is there a biological difference too? Possibly.

Women are the ones to get pregnant, give birth, and nurse babies; so it may be that more women have a greater sensitivity to dirt and clutter than most men. Any sex differences, though, are still "on the whole; by and large" (OTWBAL) -- as is, for example height.

I'm taller than many men, for instance, even though men are (OTWBAL) taller than women.

There may also be other biological reasons (women, OTWBAL, navigate by using landmarks, thus, are more likely to notice details that escape the men, who are more likely to navigate using distance and direction).

It's so much more INTERESTING to consider all of the bits involved in a complex reality, I think, than to try to reduce it all to a simple, blanket sound-bite.

Answer 6

you're generalizing and acting as if humans are totally alike. some men like clean homes and some don't--just like women. what i think you're reacting to, however, is the social acceptance of women cleaning the house while men mow the lawns, etc. women cook in the house but men barbeque outside. maybe it's all about inside-outside stuff.

Answer 7

This actually falls back to the dawn of time, so to speak. And it's not that men think it's unimportant, it's that we think it's not our "job".

Typically, before modern civilization, and even right through the crazy 70's, there were certain duties to be performed by men, and certain ones to be performed by women - one of them household chores, including tidying up. From all of this "instinct" instilled from early ages, women place more emphasis on cleaning a household than men.

Answer 8

This dates back to the Caveman era. The man forraged for food whilst the woman kept the cave clean! Due to the "new" man coming on the scene this is changing really! Some men are keener cleaners than women.

Answer 9

It goes back to cavemen days, when women used to cook the sabre tooth tiger steaks on the barbie and look after the children and do the cavework. While the men went out hunting, bold and fearless then to return with a few lizards instead of TRex burgers and smelling of last years mamoth turds

Answer 10

I know my wife is very concious of how the house looks. It's how a woman is judged apparently over here. Just as well she has me to keep it clean for her. I really do like cleaning the place up, I know I'm in the minority of men here.