“He’s Happier, She’s Less So“, NYT 9/27/07 (David Leonhardt)
In a previous post about sloth I wondered about the recent report that women still do more housework than men – and mused that it could be that women and men are equally as lazy once you subtract any maternal bonding influence.
In other words, lacking kids, women and men are equally as likely to avoid dusting. My working hypothesis was that the neurological correlate of lack of altruism — possibly a vasopressin receptor allele gone awry — would be equally as present in each gender. Lacking the affiliative behavior, one person would be more likely to exploit the other’s good nature – including ducking out of housework responsibility.
Not so. In the above NYT article today (click on link) economist Alan Kreuger
. . .analyzing time-use studies over the last four decades, has found an even starker pattern. Since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back on activities they find unpleasant. They now work less and relax more.
Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past.
OK. So it seems that the genders are not equally balanced in the sloth area.
The NYT author (a male) concludes with the tell-all statement: “This weekend, I think I may volunteer to do a little dusting”
Heh! What a card that author is. Brilliant concluding statement, captures everything.
How instructive: the author makes sure the reader knows that he dusts at his leisure, a little noblesse oblige. Being an armchair psychoanalyst, this to me looks like a reminder to observers, “I am master of my castle” — a power thing.
What is the neurological correlate? Sure smells like a dopamine hit to me. Power rush. Power trumps affiliative behavior, it seems, when it comes to dusting.Perhaps there is a dopamine rush involved in feeling powerful by refusing to do housework. The defiance of authority (however misplaced that one may be…the shrinks can talk about that) may be structured as a competition set up by the man in his own brain, and he then proceeds to “win” by sitting on the couch watching the ball game instead of clearing the Thanksgiving Dinner remains off the table.
Women are probably clueless as to all of this: they just want a clean house, and time to enjoy their lives.
Women, regardless of having children, don’t exploit men’s free time the same way (according to the facts reported in the NYT, don’t anyone jump on me for reporting the facts! I can see it now… all the women-haters saying “She robbed me and then dumped me! All dames alike!” but I digress..)
Do men exploit anyone in the house to get out of dusting? The data seem to show that men tend to exploit women for housework, rather than other males in the home (Oscar and Felix notwithstanding).
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