honestly 45 hours a week of this job and i'm praying that I can be a stay at home mom... haha but thats because having a baby pull out my hair seems to be a far better exchange than pulling out my own.

But that's not what this is about. I don't have children yet, but I do work a long week and travel to get to work which whittles away my day. When I get home, I'd like nothing more than to relax, but I'm stuck making dinner, doing laundry, dishes, general cleaning. But now my man helps out as one day I realised, I was doing EVERYTHING around the house. So he's got chores now. Which lighten my load. chore include doing dishes a couple times a week, and taking me out for dinner once in a while so i don't have to cook if I'm exhausted. we trade off on laundry now. So much easier.

I agree tho. the article should be talking about equal division of household chores... and that wife crapp.. ugh

All you can really do is not accept that in your own life, honestly.

Ever since I got married two years ago, I've been shocked by how many people still have this attitude. It seems like all I hear are comments like, "You'd better rush home and cook your hubby dinner." Things were not like that in my house growing up. My dad did most of the cooking, for example.
It just boggles the mind.

My boyfriend and I have a great system worked out. I cook while he cleans then he cleans more while I wash the dishes.

Assessing his domestic skills was a big part of allowing him to date me. After watching my mother slave away unappreciated, I was not about to form a relationship with a man who did anything less than his fair share of the housework.

Now if only I could get paid the same at the office so that I could treat him to trips and gifts like he does for me....

Guatemalans! Communes! Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons!

I don't understand why men just want to marry their mothers. This article just proves men are a bunch of babies and women are the actual strong sex.

Fortunately for me, my boyfriend is a way better cook. Thanks to his mother for putting him in the kitchen with her to help.

This article just proves men are a bunch of babies and women are the actual strong sex.

Umm.... this is a bit problematic for me.

I can sympathize with the desire. Even with my partner splitting the domestic chores 50/50, it is still a strain to manage work and homelife for both of us.

However, I wouldn't wish for a "wife". How about more support services? Or a more family-friendly work environment?

Hmmm I don't know if it's sexist of me but I've said that before myself "I wish I had a wife...not a spouse, a wife."

I always thought men got the better deal as I knew girlfriends who cleaned their boyfriend's apartment and cooked them dinner. *however* to be honest I've probably met an equal number of "house husbands" who were better cooks and less messy than their girlfriends.

I think its just this fantasy that it would be nice to come home from the gym and have a nice cooked meal ready for me...but also not to have to "time" my lifestyle around another person.

Where's that fantasy robot that is suppose to cook and clean for you again?

The other day I saw an ad for a cleaning service called, "rent-a-wife." Oh, apparently a wife is just someone who scrubs the toilets and dusts your blinds.
It saddens me that these gender roles persist, and if I hear one more guy say, "I'm a terrible cook, my wife is better," I'll flip. I'm not a great chef either, but it's not rocket science, people.
I guess people tend to live like their parents, and since my Pops cooks all the time, and cleans like a mofo, I'll be damned if I get anything less than half the housework done when my man and I finally get our own place. (Yeah, I like my dad's cooking so much, I still live at home.)

I just wanted to put out a word of appreciation for my boyfriend. We've cohabited for 2 years now and from the get-go we've split chores down the middle. How does our split work? Some chores we always do together (grocery shopping, doing dishes), some we alternate nights or weeks (cooking dinner, doing laundry), some we delegate (I make lunches and clean the kitchen; he cleans the bathroom, sweeps and vacuums).

I took my sister's advice to heart at the start: "whoever does it first, does it forever". Part of this is educating men to not expect women to take care of all the domestic duties, but part of it is also us not doing everything to start with.

I would also like to suggest that in the case where one person in a couple makes more money or has a more demanding job that they pay for a cleaner or a laundry service to do their chores. (This goes both ways!)

Dividing up the housework w/ my husband isn't so much of a problem anymore (hint: try not doing any housework until he figures out how. Or leaves) but for some reason other people expect us to follow "traditional" roles. He's asked women for help with recipes before, just to get "You need a wife" and then hear them seethe when they find out he has one who won't cook for him ("Oh, honey, I'd cook for you!"). Most recently, I came back from Canada with some friends (including a guy) yesterday, and when I told the customs guy the car I was driving was my husband's, he got all pissy asking where my husband was and why the hell I took his car and left the country without him (he couldn't get the time off work and his car is bigger). He kept asking more and more questions and I was really afraid he wasn't going to let me back in the country for being a bad wife. He eventually did, but it was really, really weird.

MoodyStarr, I'll bet that cleaning service would *love* some feedback about their name. And I bet we would like to help you give them that feedback!

"Where's that fantasy robot that is suppose to cook and clean for you again?" - NewsCat

The 50s.

JUST LIKE LIBERASL TO PULL TEH PLUG ON WIFE SUPPORT

The comments about a more equitable distribution of work in the home are right on, but I wanted to draw your attention to another point, just because in a former life as an academic, this was what I studied. The very real fact is that the modern workplace is often organized with the implicit assumption that a person occupying a particular position has a person at home who takes care of the sundry details of what we sociologists like to call the "social reproduction of labor," so that instead of worrying what they're going to eat for dinner, an employee can focus all their mental energy on the workplace. In addition, this implied caretaker is often a woman (and it's assumed that the employee is male).

Now, while I'm all for reorganizing the home life so that the basic tasks of the home are shared between partners, I think it's also important that we examine re-organizing our work life - one that does privilege workers who have "wives" to support them - so that those with responsibilities in the home (raising children, doing the dishes, etc.) are able to carry them out without damaging their careers. The "public" and "private" spheres aren't really separate, and if we're going to have an impact on one of them (equitable distribution of home work), we'll have to tackle the other as well (re-organizing how we "work").

Years ago, when I was a women's studies major, I read a great essay called why I want a wife.

It was certainly meant to be ironic, but it's disturbing how not far we've come in the meantime.

I've said that I need a wife in an ironic, feminist-inspired way (I'm a woman). I like to think it gets people thinking about what we take for granted as the role of "wife", and highlight our assumptions about domestic work and gender.

But in reality, I just want an egalitarian relationship. He can cook and I can clean. Or vice versa.

forgive me if i seem a bit incredulous. i'm a woman, a workforce participant for many years. a wife. and a mother. and, oh yes, a feminist, too. i'm probably a little older than a lot of you, too. i'm in my ...wait for it ... 40s.

it's really easy to breeze through and say it won't ever happen to you. oh, not me. my boyfriend and i will always be equal, he'll do 50% and i'll do 50%; i'll make sure of it. and if he does, well, bully for you. my husband did, too, before we became parents. and you know what -- when you don't have kids, and dishes don't get done, or places don't get cleaned, or groceries don't get bought (fill in chore du jour here), it doesn't really matter. usually.

but then, enter the kids. kids change the entire equation. they simply do. and you really have no earthly inkling about how they will until you're in that situation. (i chose this, so i'm not complaining as much as noting.) but i smile politely when i hear younger women talking about exactly how their lives will be once they have children. they simply don't know. i am married to a guy who is supportive of feminists; my friends are married to some really incredibly supportive and liberated men. and guess what? we end up in roles we swore we would never have pre-children.

i'd be thrilled beyond belief when i hear about the next generation making it work differently somehow. i'm not entirely holding my breath, though, to be brutally honest.

Do you all remember the Grey’s Anatomy episode where Christina finally agrees to marry Burke? She said, "We're both doctors, we will have money, we can buy a wife." I turned to my girlfriend (please note: not a hetero relationship) and we both nodded deeply. We need help and neither one of us wants to give up careers for housework. I’m not sure what the answer is, but the problem doesn’t only exist with hetero couples. Society and careers put an awful lot of pressure on us “working girls� to balance everything. I don’t necessarily think that “buying� help is the right system. How about shorter work days? Other thoughts?

Tangentially related to this issue... When I first met my (then future) mother-in-law, she bragged endlessly about how she'd raised her son to share in the household chores. "He can cook, he can clean, he can do laundry--don't let him get away with not helping out."

(He is, btw, extremely helpful and I never, ever have to ask him to pull his weight.)

Soon after we got married, he casually mentioned to her on the phone that he was doing laundry. A week later, he got a letter telling him that he shouldn't be doing laundry--that was his wife's job.

We've never heard the end of what a horrible wife I am because I don't wait on him hand and foot. What happened to "he was raised to help," I have no idea. As soon as I became "the Mrs.," his mum went nuts.

Luckily, he didn't.

It's appalling to me that working women would prefer to heap their domestic responsibilities on faceless unpaid women (they ARE using the word "wife") than make their lousy husbands do their fair share of housework.

It would never, EVER occur to me to get some other woman to pick up my husband's slack, even in some fantasy.

And who the hell are these inconsiderate guys who are able to sleep at night knowing that their wives are putting in a second shift at home after a full day's work - while they do nothing (one-fifth do "some kind of housework?"). Seriously, this shit disgusts me.

Thank Darwin for my boyfriend. We don't live together, but he plans more meals than I do when we're together. He's always making up recipes and trying them out on me. And, at his house, he can't relax after eating until he's cleaned the dishes. He would never dream of expecting me to do stuff like that just because of what's between my legs. I don't know, maybe he'd become an entitled asshole if we moved in together. But if he did I sure as hell wouldn't put up w/ it for long.

I wonder if you took part in the thread re: marriage over at Twisty's a couple months ago, Wrekehavoc. A dark glimpse into "feminist" marriages, for sure.
I don't doubt for a minute that things *do* change when children enter the equation. But they shouldn't. Men should pony up and put their money where their feministm-speaking mouths are.

That's why it's best not to have children. If you want to be considered a full person, anyway.

I think the problem is that while, like some commenters here have mentioned, a woman saying "i need a wife" can be interpreted as sort of ironic (although I think that's not precisely the right word), an expression of a need for help that subtly calls out and critiques traditional gender roles at the same time. of course, tons of people are probably reading that article thinking it makes perfect non-snarky sense, because, as someone pointed out above with the rent-a-wife maid service example, wife = maid, etc.

I am in the same camp as beccakay1776 and elyzabethe:
it's probably a bad idea to characterize the person we are in need of as a "wife", but I don't care if it's a man, a woman, or a damn robot- what I'd like is someone to help out with the stuff both my working partner and I have a hard time getting to. I agree that it isn't a very progressive idea to equate housekeeping and corporate entertaining (which is what comes to mind in the sense that a man with a "wife" could get further than a woman who has to do it all on her own) to women and wife-ing- but the discussion should really be about how damn difficult it is to keep up with everything- laundry, dishes, helping the kiddies with the homework- when both partners work all day. Add to that the AMOUNT OF TIME spent at work, and triple the problem by throwing in a couple of kids- it's no wonder at all we're craving that "persona" in the household that has the time dedicated to taking care of the other stuff around the house. It's less about the fact that we want some faceless "woman" cleaning up after ourselves and more about missing that part of the day where one of the adults in the home can actually get to doing it his or herself.

Sure, my partner and I divide up the chores. We're actually quite good at it, though the mess gets to me a lot sooner than it gets to my partner and I wind up doing more out of frustration. I don't think that's a gender thing, it's more of a personality issue.

i consider myself a full person, and it has nothing to do with having kids or not having kids. i hope i'm misinterpreting your meaning on that, sarah.

my point, though, is this: when you have children, the chores, the questions, multiply exponentially. no matter how well-intentioned two partners can be, sometimes, there are either too many issues for there to be any sort of equal distribution, or stressful situations present that throw even the most egalitarian situation off kilter. you haven't lived, for example, until you have had kids with never-ending illnesses and you get into the "who's day is more important at work" discussion because someone has to stay home with the kids.

laundry is the least of it.

yes, i agree: men need to do their share; and in a perfect world, it would be 50%. it's actually quite controllable when it's simply a couple we're talking about. and yes, if you are a couple and he doesn't do his share, then his rear *should* be kicked to the curb.

but as we all know, there is simply no permanent place known as perfection; and if/when kids enter the picture, all bets are off.

what i find annoying -- and i know it's said more in jest -- is that some women want a *wife*. the connotation that it's the woman's responsibility, that it's her tasks and not her husband's, eternally pi$$es me off. what many of us need, at least in the land of parenthood, is not a wife -- we need HELP. we need people to help pick the kids up; we need someone to make sure dinner is happening; we need to make sure the kids aren't developing alternate careers as psychopaths. we don't all live near grandma and grandpa (and sometimes, they aren't willing or able to be that magical village that helps with the grandkids), we're all spent from our day jobs, and now we have to handle the realities of our daily lives.

all that control you had in cimply couplehood is totally thrown out the window.

I wasn't implying that you're not a person, Wrekehavoc.
But like you said, even feminist couples have the "who's day is more important at work" argument - It's not hard to guess which spouse usually "wins."
Even your personal experience seems to reflect the fact that when it comes down to it, women are responsible for the household drudgery, even when they have full-time careers.

The article is horrible, and I cannot understand how an editor allows to publish that. Anyway, as some other comments are pointing here, it is not a matter of people saying anything, but education.

Men expect a home-dedicated wife because they were educated to expect that; and the one giving out that education is mainly the mother. Housework is just one part of everyday life and it should be educated in the same way as saying "good morning" to your neighbours. If that kind of education is available, we would just see something like: "I wish WE had some extra help for housework".

Wrekehavok, this same conversation was brought up on the Curvature. One woman said that breastfeeding is what threw she and her husband off balance. When you are the sole source of food, I can understand how that would happen. However, what I don't understand is how you can say that having kids immediately puts into these roles. If one's partner is so supposedly egalitarian before kids, one shouldn't have trouble demanding equality after. I stay at home with sick Susie one day, the next time she's sick, he should stay. Alternate cooking days, or cook together. Make a star chart or something equally hokey to divide chores.

If we want to stop being soley responsible for the household stuff by default... then don't be. Mr. KMP and I divide everything equally. We cook and clean together. We alternate who buys groceries. I hate vacuuming and mopping, and he hates laundry, so I wash clothes and he does floors. If we decide to have children, he understands already what that entails for him, because he knows I won't stand for a second of being the principle housekeeper.

thanks :)

honestly, women do still end up with the short end of the stick, with kids, without kids. i think we agree there.

i guess where i took umbrage (and not with you, to be sure) was listening to several women who think that a) because their boyfriends help out that this is how it will always be, and b) that of COURSE they will always have control over the homelife split -- and if you can't control that, then clearly, something is wrong with you.

people have no idea until you've walked in the proverbial shoes, KWIM?

that's all i'm sayin'.

I'd like to second(twelfth?) the folks who see this as not only a matter of division of labor but what our workplaces expect of us. This article is not just about the person who work 8 or even 10 hours a day and then comes home to do the housework, though that's definitely a problem. It's about how women in high-level jobs--jobs with 7 a.m. conference calls and late night drafting sessions--literally cannot compete unless they have a spouse or other support doing these home-maintenance tasks for them. Moreover, it's not just laundry and dishes--it's emotional support. Someone to go to your formal dinners and talk you through the tears at the end of a frustrating day, which a spouse who is just as stressed-out or not completely gung ho about you working all the time might not give. I am incredibly lucky to have a spouse who functions as a "wife" (he works 40 hour weeks, does 80% of the home maintenance, and hangs on through the drama) right now, but most women do not and I don't know how the dynamic will change if we have children.

We need to demand that workplaces--both the 40-hour-weekers and the executive positions--recognize that people need time to participate in their own home lives, and that not all of us will have a support system that allows us to devote ourselves to the job body and soul, no matter how much we love our work.

So lets stop using the loaded word wife, and start using the less loaded word, stay at home spouse. Because what we all need is a person who will run the errands during the day, make dinner at night, and clean the house.

A spouse, not a wife.

There are two things contributing to this problem that we must address before it can be solved.

1. The expanding workweek. Many people often work 60+-hour weeks now, including commute time, and simply do not have the time or energy to put into domestic chores or childrearing. People who can afford it outsource this stuff to maid services and day care. People who can't usually let those chores fall to the partner with a less-demanding job. Because of mommy tracking and lower pay, this almost always falls to women. If both partners worked 3/4 time shifts, both would have plenty of time and energy to share domestic duties. But American capitalism being what it is, there's simply no way we're going to see a 30-hour workweek any time soon.

2. We must remember that sexism affects men, too. Men don't do chores solely because they're lazy or feel entitled. They don't do them because they fear ridicule and shaming. The fear of feminization is enormous for most men, and doing "women's work" is something they just can't risk. We need to get rid of this stigma if we're going to motivate them to do more.

There are, of course, other factors present, such as the fact that, physically speaking, women are the ones best suited to care for newborns (recovering from birth and breastfeeding tends to anchor women to the home, and the rest of the domestic stuff tends to naturally follow.) Also, very, VERY few companies allow much paternity leave, if any at all, and that means that men just don't get the time off necessary to care for babies.

Charity, I was unable to locate a web site or email address for this company. I would have preferred to send out a polite, casual email, assuming this company probably meant no harm. I would feel better reminding them that a spouse is supposed to be a loving life partner and that equating "wife" with "maid" does a great disservice to all of us. Anyway, here's an address and phone number.

D. Rent A Wife
5 Willow Ter
Loudon, NH 03307
(603) 226-9411

When I started reading the article I honestly thought the guy was gonna be like : " I want a wife because I want someone to share my life with."

I mean, shouldn't that be the reason why a guy wants to marry ?
Although this topic is nothing new, its concept is very alive today in many many most of the households everywhere. Let's just keep the work going and convince women that they dont have to take all the work load they get at home. Try and marry a guy that will respect you. That's all.

What's to be done?

1. Realize that equality rights work both ways and fight for equality in the way society views parenting. Push for greater acceptance of shared parental leave from the workplace and work to destroy "Mr. Mom" stereotypes. Be vocal and keep at it.

2. Teach your sons how to cook and clean and do the laundry for the love of God! I am constantly amazed at the way men may age have been coddled by their mothers. (I had a 27-year old boyfriend whose mother insisted on picking up his laundry for him. He can do his own laundry, he had the facilities in his building, but he just didn't want to argue with her.)

3. Don't let it happen to you. Insist on an equitable household arrangement, point blank.

This is why I hate the word "wife."

And by the way, I am a wife. I'm married.

What we all need to do is raise boys to be self-sufficient and independent re: household chores/responsibilities. I'm sure as feminists we already plan to do this or are doing it already. Unfortunately there are so many parents out there (mothers especially) who coddle their sons and essentially teach them that certain responsibilities are for women.

My own mom never insisted or expected my brother to do anything for himself. Never made his bed. Never mopped the floor. Never vaccuumed or dusted. All the "women's chores" were mine. I don't think he'd ever dealt with laundry. Yes, I resented it. Chores were split along gender lines. I had almost all of them; I think he took the trash out once a week. If he refused, mom did it. When he moved away from home he didn't know what the hell to do. My mom once remarked, "Oh, he'll find himself a nice girl to take care of him." Right. That's the attitude to impart to your son. :rolls eyes: Girlfriends = maids.

according to the article, one in five men does some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.

Well also, Narc, women are judged if their homes aren't spotless. When they're single, when they live with a man.
But if men live in filth it's just shrugged off. If he lives with a woman, she is often criticized for not keeping the place tidy.

I'm on board with wrekehavoc here. I hear ya loud and clear. I have two kids and a husband who does more than his fair share of work around here. And still, there are times when I do more, and times when he does more. And lots does depend on who *can*. Yes, there've been discussions of whose day at work (or school) is more important, and sometimes his day is, sometimes mine is. That being said, his job has benefits - sick days, family sick leave(!), and personal days. At my job, the benefit is they'll pray for you. ;) (I'm a secretary at a church *grin*) So if it comes down to 'the kids are sick', he stays home with them.

But nothing is equitable all the time. And kids definitely change the equation. A friend of mine has an asshole for a husband. He does *nothing* around the house. She does all the childrearing, and all the housework, but she's not about to leave him over housework. No, it's not an equitable situation, and you bet your ass she's a feminist, but you don't leave the kids' Daddy over housework. Or at least, she won't.

"I can sympathize with the desire. Even with my partner splitting the domestic chores 50/50, it is still a strain to manage work and homelife for both of us."

I can sympathize a bit too.

I'm single and work approximately 8-5 on weekdays. Some businesses seem to think all of their clients/customers have someone in the household who is free to make personal calls and run errands at those hours. So if you're like me, good luck asking customer service a question, scheduling an appointment, or even calling to schedule an appointment when you're not on the clock yourself...

"i guess where i took umbrage (and not with you, to be sure) was listening to several women who think that a) because their boyfriends help out that this is how it will always be, and b) that of COURSE they will always have control over the homelife split -- and if you can't control that, then clearly, something is wrong with you."

OTOH, what if she's sure her plans won't be wrecked by having kids because she's sure she won't have kids in the first place (is on very reliable contraception, lives somewhere with secure access to abortion, doesn't have a womb and isn't likely to inherit a kid by accident, whatever)?

"Teach your sons how to cook and clean and do the laundry for the love of God!"

Then if your kid complains about the chores being sissy, remind him or her that the military teaches these skills too. One of my teachers in high school said that he learned to cook and do laundry in the Navy.

I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned The Second Shift yet, especially in all the statements about how to get a man to think that he should do an equal share of the work. I subscribe to Hochschild's thinking, that men won't help with housework if they currently feel social pressure not to do it.

That said, I also have to raise the point of how you decide the division is equal. Would it be the same number of hours engaged in cleaning? The same difficulty? Or each person doing the same number of chores but not the ones they don't like? etc.

The thing that concerns me about the people who are saying that we not only need to remake home life in a more egalitarian image, and also work life is, what you're talking about is a generational shift. It's not going to happen overnight; it's probably not going to happen even when the people who are now in preschool are mid-career professionals. I don't know about you guys, but that puts me up to or into retirement age by then.

Meanwhile, what do we do tomorrow? What do we do next week, next year, five years from now, when nothing much has changed dramatically for the better, and we're still -- what? thirty years after this first became a noticeable societal issue -- working on it.

Saying "get your spouse to contribute 50%" doesn't actually solve the problem if you don't have a spouse, or if you have x amount of time's worth of chores to do and collectively x - y amount of time to do them in. (For those of us without spouses, or is that spice, add in that other pernicious workplace problem -- "You're single and don't have kids, you don't mind working overtime, do you?")

Hell, in my case, I only work 3/5 time and I still don't have enough time or energy to get everything done (*some restrictions, such as cerebral palsy, apply).

So what do we do in the interim?

waxghost,

Our solution was to lay out ALL the chores (including "manly" ones like changing light bulbs), then come to an agreement of how much they're "worth" in points. (aside: changing the cat litter gets a lot of points in our family, considering the short time it takes to do). Then we pick out chores so that each of us gets 1/2 of the points (actually, a bit less than 1/2 b/c our daughter also has some minor chores on that list).

Every once in a while we change stuff around if one of us gets sick of a particular chore or it's not working out well for whatever reason. I still can't say that it's absolutely perfect, (what makes it hard is that we both loathe doing housework) but at least we both feel that the system is generally fair.

A while back I told a friend about our system, and her husband was like "Nooooooo" (jokingly, but sort-of not, b/c he knew if they did the same system he would end up doing quite a bit more work)

Boring point.

How about asking whether modern life is so fucked up that people lack the time to relax, enjoy a meal, and one another's company, regardless of gender.

I have a wife. I like her. A lot. But how we organize meals and housework isn't the point here.

But what I think I have grown to embrace is the idea that it's possible to Stop The Insanity and embrace a slower pace speed of being.

What does 'a wife' in the context of The Fine Article refer to? The chance for a couple of hours of Not Doing Anything in the evening. Not being in a freaking treadmill.

Want a pithy epigram? "A Wife = A Life".

Sorry to jump in late in the game, but...

When, god, when will the NYT stop running these articles? I ask the same questions I do every time I hear about the work/stay at home divide: who can afford not to work? Does it ever occur to them to talk about progressive models of partnerships? Can they allow articles by/about women that don't sink into gender stereotypes? If I don't read them, will they go away?

I am so sick of sensationalist articles like this. please, someone write something for the NYT that has a basis in reality.

That's a really interesting article, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

On the flip side, I think that hearing a bunch of women say "what I need is a wife" is actually a recognition of all the work wives have done/are doing. In short, I think the article may make some people think of wives in a different way.

I also think it speaks of the chaotic way we run our lives and work schedules.

That being said, I share a lot of the same frustrations.

Give credit where credit is due- and, Womens studies 101, anyone?

see judy syfers (or judy brady) and her classic piece from ms. magazine circa 1971. it's called "why i want a wife" and you can find it here:

http://www.cwluherstory.org/CWLUArchive/wantawife.html

Did they credit her at all in this nyt piece?!

Give credit where credit is due- and, Womens studies 101, anyone?

see judy syfers (or judy brady) and her classic piece from ms. magazine circa 1971. it's called "why i want a wife" and you can find it here:

http://www.cwluherstory.org/CWLUArchive/wantawife.html

Did they credit her at all in this nyt piece?!

Yeah, I have heard women can't be doctors because doctors need a wife at home. Right.

My boy toy is looking for me to be his wife one day (perish the thought, me at 20 years old? Go on...). I will NOT be the one stuck with all the chores AND the 40-hour-plus work-week AND birthing the children. And because he can't form a uterus anytime soon, we can't share the duties on that last event.

Still, I see it in my own parents. My mother and dad will share jobs about the house (he'll get laundry, folding, dishwasher duty, i.e.) But she'll backtrack over his steps if he didn't do something "correctly" or, as is more the case, "to her liking."

Perhaps the "wifely" remarks (and I am in NO way defending that damned article) happen as a result of this type of situation occurring in other households besides TheBrawn's?

Well. This is interesting - and frustrating.

My partner works 7am-5pm Mon-Fri, takes 1/2 travelling each way.

I work 7.45am-6.30pm Mon, 9am-6.15pm Tue-Thur & 9am-3pm Sun. 1 hour one way and 1/2 hour back.

We have no children, but 3 dogs and 6 cats. And a couple of fish tanks. It takes ~3 hours to walk all the dogs every day.

Despite walking with my dogs so getting to bed at the same time, and getting up earlier, my partner does 90% of the housework.

He cooks most nights. We usually leaves dishes until there's no bench, when he washes and I come along later to put away. We leave the bed for weeks, and then he usually does it.

Basically I do f- all, and I feel really bad for it. But this kind of crap makes me scared of making a decent contribution because I don't want to be the "girl" in the relationship. :\

And no, it wouldn't change if we had kids, because if we did (which we won't), he would be the primary caregiver. He has much more patience and enjoys children's company more. He'd be the better parent.

P.S. Once I've sorted out my schedule properly I will be contributing properly; I'm not proud of my laziness. But after 4 years it's kind of a habit :P

I am with wrekehavoc on this but possibly with a twist.

When my husband and I initially moved in together we shared the chores. We cooked together or swapped nights, and cleaned the home together on the weekends. I wouldn't have married him had it been any different.

After the wedding and over several years slowly but surely things changed. By the time I was pregnant with our child I was doing most of the work and realized it way too late.

I objected and he agreed to do more. By the time my son was five months old not only was I doing the all of the housework and cooking again , I was also running our on-line business and I was ultimately the sole care-giver to my son. My husband worked during the day but contributed nothing to his child's care in the evenings or weekends. Having a child creates an astronomical increase in workload.

After demanding more help with my 24/7, undervalued job until my face turned blue, and getting nothing lasting in return, I filed for divorce.

Now that he has moved out do you know what? Strangely enough it feels like I have less to do and my son and I run like a well-oiled machine.

My point is that I NEVER planned on being married to someone who didn't share the load. Nor did I plan on being a stay-at-home-parent. But shit sort of sneaks up on you sometimes and the noblest of plans sometimes get derailed while you aren't looking and you, for example, find yourself being a "wife" in the most derogatory way.

Just my two cents. And just to stay on post a bit, that article pisses me off because it gives the word wife a really insulting definition and perpetuates the idea that we are slaves and wet-nurses.

I'll admit I've made this comment myself when I've been too busy to clean up my place or cook for myself. I'm female and have always considered myself a feminist to some degree or other. I meant it as a joke.

Articles like this make me feel so thankful for the way my parents raised my brother and I.

When we hit puberty, we were taught to do our own laundry. Every weekend we had chores to do and we split them up by personal preference. Both my parents cook, and we both helped out. I can cook nearly anything and my brother can cook as long as he has an explicit recipe. My brother and I share a car and we're both responsible for oil changes and maintenance and whatnot.

So, I grew up with a partner that I had to split duties with, and then I saw my parents. Both my mom and dad will admit that the work load was not equally distributed AT ALL. But eventually my mom got tired of it and it changed. My dad works nights, so he wakes up around 11am, eats breakfast, does laundry, and cleans the kitchen and tidies up the house. My mom gets home from work and they make lunch or go out to eat. Then my mom usually makes dinner and sends my dad off to work.

My dad grew up in an extremely traditional family with a stay-at-home mom in a culture where women always stayed at home - but he was able to change. If my mom had put up with it I'm sure he would have happily kicked back and relaxed, but because she wouldn't he shaped up.

Well luckily for me, Im not in any sort of relationship, yet manage to handle things perfectly on my own.

So its great, not only that I can manage things without enslaving a woman, but I also dont have to put up with this horse shit about men needing to buck up and do their fair share.

I think the point that also has to be made that having a wife/spouse at home gives people a distinct advantange in the workplace.

And currently, in academia, where I work the stay-at-home caretaker is most often a woman. Which means that I am competing for jobs/raises/grants with men who have a distinct advantage over me. As a result I think many of the top positions in academia are filled by people in traditional gender roles... men with stay-at-home wives.

I think the point that also has to be made that having a wife/spouse at home gives people a distinct advantange in the workplace.

And currently, in academia, where I work the stay-at-home caretaker is most often a woman. Which means that I am competing for jobs/raises/grants with men who have a distinct advantage over me. As a result I think many of the top positions in academia are filled by people in traditional gender roles... men with stay-at-home wives.

I think the point that also has to be made that having a wife/spouse at home gives people a distinct advantange in the workplace.

And currently, in academia, where I work the stay-at-home caretaker is most often a woman. Which means that I am competing for jobs/raises/grants with men who have a distinct advantage over me. As a result I think many of the top positions in academia are filled by people in traditional gender roles... men with stay-at-home wives.

Beyond housework the movers and shakers of business and politics are mainly men because they have a wife who will rub elbows, host parties to help them schmooze, join them on campaign trails or business trips to build relationships with the other wives and network behind the scenes. I don't think many men would be respected if they took on that role. Not many men would find it ok to leave work early to pick up the kids three nights a week because his wife has to close a big deal and her career is more important than his.

I kind of think Bill Clinton could pull this off, but only because he's already been in the top spot and he'll be seen as lending support, not as a lazy man who couldn't get to the top and had to ride on his wife's coattails.

Men benefit from having a wife in big business and politics in a way that women don't.

We need to change the way business and politics are done.

Behind every successful man is a woman ironing his shirts, fixing his meals and cleaning his house.

I'm with SarahMC on this one--teach boys to do the stinking housework. My family had the same kind of situation, even though my mother professes to be more of a feminist than I am, yet there's no male responsibility for their own upkeep. I feel like I'm getting a good deal beacuse my live-in makes as much money as I do; that's something my mother never has had, as she's been both the breadwinner and the "wife."

My BF doesn't do much around the house, but neither do I. I work a lot, so does he, so the apartment gets really grungy between weekends. I can usually force him into helping, but that's another chore in itself. I guess I can put up with it, because he's on the equality boat in every other way.

My biggest issue is that if women say that they want help with chores, they're labeled as bitches or nags; on the other hand, if you say screw it, you're a defective slob. Cathch 22? Yup.

It seems to me that this article (After reading this whole thing) is bringing light to the issue that everyone is discussing, and is on the same side. Granted they use the word 'wife' in ways where it could be replaced with maid, but contextually I think they're drawing attention to this irony; that 'wife' in the corporate/professional world means something different than the way we normally use it. (yes, there is the atrocity of rent-a-wife cleaners, which IS appalling). The women in the article are saying they want a wife in that stereotypical sense because of everything the 'traditional' wife does for a husband, they want Mrs. Cleaver so to say 'wife' in this sense draws attention both to the f-ed up stereotype of a wife, but also how when that stereotype is in place it hurts both the woman who is 'the little wife' to her fortune 500 husband, AND his female competitor in the work place. They're not being serious, they're illustrating a point; they're no more serious about wanting an actual wife for housework than they are about want to be in a sexual relationship with one; they're illustrating a point.

It seems to me that this article (After reading this whole thing) is bringing light to the issue that everyone is discussing, and is on the same side. Granted they use the word 'wife' in ways where it could be replaced with maid, but contextually I think they're drawing attention to this irony; that 'wife' in the corporate/professional world means something different than the way we normally use it. (yes, there is the atrocity of rent-a-wife cleaners, which IS appalling). The women in the article are saying they want a wife in that stereotypical sense because of everything the 'traditional' wife does for a husband, they want Mrs. Cleaver so to say 'wife' in this sense draws attention both to the f-ed up stereotype of a wife, but also how when that stereotype is in place it hurts both the woman who is 'the little wife' to her fortune 500 husband, AND his female competitor in the work place. They're not being serious, they're illustrating a point; they're no more serious about wanting an actual wife for housework than they are about want to be in a sexual relationship with one; they're illustrating a point.

I am an aspiring director in the entertainment industry in L.A., and the fact is that most of the people who do what I want to do are rich men with stay-at-home wives. Further, most of the people who break through from where I am are men who have a woman supporting them in a variety of ways - not the least of which is emotionally. Like it or not, when I compete with these people that is an advantage that they have.

Start paying attention and you will notice that many male directors have families and kids, while many women fighting to break into directing are single and childless. Not only do they choose that so as not to be held back by family pressures, but they also lack that emotional benefit.

Historically speaking, until right now, I was never in a relationship that didn't hold me back rather than bolster me up. Poor choices, perhaps, but I see that too often women give and men take.

I believe that things are changing, and I believe that my current man may be a man who is able to take a turn being my cheering squad. But at the end of the day, in my industry, I see many, many, many men being supported by women, whereas women seem to strive alone.

My main point is, the reference to "needing a wive" is often referring to emotional support, cheering squad, someone who believes in you and supports you in your quest for success. There's a level on which I don't see husbands providing that for wives the way wives continue to provide that for husbands.

Here's the answer: Do not marry or procreate if you want to pursue a career and be considered an equal professionally. Oh, don't get me wrong, you won't be viewed as an equal, but you also won't be expected to care for people who do not have an appreciation for your extra labor on their behalf. And "housework" is not valued even by those of us who do it! Forgive me if you're one of the rare "partners" in a relationship with an equitable division of labor.

If we all decided to do this, men would actually have to learn to do for themselves - eventually. Or they'd have to hire someone to do it - thereby evening out the advantage they currently have fiscally in (traditionally) being paid more for doing less. Are we strong enough? I think we are. I am.

Ugh.
Can a woman not wish for support which a wife generally is expected to give in our society while at the same time working for the very equality you (Jess) think is actually possible in every relationship? I worked very hard with my ex husband to have our lives be equal in terms of sharing tangible (money/housework) and intangible (emotional) things, but you know, it's not actually always possible.

Also, as a now unmarried woman in a relationship, I would still love to have a 'wife' to come home to. That may or may not be okay with you, but it reflects a very real societal problem. Women are taught to and expected to be caregivers in a specific way and men are taught to and expected to be caregivers in a specific way. As we step out of these expected roles we find that we also need to be cared for in the way many of us were taught to care for others.

Shaming women who wish for more isn't really helping, no matter how awkwardly that wish is expressed.

Women are taught to and expected to be caregivers in a specific way and men are taught to and expected to be caregivers in a specific way.

And wishing for your very own "wife" is reinforcing this double-standard. Instead of wanting a wife, how about wanting a husband who's as concerned for your comfort as you are for his?

SarahMC
Yes, of course. But punishing me because I voice this in a way you disagree with doesn't help. IMNSHO.

That is what I have a problem with. If you assume that I don't work for equality in my own life you are wrong.

When I was ten I started doing my own laundry. Because I wanted to. My dad was the cleaning person in the house and taught me to clean. I teach my sons to clean and care for themselves and their stuff and expect it from my partner, but that doesn't fix everything.

What I am saying is blaming women is beside the point. Yes, we should all have expectations, but truthfully I cannot live up to most people's expectations and am sick of being treated like a jerk by everyone.

Also, I left it out of my first comment because it felt like pandering, but I have had this "wife"convo with gay friends of mine. It's not simply about me as a het woman expecting things from my man, it's about fucked up gender roles and expectations. My wish for a wife is ironic and serves to point out the inequalities in gender roles.

I've also said, ironically, that I need a "wife." Saying that I want a husband who emotionally supports me and backs me in an equal relationship kind of lacks the "sting" of pointing out the inequality that women like me face trying to succeed in corporate America. When I say "I need a wife," people actually stop for a second and think, because it's an odd thing for a woman to say (thanks to our heteronormative assumption that straight is the norm and gay is "other"). Saying I want a husband 1) would make me sound like a man-hungry marriage-seeking woman who would rather be married than have a job (so, actually, I *really* shouldn't say something like that at work) and 2) wouldn't adequately express my frustration at the fact that my married male colleagues, on the whole, have *much* easier lives than I will probably ever have, in spite of the fact that our backgrounds, upbringing, education, etc., are all roughly equivalent. Saying I want a "wife" conveys SO MUCH MORE than explaining to people that inequality is still prevalent in society and in the workplace. When I tell a male colleague that there is still sexism in the workplace, he makes a face and says "oh, come on, work is tough for me too, women don't have it so much worse [because I don't think women have it worse than me in my particular situation, etc.]" But if I say "man, I need a wife" it makes the contrast a little more obvious.

No, not everyone will get that it's ironic (but they're also the ones who are likely to take it and spread a rumor that I'm gay, which would actually be pretty hilarious). But I've never been one to bury a joke or a cutting remark just because the entire audience wasn't up to par.