Why don’t men do housework? They don’t ‘perceive’ chores like women, Cambridge philosophers say
- Women looking at an unclean counter may see something to be wiped, while men may just observe a crumb-covered surface, the researchers argue
- But this means men should train themselves to notice domestic tasks that need doing, the academics say, adding that their study is not about making excuses
Gender imbalance in shouldering domestic work is explained by different ways in which men and women perceive chores, philosophers at Britain’s Cambridge University suggest.
Women looking at an unclean surface may see something to be wiped whereas men may just observe a crumb-covered counter, researchers argue in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
They say data gathered during the pandemic, when both men and women spent more time trapped at home, throws up two important questions – why women continue to take on most housework and why men believe it to be more equally shared than it is.
According to a survey of US households during the pandemic, 70 per cent of women said they were fully or mostly responsible for housework, and 66 per cent for childcare, roughly the same proportion as usual.
Tom McClelland, from Cambridge University’s department of history and philosophy of science, said the fact that inequalities persisted and that many men continued to be oblivious meant that traditional explanations were not the whole story.
