“If you’re a boy writer, it’s a simple rule: you’ve gotta get used to the fact that you suck at writing women and that the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman.” – Junot Diaz
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Who does the laundry, and why?
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The New Republic‘s nonexistent sex issue.
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When computer programming was women’s work.
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Amy Poehler is perfect: “I wasn’t shy, I liked to be looked at, and making people laugh released a certain kind of hot lava into my body that made me feel like a queen.”
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“By far the two biggest risk factors for sexual abuse in all kinds of detention facilities are being “non-heterosexual,” as the BJS puts it, and having a history of sexual victimization that predates the inmate’s current incarceration.” – This whole piece is tremendous and horrible, and a must-read.
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“Apart from characterizing it as ‘boring,’ it’s difficult to contextualize Franzen’s anti-technology sentiments unless you’re familiar with his fiction.”
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Tags: junot diaz, link roundup, the internet
I do the laundry, and put it away, because I’m particular about it. I wouldn’t trust my dude to wash my nice work clothes and whatnot (my washing machine is a bit of a mangler, so I soak-hand-swish a lot of my shirts). And it’s more efficient to combine our laundry for the wash. My underwear are really small and I hardly ever wear socks – if I had to wait for enough of my own to be dirty to make a whole wash load, I’d need to buy a LOT more underwear.
Also, yes, Amy Poehler is perfect.
Mr daisymap does the laundry in my house, because I am slapdash and he is truly brilliant at folding. I scrumple things in my fists and shove them into drawers full of equally scrumpled clothes, but he will make these amazing neat piles of perfectly smoothed out, sorted laundry. Ooh, I love it.
I do the laundry, and in return she does the ironing. It’s brilliant.
omigod I forgot about ironing.
This sounds like me. I wish he’d do my laundry, he’s much better at it, but alas he will not. I could probably bribe him though.
See, I am the one who is brilliant at folding. I have literally taken out and refolded the contents of entire linen closets AT OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES. And they have thanked me for it. If I could find a job that paid me well to fold laundry all day, I would do it in a heartbeat.
ETA: Okay, maybe not. But I do like folding laundry. It’s somehow meditative for me.
I do my own laundry for the same reason. I don’t trust anyone else to do mine. My boyfriend handles his like the man in the Zulkey piece, letting it pile up and leaving it in bags/hampers until he is ready to wear it. I don’t need to do laundry as often because I wear things more than once before washing (I don’t get as stinky as he does), so sometimes when he does laundry I will throw my socks and underwear in.
My boyfriend’s mom recently offered to do our laundry at her house to save money and because she enjoys helping. He can have her do his, but I don’t want her to do mine. She came over to pick up his laundry last week while he was working, and she kept walking around the house looking for things to wash. “How about that blanket? How about towels?” Ugh.
I don’t mind doing laundry when I have facilities where I live, but right now I have to go to the laundromat, which I dread.
I do the laundry, because I live with myself, which kind of makes me a lesbian separatist, which kind of makes me very brave.
I will definitely be thinking this every time I go to the laundromat from now on.
Tangentially related, a close personal person to me went into the hospital last night, and her incredibly overbearing and unintentionally hilarious partner screamed “don’t say ‘brave’ IT’S A TRIGGER” when she left the room. So, TW Mallory.
I…hm.
Not the first Disney princess I would’ve guessed someone to have a problem with.
I do my laundry, and our laundry (sheets, towels, napkins), and some of his laundry. He does his laundry, and our laundry, and some of my laundry. I wash more of his clothing than he does of mine, but in fairness, that’s because for a lot of my wardrobe, I’m particular about temperatures and sorting and detergent amounts and what goes in the dryer and what doesn’t, and he’s not. (You could easily make an argument that his casual approach to laundry details is a reflection of gendered expectations, and I would nod.)
A few years ago, he did almost all of the laundry because I’d been hit by a car and — though I was very lucky in my injuries — carrying loads of laundry a few blocks to the laundromat was often too hard for me. I’m much better now and we have now have laundry in our building, so I rejoice in being about to do it myself and almost never putting something in the dryer that shouldn’t go there.
I am literally flabbergasted at the thought of having napkins to put in the laundry.
I KNOW, AREN’T I FANCY AND PERFECT?
But truth: we use plenty of paper napkins and paper towels, too. But I have stacks of beautiful cloth napkins, mostly made by my sister — who is so astonishingly perfect that she even made me cocktail napkins when she realized that’s the size I use most often for entertaining. She is truly a god among us.
That is amazing. I grew up using cloth napkins… I need to get back to my hippie roots!
It just occurred to me that some people *don’t* have cloth napkins…
I have one set of cloth napkins which comes out when I have people over. I washed them (for the first time in years) a few weeks ago and since then they’ve been hanging over the back of a chair, waiting for me to muster sufficient fucks to iron them. Gonna be waiting a while longer, guys.
I used to iron them, but now I live in a tiny apartment and the ironing board is behind a door and it’s a whole Thing. So I just had to muster sufficient fucks not to care if they’re a bit wrinkled.
My unasked-for napkin tips: I take them out of the dryer not quiiiiite dry, snap them crisply in the air to knock out the biggest wrinkles and fold them immediately, smoothing them down by hand. They’re fine. Crisply pressed and perfect? No. But fine.
YES GOOD. I will take ALL your napkin tips. I usually avoid ironing by pulling everything out of the dryer as soon as it’s done and laying it flat/hanging it up immediately, but that wasn’t working on these napkins. I will try the snap-fold-smooth next time!
Of course, if you do not live in a dollhouse like we do, maybe you can dry them on a rack, which leaves them much less wrinkled than the dryer. We don’t have that kind of space.
but really: I stopped ironing napkins and apparently no one noticed or cared.
I find that people are so impressed by cloth napkins that they overlook the wrinkles. I have three sets, two good and heavy cotton that don’t show wrinkles, and a bunch of very cheap Target plan white cotton for my husband and I to use. They are always wrinkled, and sometimes we use the same two for a few days.
and sometimes we use the same two for a few days.
This point might not be obvious to people who don’t habitually use cloth napkins: everyday napkins for the household don’t need to be laundered every day.
For members of the household, who will eat most of their meals there, a napkin is clean as long as it seems clean. When I was a kid in a seven-person household, we used distinctive napkin rings to tell whose was whose, and the napkins got tossed into the laundry every several days or after a messy dinner.
Obviously, you’d put out fresh napkins for guests, and practically speaking that means putting out fresh napkins for household members, too. But typically you’re not washing every napkin for every meal.
Oh yes totally – they just wait at our seats of the table until they are obviously too dirty too use, or one of us is doing laundry. I switched from paper because I felt too horrible using multiple napkins during a messy meal. Cloth is much better for durability in the face of tacos or drunk pizza.
I really really hate cloth napkins and when people offer them to me I don’t want to use them, because wiping my SPAGHETTI MOUTH on something someone else will have to launder is so upsetting. I want to say “give me a sheet of paper towel to use instead and I will place it outside on the grass after we eat and I guarantee it will be happily feathering a nest or disintegrate into nothingness within days, and then you will not have to bother.”
Ha ha, noted. If you ever come to my house I will be sure to have paper napkins for you to wipe your SPAGHETTI MOUTH.
I have hippy tendencies. And many random often mismatched cloth napkins. They’re not even fancy. I would never iron them. Because I don’t know how to iron, really.
Yeah, when I’m serving pulled pork or romesco sauce or something really saucy and stainy, I put out paper napkins. And when we have a big party, I put out a giant stack of paper napkins — partly because party food is often finger food and therefore messier than dinner, partly because people will lose track of their napkins and need a fresh one, partly because I don’t want guests mopping up spilled wine with cloth napkins.
But if someone serves me tomato sauce and gives me a cloth napkin, I figure they know what they’re getting into, and I use it without (much) anxiety.
I also have second-tier napkins — stained but clean, or slightly ragged around the hem — I use sometimes when I’m eating tacos or whatever.
When my boyfriend is over for dinner I often exclaim “Oh! I forgot the fancy serviettes!” and then proceed to plunk the paper towel roll down on the table.
Good for you! I would use cloth napkins and rags if I didn’t have to go to the laundromat, but it’s such a pain and so expensive. But I feel so guilty using all those paper towels. I do use microfiber cloths for dusting though, because you can get a lot of uses out if them before they need washing.
There is a laundromat half a block from me, but I still drive my car there do I won’t have to carry everything. (I walk home and leave the car there until all loads are done.)
I’m particular too. I have too many clothes that
We definitely use cloth napkins more often (not always!) now that there’s laundry in our building instead of hauling bags down the street.
I cannot even with the rags. Maybe my apartment is fantastically more filthy than other people’s homes, but my sponges/paper towels get caked with crud when I’m cleaning. I would not be comfortable putting a rag that cruddy into the laundry with nicer things, and I certainly wouldn’t want to accumulate a bag of rags big enough to wash on its own.
I feel like we all find our balance where it works for us. For me, that sometimes cloth napkins and NO RAGS EVER.
I feel that way about washing particularly cruddy things too. If I ever have something like that I tend to wash it with jeans because—because I don’t know why. It just feels like they can handle it?
The other option is washing them with your shower curtain liner, because it’s vinyl and won’t absorb the grossness, plus the rag or whatever will help clean the curtain.
But seriously, MICROFIBER DUSTING CLOTHS. You can use them dry and they pick up so much dust!
We do cloth napkins too–but I don’t iron them like my mother does (!!) when I was little I’d make a nickel a napkin ironing them for her.
i am a single queer lady so i do my own laundry and have no gentleman callers, but Mom and Dad Pallas both do the laundry, folding, etc.
the laundry question reminds me of this classic, terrible clorox ad though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZeQUxSjHwU&no… (they alllll did the lauuuuundry)
Love the Junot Diaz.
I do my own laundry, because I live alone, but I do it at my friends’ houses while watching their big screen tvs with a million channels, because my friends are awesome. I love doing laundry and dream of the day when I can do it every day.
Amy Poehler should be Queen of Everything.
I am a single lady so I do my own laundry (and every two years or so, some ironing). Mom and Dad split laundry pretty evenly, I have many memories of watching football on Sunday afternoons while Dad ironed his work shirts for the week. Dad cheerfully and capably irons napkins and tablecloths too, as well as polishing silver and vacuuming. We think he was a butler in a past life.
Amy Poehler is one of my favorites. Girls need more profane, smart, unapologetic, bossy, cackling lady role models in their lives!
I want to be Amy Poehler when I grow up (never mind the fact that we’re basically the same age).
Amy Poehler is our apartment’s secret girlfriend, as in “Hey, [wife], it’s your secret girlfriend on TV” or “Hey, [husband], your secret girlfriend wrote an essay for The New Yorker.”
My dad did the laundry when I was growing up, because one of his heroes is Frank Galbraith, and he had a whole system worked out with separation between lights and darks, line-dry and machine-dry, and whites. When we were kids we would help sort on Friday nights and then Dad would do laundry at the crack of dawn Saturday morning because he wakes up like a farmer and would get the clothes out on the line as soon as the sun came over the horizon. I admit to my eternal shame that he did my laundry when I moved back home after grad school, because I was a total freeloader and also line-dried clothes are nice. Now I do my own laundry because I live alone. Sads.
Kelly Sue Deconnick (comics writer, notable currently for Captain Marvel) reblogged that Junot Diaz quote and some butthead tried to tell her it was demeaning. Her takedown was wonderful.
That is, like, that Dad-est reason ever for taking over a task usually designated as “women’s work.” I am suddenly astonished that my own father didn’t have similar schemes of perfection for our family’s laundry.
I didn’t even get into the grid of laundry baskets in the basement for optimum sorting!
The Toast formally endorses your dad and the eternal majesty of Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes.
One-piece bathing suits for all!
Your dad sounds adorable (coming from someone who has dad-like procedures for most tasks).
Yeah, I’m suddenly realizing that my household’s division of labor is less gendered than I thought and more divided into “things for which Elsa has A PLAN” (which I do, sometimes with his assistance) and other things (which The Fella does solo).
My boyfriend and I usually do the laundry together. The other week I was taking my load out of the washer (washing on light gets done more quickly) and he was sitting on this bench in the laundry room waiting for his to finish, which, to the untrained eye, could look like he was waiting for me to do all the work. And this older woman was down there and she was like “WELL aren’t you going to help her?? [shaming look]”
So here’s to her, the housework equality guardian of my building.
I do almost all the laundry for my household because I don’t mind most of the process and quite like folding it. However, I do wish there were an equivalent chore that belonged to my husband.
Thank you for posting the Smithsonian article on women and programming. I’ve harped on this exact topic recently, but just to repeat myself… It’s amazing how certain positive things become codified as intrinsically male – programming, science, enjoying videogames, writing great literature, directing films, taking photos, making sushi, being an orchestra conductor, etc. to infinity. But it’s particularly amazing how we make these claims when counterexamples exist within our parents’ lifetime – women just aren’t suited for / just don’t like / are not aggressive enough for computer programming, but Grace Hopper found the first bug and the ENIAC, the first general purpose computer, mostly got programmed by women. The patriarchy has a very short memory indeed.
Besides, everyone knows that our hunter-gatherer evolutionary background just makes women better at programming! It’s science, people! (Link too good to not repost.)
I do the laundry in exchange for my husband doing my most hated chore, the dishes. Fuck you, the dishes.
I loved the programming piece too, and I had no idea about its history. My college roommate’s mom was a programmer and is now in her mid-sixties, so I guess she was one of those women. I’m glad she stuck with it when the men took over.
I hate dishes too, but I don’t trust my boyfriend to do them. He has a tendency to miss stuck-on food and wash only parts of things. He will wash the tines of the fork but ignore the handle, or he will wash the inside of the pot but not the bottom. Pulling a greasy-bottomed pan out of the cabinet is gross, especially when said pan was nested inside another.
My brother does not use soap when washing dishes!
and/or does not even rinse them off before putting them in the dishwasher, he insists that despite the fact that our dishes constantly have a patina of crumbs on them post wash that “it’s a dish washer I shouldn’t have to wash the dishes before I put them in it.” I assume under the mistaken impression that our terrible dishwasher will some how be shamed into working better.
I’ve strangely always viewed doing dishes as a male-gendered chore, mostly because my father did the washing up when I was little. And didn’t trust my mom or us kids to do it either. “Stop that! Why are you putting the bowl in like that?!” Luckily (?), he also passed on his crippling perfectionism to his children!
Ugh, the greasy-bottomed pans! We recently had a discussion wherein I explained, as calmly as I could, that although not washing the bottom of the pan saves HIM time, it makes more work for me when I have to wash it later, or when I set a greasy-bottomed pan down on something else and then have to wash that too. He was quiet for a moment, and then nodded. Fingers crossed that he gets it.
And if you don’t wash it right away you still have to wash your hands after touching it!
Oh man, I hope your dude gets it! Mine is notoriously bad at remembering things like that, even when I explain the reason and that reason makes sense to him. Old dogs, you know?
Don’t even get me started on his he handles raw meat.
Yes! Also I would love it if an awesome lady writer with a good knowledge of computer history were to pitch a big long story about this history to The Toast.
So few people (especially in the tech world) remember how much of the key theoretical brain work you describe was done by women — compilers, debuggers, assembly languages, operating systems, etc. etc. They weren’t just stacking punchcards, they were developing and implementing the basic concepts of modern computing.
Even more ironically, most of the stuff women achieved in computer science in the 40s, 50s, and 60s is FAR beyond the capabilities or understanding of 99% of Silicon Valley “coder” bros today who think they are awesome computer geniuses because they can use Python or Ruby.
Seriously, someone please write about this stuff! Here is an awesome misandrist to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley
I second this! I had no idea programming had this history. It’s so depressing that we’ve “forgotten” those women’s accomplishments (or more likely obscured them) in order to serve the idea that only men get to be real people with real passions and capabilities.
Would also like to see someone do this! Would do it myself if A) I were a decent writer and B) Weren’t already crippled with guilt by my own unfinished programming tasks, heeeh…
Dooooo it!
I don’t know that I could put a whole article together, but I can present the badass example of Henriette Avram, hero of librarians and library patrons everywhere.
Speaking of gendered chores: somehow, over the past few years, taking out the trash became The Fella’s job, and I’m not sure why or how.
It used to be “Oh, it’s trash night!” and whoever was free to do it, or whoever was wearing shoes, or whoever was willing to rummage through the fridge to be sure any lurking spoilage got tossed (ahem, me, that was always me) would collect all the trash and recycling and take it to the curb.
But now it is always, always his job, and I can’t really figure out how that happened: did we just fall into a gendered performance where THE MAN collects the disgusting refuse and braves the darkness and the elements to dispose of it? Or is it because I shuck off my outside clothes and change into pajamas or tank-and-boxers as soon as I walk in the door, so he’s the most appropriately dressed for outside? Either way, it’s a little weird how we both fell in step (though I tacitly accept it in exchange for me doing oh so many of the dishes every day).
Wait, but the trash only happens once a week, and dishes happen EVERY DAY. He needs more chores for this to be equitable!
If you like, for no charge, I will come to your house and tell your man what chores to do.
Nah, we break it up quite equitably. I do the dishes because they get cleaner when I do them and I prefer to wash them instead of arguing about whether they’re clean. (As with the laundry, I’m sure there’s an element of gendered expectations in that.)
But he delivers the goods — quite literally. After many years living together, I only recently realized that he does almost all the grocery shopping: I don’t drive, so we do big shops together or he goes solo. I do the fun, friendly shopping at little shops around the neighborhood or the small supermarket swing-by on the bus route home, which is absurd, since I used to do all my own shopping by bus, carrying home huge loads on my back like a donkey.
Because The Fella vividly remembers the aftermath of my accident (from which I am largely recovered), he still tries to step in if he sees me doing something heavy or hard or that requires bending. It’s really very sweet to see him scurry over and crouch down with the dustpan when he catches me sweeping a floor.
We have stretches where I do more than he does, and where he does more than I do, and that feels right. Over the next jillion years together, we’ll balance it out.
When my boyfriend lived with me we did the laundry together, because it got done faster that way. I’ve done all of ours once or twice. He’s done just mine before, and some weird lady made homophobic comments about him when he was folding my underwear because she didn’t think he could speak the Spanish, the second most common language in our country (and most common in our neighborhood). This never happened to me when I was folding his boxers.
I did most of the cleaning (and all of the cleaning in the bathroom), partly because I noticed it more. This was balanced out by the fact that he did all of the cooking. And when I say all I mean all, including making my breakfast and cooking and packing my lunch while I got ready for work. He did most of the dishes too, so I was fine being the only person who cleaned the tub. I think overall he did quite a bit more household tasks than I did, partly because he was unemployed and it was easier for him to do them in between job tasks. I think if he didn’t have to move for work I would do most of the cleaning and he’d do most of the cooking.
Oh no! Is there a way to edit so the only word in italics is ‘all’? I can’t ever log into my account on here (sometimes from my phone but on a computer it wont let me) so I’m not sure how to change it.
Put the italics tag with / in front of the i where you want the italics to end.
I get that part I just couldn’t go in an edit once I posted. I think it’s becausr only people with accounts can edit and I can’t sign into my account all the time.
I kinda love how the italics make it read like you slipped into a long-overdue rant.
Haha it’s like I suddenly realized how little housework I did when we were living together and was so scandalized by my behavior that I snapped
I might be missing a couple of working neurons this morning, but should that read “The New Republic’s nonexistent sex issue?”
Why, it’s always said “The New Republic.” Perhaps you’re hysterical and should lie down and look at the yellow wallpaper while I run through your inheritance, little one.
(fixed)
I am single so I do my laundry myself, duh, but I thought it was funny that the blog author mentioned that they have to schlep down two whole floors (!) to their laundry. By that measure, it’s a miracle anyone who has to go to a laundromat ever has clean clothes.
I realized while reading these responses that when my brother & I are at our parents’ house for holidays, laundry is a group effort with all 4 of us pitching in. I guess that’s the way it should be when everyone’s an adult, though.
I also suck at carrying baskets of clothes to the laundry room, down three flights of stairs. This is mostly because I’m a rather short person and our laundry baskets get pretty big. I gather the clothes to be washed. This is because I am particular about separating clothes, while he is not at all. I am also the person to go down and put the clothes in the dryer. This is because I pull out tons of my clothes to line dry. He, however, always carries the clothes to and from the laundry room. team effort.
I like how we all read the laundry article and needed to comment/defend ourselves for doing our partner’s laundry immediately before proceeding to the other links.
I knew instantly and instinctively that that would happen — maybe in large part because it’s the only pull-quote phrased as a question.
Every single one of these was interesting, but it was pretty mean of you to link a page of links to longreads to another page of links to longreads. Who has that kind of time, Nicole?!
That’s the second worst thing about the internet: wanting to read all the things. (The worst, of course, is comments, i.e. other people.)
Don’t blame me; I voted for Kodos.
Remember, if anyone asks, we’re newlyweds on our way to Earth Capital.
We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If you can think of a simpler way, I’d like to hear it.
Abortions for all!
BOO!
Very well, no abortions for anyone!
BOOOOOOOO!
Hmm…Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!
YAAAAY!
::straightens tie, looks smug::
My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
Senator Dole, why should people vote for you?
It does not matter which way you vote. Either way your planet is doomed. Doomed. Doomed.
Well, a refreshing bit of candor from Senator Bob Dole.
I am Clin-Ton. As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands. End communication.
Hmm, that’s Slick Willie for you, always with the smooth talk.
(I can do this all day!)
::as he is being beamed up into the spaceship:: Uhh, Bob Dole doesn’t need this.
(This has literally been the best part of my day.)
It’s true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It’s a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.
He’s right, this is a two-party system.
Well, I believe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate.
Go ahead! Throw your vote away!
*Ross Perot smashes his hat*
This thread is my happy place. ::wraps tentacle around you::
Because I feel the need to weigh in: my boyfriend and I each do our own laundry, which both of us throwing sheets/towels/dishclothes in when they need it. His stuff is often covered in machine grease and whatnot, and I’m picky about what goes in the shrinkomatic dryer, so it works best that way.
At home, laundry is my mother’s domain, full stop. Even after my dad took over almost all the cooking and dishes and the majority of the cleaning, he never ever touches the laundry. My mom has some sort of unknowable system and gets very angry if anyone touches any thing in there. Even now when I’m visiting I can either have her do the laundry or sneak down there when she’s out and try not to disturb anything or touch any dials so she doesn’t notice.
…I really just wanted to high-five for the Junot Diaz/Women Programmer’s link, which reminded me to get a citable version of the original paper for that link, which I did, because the guy who wrote the original paper is ace and answers his e-mail swiftly. HOWEVER.
I do the laundry at my own and sometimes the other apartment, because even lesbian separatists sometimes need to separatist the whites and darks.
In compromise, I absolutely don’t cook anything but (obviously) chana masala and assorted Dudely Meals, once a month or so.
My husband does the laundry and I do the folding. I passionately hate the washing everything part in the basement of our building, for no real rational reason. But I’m also really obsessive about how everything is folded, and he’s terrible at it.
Growing up, everyone in my family did their own laundry as soon as they were able (around age 8). My father was very particular about how his laundry was done, and my mom hated doing laundry. My parents were quite fond of passing off all chores to us children. There were four of us, 2 girls, 2 boys, and chores were never gendered. My parents were self-employed, and switched off the days they took child duty, including all the meals. I think this all went a long way toward forming our equal attitudes about chores and gender, and I’m very grateful for it.
Your household of origin sounds kind of amazing. Did you guys all turn out super well-rounded and good at relationships?
Well, my mother was an intensely independent woman constantly at war with herself because of her belief that fundamentalist Christianity was the only true way to live, meaning she believed she needed to become someone other than she was — submissive wife material. It never happened, but my parents would have hated to admit that their marriage was so egalitarian. She was a complicated contradiction all around, but that's a whole other story.