Disclaimer: yes, I’ve met tidy men too. Please note the forest before writing in angrily about the trees.
As Gloria Steinem once observed, academic feminism sucks balls. Okay, maybe she didn’t say that, exactly, but she has always said theory can’t help with everyday-type equality. Nevertheless, a male academic once implied that he was a better feminist than me because he’d read Simone de Beauvoir in the original French (‘Eh, John-Paul, pourquoi est-il du fromage sur mon manuscrit?‘). I reminded him that he’d never had someone ogle his tits while he was trying to make an academic point, so his ‘street cred’ on this matter was severely lacking.
I don’t care about theories. I care about making sure we have more girl geniuses out there. And given that women have generally been socialized to ‘see dirt’ and men haven’t (at least according to Dave Barry), women tend to waste a lot of their psychic energy worrying about the state of their houses.
The preferred method of correction is to try to get men to care about housework. Personally, I think that’s like trying to ‘civilize’ men by getting them to cry in public — is this really necessary? How about nobody is allowed to cry in public? Has anyone ever thought of that?
In the same vein, I think we need to get over the idea that a clean house means anything about how good a person you are. This is where there’s definite bad sexist juju. If a man’s a bad housekeeper, women will roll their eyes and cluck indulgently and then start cleaning for him. If a woman’s a bad housekeeper, it’s some sort of character flaw.
I salute the parents I know who are bringing up their boy and girl children to do all the chores equally. In the meantime, women still need to fight back and conserve their psychic energy so they can author great novels etc. with more frequency than they have in the past few millennia.
I’ve been told I act like a guy in many arenas. The sad thing is, I think I just act like a person who happens to value my own time and work rather than giving it away willy-nilly. My analytics tell me this is going over well — seriously, people, I don’t know why you’re listening to me, I’m obviously deranged. But if you insist, I thought I’d share some holiday tips for ignoring housework.
It helps if you really don’t care about dust bunnies, germs, or clutter. Women don’t inherently care any more than men, but there’s this weird social pressure that they should. That goes double if they’re in a heterosexual cohabiting situation. Cultivate that apathy, ladies. It’s how guys have gotten away with a lot of crap over the centuries.
Parkinson’s Law (which I mentioned in the basics of protecting your time) applies here too: if you let cleaning creep up to first place on your priority list, it will take over your entire life. If you want to get anything else done, housework belongs at the very bottom. As someone who can’t deal with too much clutter, I do a little daily tidying, but that happens right before bed, when I’m not trying to use my brain for anything else. (And guess what I clean first? Yes, my workspace, which is also my dining room table. Convenient, no?) I tidy a little when people are coming over, but make sure not to start till maybe a half hour before they’re going to arrive. And even with party situation, I give myself a pre-set hour limit.
It’s well known that decluttering is the first step to cleaning, and obviously the best way to remove clutter is to never actually use anything in your house. Barring that, you’ll need to throw things into closets, washing machines, any available cubby-type space. I also keep one drawer of my file cabinet empty, the better to do last-minute office tidying. Hasty stowage is key.
Following the example Dave Barry sets, I put little effort into surfaces, grabbing a random cleaning product from under the sink and a wad of paper towels. Then I sort of glide over everything else with whatever Swiffer item is at the top of the drawer — hey, no one’s paying me for this, what’s my motivation? Germs are good for you, anyway, in the long run.
I’m also a big fan of faking it. In the last five minutes before everyone’s scheduled to arrive, I spray pine-scented something around so it smells like I’ve been cleaning, and fix myself up so I look cool as a cucumber. Those are real, live tips from Mary Ellen of Good Housekeeping, by the way. Women’s magazines have been stealthily promoting time-saving measures for a long time, but I think it’s time to get radical on that shizzle — it’s not just about saving small increments of time, it’s about creating a workable environment for your own thoughts.
Protecting your time doesn’t mean you have to abandon all concern for the house, it just means you have to fight back a little when anyone implies that a clean house is more important that whatever else you’re working on. Which they will, unfortunately — but the more actively and deliberately you refuse to believe it, the easier it becomes to say ‘Oh well, I was just too wrapped up in my novel/fashion business/great invention to vacuum the house from top to bottom.’
Amen. I also rationalize a slightly untidy house with reference to my husband’s firm belief that guests are touched by the disarray: it implies that they are close, dear friends–nearly family. And it encourages them to let their own hair down a little.
Are you offended by a few dust bunnies? We weren’ t going to be friends anyway.
Excellent rationalization. And good point about the friends – who needs crazy judgmental people in their house anyway?!
I actually love to declutter because I have OCD tendencies. I also do it to avoid wasting time looking for stuff. That way, I can spend more time on what’s important, like the glass of wine I’m about to drink!
I think I must fall right in the middle of the OCD spectrum. I don’t like complete chaos, and do have a system, but I can let decluttering go for a while. Mostly I think it’s important to let it go when everything else is crazy, like during the holidays. Though if you’re already drinking wine, you must be SUPER organized
You know the stories of when the electric light first became common, and one of the biggest things that happened was that people suddenly realized what utter filth they were living in, but just hadn’t been able to see it? I tend to have that sort of cyclical reaction to a messy house; every once in a while I suddenly look around and recoil that I seem to live in squalor, worrying that at that very moment the CDC is tracing some horrible rabies/ebola hybrid plague to my house as ground zero. Then I clean, feel better, forget about it, repeat.
And I’ve had reactions to clutter in alignment with what Caitlin’s husband describes – people feeling closer because coming over wasn’t a “production,” you felt comfortable enough to just be you. And trusted them enough to bathe them in animal hair, if it’s my house.
Yep, that’s about how I work too. Ignore, ignore, ignore, WAAAAH!, clean. I agree, it’s a very practical, if jarring, system. Agree about the pet hair, too: love me, love my cat!
Can I just say it?
Yeah, baby…. YEAH!
Swiffer-delic, baby!
My husband likes to joke that we share the housework 25/25. (Actually I would say that it’s more like 45/5, with me of course responsible for the 45.) We are both academics, by the way. I find it helpful to leave my glasses off when in the house. Also, if you live in a cloudy climate, you don’t notice the dirty windows for much of the year.
Some excellent strategies! I think not going for the 100% is a great start, especially if there’s unequal division of labor. Living in a sunny climate I can’t try the window trick, but I’m definitely going to try taking off my glasses!
This is a bit of a redirect, but since you mentioned “girl geniuses” in the second graf, do you know Kaja and Phil Foglio’s web comic Girl Genius?
Disclaimer: I lost a whole weekend catching up on back issues when I first discovered this.
I didn’t know about that, but it looks very cool. Thanks for the rec. And luckily, I’ve got a long weekend to spare!
I have to admit, for me, cleaning is an elaborate coping mechanism that I developed long ago after a seriously traumatic incident, so unless I want to get back into psycho-therapy (which I don’t), I’ve opted to minimize the crap that comes into the house. We don’t need a lot of stuff, so I don’t need to clean a lot of stuff. And, forget academia: my hubby is an outstanding house cleaner. That man can scrub a toilet like nobody’s business.
And, like you, I do believe in the illusion of clean. Pine scented anything is outstanding.
Sorry to hear about the cheese on your manuscript. Super funny. And smart.
Thanks. It’s interesting how cleaning can be therapeutic, escapist, or downright obesessive, depending on what role it plays in your life. I used to clean to cope more (nothing too traumatic, just general unhappiness), but now that I’ve got a focus on what I want to do it’s less attractive as a way to spend my time.
Minimizing crap is always a good strategy, and helps me a lot. And wow, good for your husband, or for you since you married him:-)
I have to have a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom. Also no mold growing anywhere. Oh, and I don’t wear stinky clothing. Other than that I really could not care less.
For this I thank my academic mother, who I watched in her slow realization over the years that no the house does not need to be cleaned from top to bottom every weekend, especially if my father is not only not going to help but he is going to undo every bit of progress made. If he complains, that is his problem.
So my husband does vacuuming and straightening and all the things I don’t care about. We tend to clean together. We really ought to hire someone but we’ve had a difficult time finding someone who won’t cause more work (yellowed countertops since they react with bleach, scraping up the wood floors with a crusty mop, removing paint, etc.) than they prevent.
I don’t mind living in squalor. Though we do do a flurry of cleaning as a family whenever company is about to arrive.
It’s cool that your mother changed her ways; I think it must be hard to do, but of course that’s a necessary part of changing your priorities! And that’s a really good point, cleaning isn’t all or nothing. Decide what’s really important, and leave the rest. I agree, mold is not OK though part of that is my allergies. I’ve always thought I’d hire someone if I had the money, but your story if very familiar. It doesn’t matter what arena, it’s always hard to find good, competent professionals.
The ‘company/family’ issue is something even the most die-hard slobs have to deal with…it’s like the social pressure to clean just gets turned up to 11.
I am a bit OCD too and wish I didn’t care about dirt or clutter. I want to focus solely on something intellectual or interesting but get distracted when things are too messy or icky. I’m so in tune with my external environment, sometimes it feels like it’s messing with my inner world. It’s so annoying.
My husband thinks like you, though: why waste valuable brain time on cleaning? Who really cares? He is always urging me to say “screw it” and focus on something else. I don’t think he’s lazy at all; he just has his own priorities, and cleaning house is not one of them. (He does believe clean undies are a good idea, thankfully.) Of course, it helps if one is not at all anal or phased by the external environment.
I think everyone has a different internal setpoint. As I said above, I must be in the middle. A little clutter doesn’t phase me (there’s a cutting board and towel and some other crap on my workspace right now), but I’m nowhere near as easygoing as some people I know (male and female). Those types can work in the midst of utter chaos that drives me bonkers.
If you have low clutter setpoint, maybe try working outside the home? This helps other OCD-types I know. Offices and library cubbies, for instance, or if you’re looking to avoid the uni (who isn’t?) there are public libraries bookstores, coffeeshops…whatever helps the focus, I say!
I have decided that being an academic gives me an excuse to be messy – I am so busy thinking about important things that I cannot be bothered to dust.
This Hyperbole and a Half post echoes my sentiments about the cleaning / chores cycle: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
Exactly. Thinking great thoughts is totally a valid excuse for not doing housework — and again, that’s what all those brilliant dudes throughout history have had on their side.
Love the link! I’ve just started reading Hyperbole and a Half recently, but I hadn’t seen this one. It’s a perfect description of the ‘creative’ lifestyle, which I think academia is. Or ought to be.
I like to smoke some hashish and apply the Burroughs “Discipline of DE.” Here’s a link to a film version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochyO45Jb0g
Burroughs definitely = one flavor of guy!