Kidding Oursevles

[pktechgirlbackup]

I liked this book way more than I thought I would. I expected it to be stupid feminists who were bad at math expecting the government to order people to do it the way they wanted, in the face of economics and human nature. And there was a lot of that in the second half of the book. But the first half is extremely solid economics, outlining how early choices create marginal effect that snowball into big differences in the distribution of labor within a marriage. It's an extremely interesting application of game theory and negotiation that applies equally well towards business partnerships.

The big thing it illuminated for me is how good intentions and professed belief in equality are not enough. This shouldn't have surprised me. There's some study showing that when cops were given a simulation involving a potentially dangerous black man, it didn't matter at all whether they professed to believe black people were more violent or not. It only mattered whether they'd heard the stereotype. There's a school of thought that we believe everything we hear until it's specifically disbelieved, and I find that super ultra plausible.

Anyways: even two people really dedicated to equality will have internalized what the current focal point for household chore distribution is. Unless they consciously dedicate themselves to moving away from it, accepting that it will feel awkward at best and quite possibly cause significant pain, they will continually slide back to the more ordinary chore distribution. This really resonated with me, because the one thing my ex-live-in-boyfriend and I fought about was housework. To me, it was really really important that we set up some formal agreement, at least for certain chores, so that no one felt taken advantage of and everyone was doing their fair share. To him, it was really really important that chores be done spontaneously and with no sense of obligation, because otherwise they felt like work and it would make him super resentful. Unlike most women, I didn't suffer the disadvantage of caring more than he did (Mahony says outright that the person who cares is the person who's going to do it and you might as well accept that). But potentially just as bad, I liked to do my cleaning in maintenance mode: small amounts of cleaning most days, keeping the place in general good shape. He liked to go into 16 hour marathons, because he's a miserable asshole after more than 30 minutes of cleaning and he wanted to pay that cost as few times as possible. Marathons would make me miserable all on their own, without adding an asshole boyfriend, so I hated these and took much more frequent breaks, which of course made him feel like he was doing more of the work and being taken advantage of, which coincidentally is exactly how I felt all the other days when I was doing small amounts of cleaning and he was doing fuck all.

The solution is to change the system such that your partner cares enough about the problem to work on it. For example, my ex cared more about cleaning up for guests than I did, so we could have invited his friends over more to align incentives. For couples with babies, the woman who gave birth has such a head start in bonding with her infant that the only way to counter it is to give the father or non-birthing lesbian partner large stretches of time alone with the baby. In order to counteract the head start, you actually have to have the father spend more time with the baby and do more care than the mother. I think one of the real value-adds of the book is that she gives people permission to do things that will cause pain in the short term (like letting the less bonded, less skillful parent care for the baby, or accept that someone will be miserable as the cleaning focal point changes).

Alas, the second half of the book is not so useful. She dismisses the suggestion that birth- and child- friendly work policies make hiring women more expensive and thus less likely to be hired with any evidence as to why that won't happen. Her understanding of economics does not extend to biology or pre-agrarian anthropology. She's totally right that making married couples file separately would lead to more women working, but doesn't address the people such a switch would hurt.


*Insect infestations I've had in two years living on my own, post-college? 1, ants, which arose while I was in NY and my neighbors were watching the cats so I kind of blame them. Insect infestations he had in the 2.5 years we were together? 4: 3 fruit flies, 1 fleas. Arguably the fleas weren't his fault, but the time he just left the Thanksgiving dishes out for two weeks? I think it was predictable that would lead to problems.

Comments

[scythe-of-time.livejournal.com]

Wrt to the less skilled parent caring for the child: do not jump in if you are the skilled parent. I know a lot of mothers (usually it's the women who are stuck with the child-care in the first place) who, when asking their husbands to care for a child or do housework, jump in five seconds in and tell them what to do. It only breeds resentment and a sense of learned helplessness.

[pktechgirl.livejournal.com]

she does make that point, loudly and repeatedly.

[crystalpyramid]

+1 potentially useful

[lepid0ptera]

At some point it seems like trying too hard. There's a reason that assembly line production resulted in the industrial evolution. Specialization is more efficient, whomever you're giving the task. My advice would be... one person always does laundry. One person always does dishes. The end.