Gendered housework keeps grown men dependent on the women in their life

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.