There are a lot of things that toxic masculinity takes away
from people who identify as male. One of the most common ways in which we see
toxic masculinity performed is men’s refusal to associate with things they deem
“too feminine.” Men refuse to enter women’s clothing stores, they repress their
emotions, they don’t do “women’s work,” and they regularly make fun of other
men who do. Sometimes, it goes so far as to diminish their quality of life, but
they will still refuse to let go of this “masculine” perspective.
My mother has always firmly believed that each person should
have some basic life skills. For her, this includes anything you would need to
know in order to live by yourself such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing,
and being able to do odd jobs around the house. For a lot of people, most of
this is considered “women’s work.” In my house, it was just work. I would go to
school as a young child and hear that other people’s moms handled the cooking
and cleaning at their houses. When I mentioned to a classmate that I was
responsible for doing the dishes each evening after dinner, he looked at me in
shock and said that he had never even picked up his dishes from the dinner
table before. It was probably because I’m a girl, he said. Boys don’t do
housework.
According to my mother, that was pure laziness. My younger
brother did just as much as I did, growing up and learning all of those same
life skills as me. Every family member was responsible for their own mess,
everyone was expected to help prepare meals, and every Saturday was cleaning
day. On cleaning day, the whole family would divide up tasks and clean the
whole house, top to bottom. No one was allowed to make other plans on Saturday
afternoons, and only after finishing could you leave to do something else. She
believes that it is important for each individual, regardless of gender, to be
self-sufficient. She didn’t want us to have to depend on others to help us
handle basic everyday tasks. For her, this was about growing up and being
responsible adults. I got so used to seeing my brother work right alongside me
that I forgot that other families, especially Panjabi families, don’t operate
like that.
It wasn’t until I began college that I realized just how
unprepared some people are to handle life on their own. One of my male friends
invited me over to come see his new dorm room, and in my naivete, I did not
think to take a hazmat suit. When I entered the suite, I realized really
quickly that this man had never learned how to clean up after himself, and
neither had any of his four roommates. I asked him why he was living like this,
and he was genuinely surprised to see that this was strange to me. He explained
that his mother would send him food each weekend and the cleaning consisted
mostly of just taking out the trash. They used disposable plates and cutlery
because none of them knew how to wash dishes, and evidently no one had ever
taught them how to clean a bathroom. Suffice to say I never went back.
Sadly, this was not an isolated incident. It seemed like a
lot of my Panjabi male friends simply didn’t know how to live on their own,
while the majority of the Panjabi women were much better at it. It seemed that
the training women received at home while growing up was not also given to the
men, and their moms just did everything for them until they got married. After
that, all of this was their wife’s job. It still surprises me that people like
my friend and his roommates choose to live in a dirty apartment, risking
illness from bacteria instead of learning to do this kind of “women’s work.” Another
friend of mine made sure his sister transferred to the same school as him so
that they could live together and she could handle all the cooking and cleaning
for him.
Along with the emotional labour that many women put into
their relationships with men, we are also expected to maintain their standard
of living. Interestingly enough, while some men see this as the woman being
subservient to them, it also means that they are highly dependent upon the
woman for very simple basic tasks. My argument (and my mother’s) has always
been a little bit different from what I normally hear. I think men should
equally share in the housework, but not just because it makes women’s lives
easier. I believe it improves men’s lives—it forces them to grow up and handle
being responsible for their own mess. Perhaps they will be able to apply this skill to other parts of their lives as well.
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