We are standing in the kitchen,
and we are arguing over the dirty dishes in the sink.
I am currently losing the argument,
which is a shame,
because I am right.
She’s saying that the pots from last night’s dinner are still dirty,
and that a certain someone needs to be better about doing the dishes,
and that that certain someone
is her.
I point out that since she does the vast majority of the cooking,
I should be the one taking care of these dishes,
and was planning to get to them tonight.
She says that because I wasn’t home last night,
these pots are not my responsibility.
I mention the absolutely true fact
that she has done plenty of things around the house
for my benefit and not her own,
and suggest that it should absolutely be me who washes those pots
even though I didn’t eat that particular meal.
As I said, I am right.
But as I also said,
I am still losing the argument,
because she is closer to the sink than I am,
and has already begun washing the dishes.
I try to do my fair share of cleaning up around the house.
But expectations are not always shared fairly.
My parents were coming to visit,
and I swept the house in preparation for their arrival,
but didn’t plan on doing much else to clean up.
And my partner had a big list of things to clean in preparation.
And I said, “You don’t understand,
you don’t have to do any of that stuff.
The house is good enough.
They’re my parents, it’s not your problem.”
And she said, “YOU don’t understand,
if they come visit and the house is messy,
then it’s going to reflect badly on me as the woman of the house,
because the expectation is that it’s my responsibility
to keep the house clean.”
And I said, “That’s ridiculous!
It’s my house too, and it’s my parents.
Why would it be your fault?”
And she said, “Yes, it is ridiculous. But it’s also true.”
Women are still expected to take care of keeping a house clean,
even when they go out and work outside the home
just as much as men do.
In my house, I try to do my part.
I generally do the dishes, sweep up now and again.
I tried to clean the stovetop, but couldn’t get some gunk off the burner,
even when I’d sprayed all the cook-top cleaning stuff on it.
I mentioned this to my partner, and she magically got it all clean.
I asked her, “How do you know how to do that?”
And she said, “Because I’m a girl, we’re supposed to know that stuff.
And I say that with no sarcasm, but a little bit of bitterness.”
She’s bitter because she was just expected to take on a lifetime of cleaning,
just because she’s a girl.
Nobody asks for a lifetime of cleaning up everyone else’s mess.
But it seems like a lot of people think that’s just what a wife should do,
clean up everything for everyone all the time.
My partner and I talked about this, and we agreed:
We could use a wife.
Writer: Seth Brown
Artist: Angana Sarkar
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