Unpacking the Gender Imbalance in Domestic Duties

Ever wondered why, despite all our advances towards gender equality, domestic duties still tend to be heavily skewed towards women? Get ready to unpack this hot-button issue alongside your hosts, Calley Hewes and Valerie King-Mallar. We talk about the gender imbalance in domestic tasks, from unpaid chores to cognitive responsibilities, and why women often find themselves as the primary homemakers, particularly in heteronormative relationships.

Join us as we tackle this disparity head-on. We'll give you the lowdown on how to have those uncomfortable but crucial conversations with your partner, ensuring a fair division of responsibilities. We'll also present creative strategies for equalizing the domestic workload, like the idea of gamifying tasks and the 'effort list' concept. So, whether you're struggling with an unequal share of home duties or are simply curious about the subject, this episode promises to enlighten, educate, and empower. Buckle up for a deep dive into the intricacies of gender roles and domestic responsibilities. Bring your coffee; we'll bring the conversation.

Fair Play by Eve Rodsky [https://www.fairplaylife.com/the-book]

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Brazen, a weekly podcast where we get down and dirty on how we can live a more bold, curious and vibrant life. We are your hosts, kali Hughes, a self-care coach and nurse practitioner, and Valerie King-Mowler, a business growth and mindset coach. In this podcast, we are helping women stop people pleasing and perfectionism, awaken their inner badass and discover what can happen when we take the lead in our own life. Join us as we explore everything available to us when we brazenly take accountability for our life and well-being. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of the Brazen podcast. We are your hosts, kali and Valerie, and today we are going to be talking a little bit about why women tend to be saddled with the majority of domestic duties and responsibilities and there's just like an uneven division of labor in a lot of heteronormative type relationships and marriages. So we're going to kind of talk about that and some of our ideas on how to make it more equal or equitable. And yeah, so let's just jump right into it. I mean, one of the really interesting things that Valerie and I have talked about often on over the last year and a half or so of us doing the podcast is the fact that in different sex partnerships, where there's a husband and a wife, kind of in the more traditional sense, women tend to be responsible for the lion's share of daily household chores childcare, emotional labor, all of that kind of stuff. And there's been a lot of attention, especially since the pandemic, on what's been termed the second shift, which is basically when women would work at their job, outside the home, for, you know, eight to 10, 12 hours, whatever, and then they come home and they basically start their second shift, which is taking care of the kids, dinner, household stuff, helping with homework, getting the kids ready for bed and all that kind of stuff. And why? When we consider that, like, the picture that our minds probably come up with is a picture of the mom doing a lot of that and maybe the dad, like quote unquote helping with some of it. So you know, it's kind of interesting because there's this data that says women tend to have about 2.6 hours a day of unpaid household labor when they get home from work. As men, on the other hand, the number is less. It's at 2.1 hours per day.

Speaker 1: 3:17

But interesting there's also this, you know, statistic, about how you know, when you think about household chores, a lot of the more intermittent, less time sensitive stuff falls more on the husband's gender roles.

Speaker 1: 3:40

You know outdoor work, mowing the lawn, you know seasonal prep for your house or whatever Whereas women slash. Moms tend to be often more responsible for things that is part of just the daily grind and you just never get a day off from it Laundry, cooking, cleaning, helping the kids with housework, childcare, all that kind of stuff. So we're going to kind of talk about it because it's something that really as the potential to seriously impact every aspect, I think, of our lives you know our career, our financial independence, our mental health, our relationships and you know it's important to kind of be more of a critical thinker in this area because it's so easy to just fall into the traditional gender roles and not really have to think a whole lot about it. So we want to think about it a little bit and talk about it. So, val, why don't you know kind of share a little bit of your thoughts on this topic?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah. So it is a really interesting topic and it's one that I've talked to clients about and I had a client mention something that I thought was really helpful in that she felt that she was still kind of living the role of a stay at home 1950s housewife, but with a career now. So like basically saying that like our society hasn't caught up with the idea that women are in the workforce and so like should be doing less of the at home stuff. And I thought that was a really interesting observation. And I do think that is kind of what has happened Like we just haven't reacted quickly enough to the fact that women are earning money, they're working outside of the home and, you know, are still kind of shouldering all of the sort of domestic responsibilities as well. So I thought that was really interesting and kind of a helpful take on it.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, and I think that you know, when I was doing some research for this episode, there was a lot out there that said that the younger generation, so, like millennials, gen Z and, you know, hopefully the millennials kids that help us you know there's this progressive shift happening where there's a lot more attention on it and there's a much more intentional effort, it seems, in relationships to ensure that there's a more equal division of labor and it's kind of more fair and it's not all falling onto one person primarily as being the default parent and the default housekeeper and all that kind of stuff on top of also working 40 hours a week.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Because you know, I think that it is hard, you know it's difficult for a family of three people, four people, whatever to be able to afford to live on one salary. Right now Things are just so expensive, and so you do have both parents typically working outside the home, and so it doesn't take a lot of introspection and like critical thinking to realize that if you're just kind of getting caught up in the direction that society would just naturally have you go in, then, yeah, it's going to be really unfair and the woman is going to be shouldering the lion's share of responsibilities.

Speaker 2: 7:52

So I think another important point to mention too is I do think that, like you said, more generations are looking at kind of the division of labor, but one thing that isn't kind of talked about as much as the cognitive responsibilities and when we were doing research there was a lot about how that hasn't even really been like addressed in a lot of cases, especially by like society as a whole, and it's the idea that there's not just kind of the logistical day to day activities but there's also kind of the coordination of, you know, child activities or remembering birthday parties and planning for them and, you know, purchasing gifts for you know, their people's kids, you know just all of the little like kind of cognitive responsibility.

Speaker 2: 8:43

And so I think that's something that we should be wrapping up into the conversation, because I think we underestimate what a toll that takes on your ability to be able to focus on your job or to be able to focus on things that you might be interested in, because your brain is kind of going in multiple different ways and you sort of have these things like always hanging over you. And even when we've talked about this topic of the division of labor, we've talked about how it's one thing for the person to just, you know, for you to say to your partner I'm going to have you in charge of the laundry, but if you then still have to make sure it's getting folded and put away and that it's done the way that you want or the way that you guys have agreed on, like you still kind of are shouldering that responsibility, and so I think we do need to kind of talk about that cognitive piece as well.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Yeah, definitely, and so that kind of makes me think of this really cool book that I had read a while back called Fair Play, and I think a lot of people have heard of it. It's really gained traction in the last couple of years. But basically what this book does is it sort of gamifies the division of labor and it gives you a really solid blueprint for how to set things up in a way that it offloads the cognitive, like mental load from you know, the default person and like, if, say, laundry is going to be delegated and like that responsibility shifted to somebody else, there isn't going to be that associated cognitive load of like making sure it's done correctly and following up and like correcting any mistakes and all that kind of stuff. Like you guys have a conversation and you decide upfront what the minimum standard of care is, and so basically you go through the whole task and you're like okay, so to do the laundry. That means that you collect the laundry, you know, maybe on Monday, wednesday, fridays or every day, and you put it in the wash. Then you are the one who switches it over, you're responsible for that. Then, once it's done in the dryer, you fold it and you put it away. You empty the lint trap like start to finish. That is the most basic functions of the job, and so it makes it super, super clear for both people like what is expected of you when you do this job.

Speaker 1: 11:29

And honestly, in my own personal experience because I've done this, you know my husband and I have, you know, done the whole fair play thing and you know, kind of went through the whole process and it's really interesting because a lot of the things that tend to kind of seem like a pretty straightforward task like oh yeah, doing the laundry or cooking dinner the person who hasn't had to think about all of the other things that are wrapped up in that task, it's almost like a label moment for them where they're like oh yeah, I guess that is a lot of stuff to think about all the time and have to manage. So it's a good way to kind of start the conversation in a way that's fun and not necessarily like confrontational or creating some kind of like an argument or whatever. But one thing that I will also say is that you know, going through and like sort of redistributing who's doing what and all of that it kind of is always a work in progress, like it would be so nice if it were just kind of like a set it and forget it kind of a situation. But what I've seen, and like what I've heard from other people who have talked to this about, is that what tends to happen is like you have this conversation, you divide things up so that everybody agrees, everyone's happy, it's pretty fair, and things are really good for a little while, and then, like you don't even know how this starts to happen, but things start drifting back to the way that they used to be and then, like in my experience, it's like I woke up one day, kind of, and I was like wait, how did dinner become my job again?

Speaker 1: 13:38

Like you know, maybe we've had, you know, my husband had like a really busy couple of weeks at work, and so I kind of took that on, because you know people have to eat right and he couldn't get away from work, and so I took that on, and then it just continued without either of us consciously realizing it or making a decision to like switch this responsibility, and I'm like wait, what just happened? How is this my thing again? And so it's something that you have to constantly be revisiting, which, like I don't know I don't have the answer for you. If any of if you listening, you have an idea on how to like get it to stick a little better, I am all ears, but that's been my experience is that it's kind of something you constantly have to read up, you know, every so often.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Yeah, I would love to really kind of get into this topic of how to have the conversation, because in the past, when we've talked about it, you've also mentioned like equitable as opposed to like equal. So it's never going to be like 50-50, because one might, you know, be particularly busy for a couple of weeks, or one might be, you know, have a part-time job, so they do have a little bit more time for the domestic responsibilities. But how do you have that conversation? Because you know, chances are one of you is pretty happy with the arrangement and one of you might need more help. And you know I was mentioning, you know, before we started, that I asked my husband what our split is and he's like, yeah, I probably do about 65 to 70% of the responsibilities and you know that like I, you know, take great pleasure in bucking sort of society trends and you know, but if he were to kind of approach me with, like you know, needing more help, and he has said in the past like I would love it if you made dinner more often or things like that, but like I'm pretty happy with how things are.

Speaker 2: 15:52

I sound so spoiled right now but I am like happy with how things are because I work later and you know, making dinner just it like prolongs my evening, like, and I get home, you know, a lot later, so it means dinners later and all of that. So like when he approaches me with it, you know I do it for a little while, like you said, and then I kind of drop off again. And so I would love to hear from you like, how are ways that? You know? Do you set like a weekly check in? Or, you know, do you kind of talk like one partner is always going to have kind of a reason to not take on more work? And it's like in my case I, you know, have a full time job and I coach, and so like I'm like I work seven days a week, so you know I might not be doing as much in the house, and so like, how do you kind of like approach that topic? I guess?

Speaker 1: 16:47

Yeah Well, I mean, I can really only talk from my own experience, but I know that you know, when I started having that conversation with my husband and kind of like bringing it up I probably didn't do it in the most like disarming kind of way which I think probably a lot of people can relate to Like it kind of became this thing. That was like I don't know, it was like a volcano is like simmering under the surface and there was like resentment and frustration and like honestly, I think for a long time I just didn't even have the mental capacity or the energy to figure out how to have that conversation. So when it did happen, it was kind of like one of those blow up moments where it was like he thought things were going great and then all of a sudden I have this complete meltdown where I'm, like you know, just basically word vomiting like all of my resentments and frustrations, and of course you know that kind of sets the scene for there to be like a defensive conversation, like we've talked about communication in the past. That's not the way to do it, but I think that's probably a common experience for a lot of people. So, you know, once we kind of were able to revisit the topic in a more calm and logical standpoint, as opposed to being, like, all caught up in our feels.

Speaker 1: 18:30

I kind of just started off by explaining how I am feeling, and you know, maybe I'm feeling really stressed out or really overwhelmed or really resentful that I have all of these responsibilities. Something that I have just recently learned that I will tell you is that, having these types of like kind of tough conversations, you don't want to say that you're making me feel like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because that also kind of creates a tense and defensive conversation. But what you could say instead is the story I'm telling myself is that you would rather have me doing all of the cooking and all of the cleaning so that you know you can have more time to relax. Like that's the story I'm telling myself and that gives them the opportunity to be like that's not what's happening here, like let me explain my side of it, and that probably wasn't like the best example, but you know, bear with me, I'm still learning how to use these phrases myself. But, like I mentioned, you know, one of the tools that we used was the Fair Play book, and they also have like a card deck so that you can actually physically hold on to the cards that are your responsibility. And so we went through that and, I'm not going to lie, it was a little bit of a painful process because, I mean, I don't really think that I'm telling any default parent anything they don't already know.

Speaker 1: 20:25

But there's a lot of shit that goes into running a household and so, like talking about every single thing and like breaking it down to like okay, minimum standard of care, what does it look like to complete this task, and just like outlining all of that, it's a lot of work and it took us probably like three separate meetings, you know in quotations, on, like you know, three separate nights of like at least an hour each for us to sit down and actually go through it. But that was a really helpful way for us to kind of talk about this topic and figure out ways to kind of make it easier to share, because one of the cool things is that it breaks down the tasks that are, you know, the more intermittent type things and it specifically indicates the ones that are part of the like the daily grind, and one of the rules is that the daily grind cards need to be equally distributed. Like one person cannot be holding like a majority of them. It has to be as close to 5050 as you can get it there. And I think that's a really good feature of this fair play program because it is really easy for like one person to end up especially if they're not working outside the home, like maybe they're working from home or they work part time or they're a stay at home parent it's really easy for them to hold like all of the daily grind cards, but that shit gets exhausting so fast and it is like a really quick and easy way to get to burnout and resentment.

Speaker 1: 22:27

And then you know relationship, marital issues and yeah, so that's the program, honestly, that I would recommend the most because it is so easy and effective to kind of get through it that way. We'll make sure to link to it in our show notes so you can check it out if you haven't heard of it before. One of the things that I was hoping that you might be able to kind of talk about a little is how should we handle it if our partner isn't really willing to work with us a whole lot on it, like if they're pretty happy with you know their quantity and quality of leisure time and they're really willing to give any of that up because they work hard to and they need their time to relax. What if they're not willing to like engage in that conversation? How should we kind of approach that situation?

Speaker 2: 23:29

And I'll talk about it from like a personal side because once again I am that person who's like I'm happy with how things are. I think when we have had conversations about being more equitable, about the household split, there are kind of creative ways of getting around having to take on that responsibility. Because I'm like we both work. I think you know if we can and if you have the opportunity to be able to outsource things like do it and so you know, on the nights that I might be in charge of dinner, that might be a takeout night, which seems like cheating, but you know dinner's taken care of. You know hiring someone to clean if you're able to.

Speaker 2: 24:12

I really liked in the past you've talked with me about just the concept of making a list of things that aren't super important to you.

Speaker 2: 24:21

You know, if there are things in the house that you can kind of be like we're going to just like let this go for a while, I think that can be really helpful.

Speaker 2: 24:31

And I think you know we've talked about how to have this kind of difficult conversation. I think a piece of it is like coming at sort of more factually or more objectively and, like you said, I think a lot of times it happens in the heat of the moment because someone is really frustrated. But I do think, saying hey, I'm finding that I'm really overwhelmed with the amount of things that we need to do and I'd like to talk about, like, what can we kind of kick off our plate completely, what can we outsource, and then kind of what's important to each of us? And I do think that there are certain things that drive my husband crazy about, like cleanliness, and things that drive me crazy, and they're kind of different, and so it's like I hate when the kitchen table has stuff on it, so I'll always be in charge of cleaning that, just because I'm like I need it to be clean.

Speaker 2: 25:21

And so I think that there are some things that we kind of naturally fell into. But I do think having kind of that objective conversation about fine, if you're not willing to take on more, how are we gonna get around this kind of concept of me being overwhelmed as well and you mentioned this but like I literally gamify everything in my life. So even if you're like we will like have a little contest to see who's cooking dinner tonight, like I'd be way more on board with kind of that because it's like exciting and fun. So I think looking at ways to make it a little more interesting for both partners can also help.

Speaker 1: 25:58

Yeah, yeah, I love that idea. Gamifying is a really fun way to make the really boring tasks of everyday life a little bit less tedious. And one of the things that you had just mentioned the list of things that don't really matter to you a whole lot. I wanted to just talk about that for a quick second. So I call it the effort list, where you're just effort, that's good enough. So I have a few things that I do that are on my own personal effort list. So, for instance, laundry like let's just go there because I hate laundry, but it's one of my tasks, so I don't split up whites and colors.

Speaker 1: 26:53

Everything goes in one load of laundry, I do not care. Also, one of the things is that so our laundry, our washer and dryer are downstairs, right by the front door, and so I just always have the lid of it up and open. And so when the kids take their socks off and throw them to the side in the living room, or dirty clothes from school come home, anything like that, my husband has a dirty sweatshirt from work all that stuff goes right into the washing machine and it might sit there for two days, but it's in there and then I just wash it all as one load of a whole bunch of random things. But another thing that I do is like I just keep everybody else's personal laundry, like in their room, separate. Like I have a basket for my stuff, a basket for my husband's stuff and then each of my kids, and once or twice a week I will just take that hamper, throw it in, do a quick load of laundry where I wash it and I dry it, and then I put it back into that hamper and I put it back in their room. I may never get around to folding it and putting it away, but that's one of my effort.

Speaker 1: 28:13

Things Like I don't really care if it's washed or not. If it's washed it has to be washed and cleaned. But I don't really care if it's folded and put away nicely, because my kids just destroy their drawers when they're trying to find clothes for the date anyway. I mean it looks like a hamper in one of their drawers. So easy peasy, just like find little shortcuts for things that don't really make a big difference to you one way or the other, and who flipping cares if it's not the way that you should be doing it or if you feel like, well, a good mom would fold and put away their kids' laundry, like no, you are a good mom already and you don't need to fold laundry in order to be considered a good mom or a better mom. So just kind of think about different ways that you can make shortcuts for yourself. And also I totally echo the delegation.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Like when I had housekeepers for it was probably for a year and a half it was the best thing. It was so nice coming home on a Friday afternoon from work and having a clean house that smelled nice and everything was picked up and put away and sparkling and it was just so fantastic. And for that whole time I didn't have to worry about cleaning my toilets, or like when the last time my bathroom was cleaned was and I didn't have to worry about like changing the sheets on everybody's beds and it just takes so much mental load off of you. So like if you can afford to get any outsourced help whether it be getting the meal kits or hiring a housekeeper or hiring somebody to like come in and do your laundry for you, walk your dog for you, I mean any of that kind of stuff like just do it if it's going to make your life easier and better.

Speaker 2: 30:28

Yeah, no, I 100% agree, and it's a thing that I talk with clients a lot about because you know if you can afford to do it, your time is valuable too and that means you can focus on other things, and so, if you're able, it's a great option as well. And I think don't be scared to be creative too. Like when I was thinking about this topic. Like my husband and I each have our own bathrooms and we each clean our own bathrooms. Like neither one of us cleans both bathrooms, and like I tend to clean kind of our upstairs and he cleans the downstairs. And like when I was kind of looking at our division of labor, it didn't really fall on sort of specific lines. We kind of each jump in when we can in terms of the actual cleaning. And so, you know, feel like you can be creative about kind of how you divide things, even if it's sort of geographically dividing it, but that I feel like has worked really well for us and doesn't make either one of us feel too overwhelmed with tasks.

Speaker 1: 31:32

That's a good tip too. I like that. Splitting it into zones or whatever.

Speaker 2: 31:36

Yeah, now, I've liked that a lot.

Speaker 1: 31:40

So, just to wrap it up, let's summarize the key takeaways of this episode. So, basically, inequitable impacts the careers and the financial independence of women more so than men, and that's even more amplified by the gender wage gap. And so acknowledging how this might be showing up in your own relationship is really the first step to kind of being intentional about creating a better balance, if that's something that needs to happen for you, and it's important to start the conversation in your relationship and sort of move through the process of balancing duties and responsibilities. One of the tools that we specifically talked about in here was the book Fair Play. There are other tools out there to help you do this. You know a Google search is going to help you kind of come up with an array of options, but just know that addressing the unequal division of labor in relationships is a crucial step towards empowering yourself to create the life that you want to be living, rather than kind of being swept up in what just kind of happens when the chips fall where they may. If you are curious about some more tips about sort of renegotiating your division of labor, I would encourage you to check out episode 30, because we did touch on this topic in that episode and it has some really good tips and strategies for you there.

Speaker 1: 33:27

But just to wrap things up with a final question. So our question of this week is what parts of your domestic duties would you most want your partner to take on? Or, if you don't have a partner, what would you most like to try to outsource or delegate Val? How would you answer this question?

Speaker 2: 33:53

I think that probably decluttering my house. I really like our house to be super kind of minimalist, but I definitely like acquire things and so I just, you know, periodically go through a decluttering period and like get rid of everything. But I don't love that process and so I would love to be able to outsource that.

Speaker 1: 34:18

But yeah, yeah, so like a personal organizer, exactly that would be nice.

Speaker 1: 34:25

For me it would be getting back on the schedule for our house cleaners. That was such a relief of like so much mental energy for me. Or like, honestly, let's be real. Not so much mental energy about like you know, oh, I need to vacuum the rugs, oh, to do this and do that, it's like more the guilt for me of like, oh my God, how long has it been since this bathroom was clean? Let's just like try to get that on the to do list and then it would just never get done. So for me it would be keepers, and we would love to hear what your answer to that question is. Tell us through email. You can hit the button in the show notes and it'll pop up an email box for you to send us your answer. Or you can send us a direct message on Instagram. We are on there. You can find us at brazen coaching. So until next week, just keep creating your dream life and we will see you soon.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the breeze and podcast. We'd love to hear more about your parenthood or child free journey, so please feel free to email us at hello at brazen womencom If you liked this episode. Please rate, review and share the episode so we can get the word out there. We'll be back here next Tuesday, but in the meantime, keep being brazen.