"Doing it All" makes women unhappy...?

Question

Is this a biological gender difference or due to sexism and society's expectations for women? What, if anything, can we do to change things that we have not done yet? Or will women always care more about managing the household than men?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/business/26leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Answer 1

Well, this is assuming a straight household. Gays and lesbians do it all, as do single people. It gets quite stressful at times, but I am not unhappy.

Answer 2

People probably have a few different thoughts, not all the same: 1. Because plenty of people don't rely or trust self reports of happiness, especially from housewives from the 50's who had to rely on "mother's little helper" to get through the day. 2. Maybe women are more stressed because they are expected to do everything they used to do before earning wages, as well as earning wages. Perhaps women are doing almost double the work, while men are still doing the same amount. I'd be interested in how happy lower class women, who have often worked outside the home even before feminism, rated their happiness. More equality is actually needed, and shared work loads. 3. Correlation does not imply causation. 4. Education makes people less happy? Well, ignorance is bliss, I suppose. Doesn't mean people want to be ignorant. Humans are curious. 5. Tyranny of choice. Men still aren't doing women's work, but women do all kinds of work. More choice can make some people less happy. People, especially Americans, aren't going to give up choice though. That's just not going to happen.

Answer 3

From the article "... is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did (including helping their aging parents). They can’t possibly get it all done, and many end up feeling as if they are somehow falling short."

This is very true for me at least, I work part-time and have since I had kids, and it's next to impossible to not only get all the things done on my list, but done well, and the truth is that I can't give all things 100%, and therefore the key is to prioritize. But it's a constant learning process, and sometimes as I have learned in the past few years, I have to say NO, and instead spend that hour or 30 minutes unwinding w/hubby and a glass of wine.

From the article: "But it does show just how incomplete the gender revolution has been. 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. "

I'm not sure universal preschool is the answer here...in fact, in all our gender equalization in the work force yadda yadda yadda, what we've done is push our parenting responsibilties onto strangers (daycare and preschool). AND because parents aren't parenting, now schools are wasting time on teaching things that should be taught at home! In all our worry for gaining our rights, we've forgotten to take care of the things that we should be taking care, we've forgotten how to DO THE RIGHT THING.

Answer 4

If a man cared more about managing the household than a woman he would earn less and she would not tolerate that.

The biggest barrier standing in the way of "women doing it all" is the fact that they are not as willing to provide for the other half as men are.

Anyway, women decided to change. No one asked men if we agreed or not. We're not going to change every time a woman decides she is going to change. That's not our responsibility. If she gets a divorce she'll be more greatly bonded to managing the household and working outside the home anyway.

Answer 5

If men determined the housecleaning standards, there'd be less housework. Problem solved. Just kidding.
___Some consideration, though, has to be given to the different importance men and women give to housework. Of course, if some guy is fussy and prone to complaining about his wife's housecleaning, give him a broom, up his rear end, if necessary.
___The NYT article takes the conventional framing of the issue for granted, and limits the variables to narrow ones. To some extent, we contribute to our own unhappiness by the ways in which we frame our circumstances. I think this is an important factor here. Human subjectivity is often employed as an argument to deflate the positions of one's opponents. But it's often more important to attend to how each of us contributes to the juice we stew in and the bed we lie in.

Answer 6

the men that do less housework and more sitting on the couch watching football do so because their wives/girlfriends let them. things should be equal, period. even if a woman wants to do more than her husband (say she just has more of an urge to cook/clean) she should resist her own urges. cleaning up after everyone else means your happiness comes last. this means unhappiness in general. this sort of dissatisfaction with the traditional gender roles in most marriages is the reason, in my opinion, many women leave their marriages when they reach midlife. they want to finally make time for themselves, and leaving the marriage is the only way they can.

of course, i think the new generation of men and women more readily reject gender roles--many of my friends' boyfriend do cook and clean regularly--but i still understand it is a problem in some relationships. i think the problem is attitudes. some men have a hard time seeing that women really ARE NOT happy catering to everyone else all the time. in fact, women that do this are often miserable and depressed, even if they profess to enjoy their "role" as a caretaker.

Answer 7

Most men live on their own or with roommates at least one time in their lives. There they have to coexist mutually or the situation fails. Perhaps a woman who wants mutual responsibility for the home should determine if this is prevalent in the man before signing a marriage contract.
Or maybe it should be written into the divorce contingency ultimatum.
Why can't we all be equal?
Why can't our exchanges be mutual?

Aren't any of us truly after what is right in this world?

Is there not one?!

Answer 8

This is another case of men getting the blame for women's choices. Women tend to like to see things cleaner than men do this doesn't make men pigs it just means we see cleaning at a different level than many women do. And men see vehicle maintenance differently than women do but I doubt many men nag women into doing an oil change or forcing them to change the spark plugs. Women tend not to have an interest in auto work so it is less important to them so they don't do basic maintenance as often as men do. So calling men pigs and complaining about them not helping around house is counter productive. Asking works far better. And before i hear that you shouldn't have to ask,Yes you should you are the one setting the standard so if you need help getting to that standard then you should ask.

Answer 9

Just do what you can do and don't worry about what didn't get done.
If both the husband and wife work outside the home then hire someone to clean the house & do the yard work.

Answer 10

"Doing it All" would piss me off, too.

It's all about specialization of labor. I'd love to have a rich wife so I could hang around the house all day. I love fixing up the place and cleaning when I don't have to work. But alas, got to pay the bills. I'll probably just hire a maid.

Always remember. Work to live, don't live to work.