This is in counterpoint to a Jessica Valenti piece that I am no longer able to find, but it was about how men are terrible because we don’t do “enough” housework. Though I’ve never had and will never have children, I’ve been in battles over household chores. And often for men, women do not count these things as household chores (even though they in most relationships rarely or never do them), though they are very time- and labor-intensive:

• Any yardwork tasks such as mowing, trimming, leaf raking and the like (these can be very labor-intensive and time-consuming in spring and summer)
• Any appliance maintenance
• Any car maintenance
• Any house maintenance
• Roof and gutter cleaning
• Anything at all outdoors, no matter how difficult or even dangerous

I was told by my girlfriends in two relationships that all these “didn’t count” and weren’t “real chores” because “men enjoyed these things.” It’s must be some kind of woman script, because yes, they used almost exactly the same words.

My friends, most men do fucking not in fact enjoy doing these tasks and they require a whole lot of time and work to complete.

Also, many women have much higher (unnecessarily high) cleanliness standards. For instance, an ex of mine was upset if the carpet wasn’t vacuumed at least three times a week. And that’s just too much. Yet if I refused to do that in the Valenti accounting, I’d be “not doing my part.”

Fuck all that noise.