More Women Are Breadwinners, But They Still Can’t Get Out Of The Kitchen

[aviv]

Women are a growing part of the American workforce. In the last 25 years, the number of working women has grown by 44.2 percent, while 59.4 percent of working-age women are currently in the labor force. Sixty percent of women are the primary or co-bread winner for their household.

But despite those historic numbers, most women are still left doing

Comments

[katrinar]

i can attest to this. i am a work-out-of-the-home parent (my husband stays home) but my level of household chore participation hasn't gone down at all.

[astridmyrna]

Oh dear.

[thevelvetsun]

Yeah, when my Dad does this I magically start cooking for 1 and doing laundry for 1 and only cleaning my bedroom untill he figures shit out. :)

[chaya]

That is exactly how you train them out of it.

[roseofjuly]

That's what my mom started doing, and we found out that my dad actually can cook and does indeed know how to do laundry.

[kyra_neko_rei]

I love this tactic. ^_^

And I say this as someone who's been on the receiving end of it and learned to cook that way. (My mother mentioned when I was twelve or so that "you'll need to know how to cook for your future husband" and I deliberately had nothing to do with the kitchen for several years. Then at some point* the concept of knowing how to cook for myself was brought up, and Mom started going "I'll buy this thing you like and want, but you have to cook it."

*Conveniently at about the time where I figured out that it wasn't going to be a husband but a wife, and we'd probably be on egalitarian footing regarding division of labor.

[happycycling]

i like this story :)

[mycenaes]

hoo boy.

[snora]

It's amazing how well they can do that, isn't it? I would have to say that nearly half the fights my live-in boyfriend and I have are over shit that needs to get done that ONLY he can do (pulling the air conditioners out, getting his driver's license), and yet none of my arguments ever hit home. But you know, I'M the nag. -_-*

[roseofjuly]

OMG this. My fiance whines that I'm nagging him if I pester him about stuff that I cannot do that he must do, like filling out his college applications on time or renewing his registration. But when he gets fucked up for it, I can't say "I told you so" or I'm a bitch.

The college applications made me so angry, because I've been telling him since October that he needed to fill them out and take the SAT so that he could know early enough to make decisions about his re-enlistment. He blew up at me around December, so I shut up about it. He waited until March to start stuff, April to take the SAT and it was May before he completed everything. Needless to say he hasn't heard back from any schools and he has to start making decisions about re-enlisting in a few weeks. I want to say "I told you so" so bad but it's not going to make anything better.

[snora]

Gurl, do not even get me started on the frustration this boy causes me when it comes to school, lol. Motherfucker's on the 9/11 GI Bill, which since you mention your fiance's re-enlistment I'm sure you know pays for fucking EVERYTHING, and instead of hauling ass and taking full advantage of it, this one's twirling on his thumbs and getting Bs & Cs (and failing math on two separate occasions), and then I get, "What do you mean I have to take another semester at a community college because [goal school] won't accept my transcripts?" ::brain aneurysm::

I gotta commend you on your approach though. I haven't been able to refrain from saying, "I told you so"; the best I've managed to do is refrain from taking a bat to his head when The Stupid starts falling out of his mouth. :P

[roseofjuly]

GURL THAT'S WHY I'M PULLING MY HAIR OUT, because if he could get his shit together the GI Bill would pay for everything. My fiance is eligible for 100% of it, and in my NYC zip code, the E-5 housing allowance is enough to pay all expenses and not just rent. (They base it on a standard that makes sense everywhere but NYC. I lived on $700 less per month than what he would get.) There are some really good schools in the city that participate in Yellow Ribbon too, including my university (Columbia). And he only has like 2 years left because he earned 60+ credits in undergrad. Someone just has to accept him, but he did abysmally in college the first time around, and he didn't help his case by waiting until May to apply when these schools are rolling admission

[snora]

LOL, if it weren't for the fact that my bf's already on the GI Bill, I'd think we were talking about the same person. I've had to do EVERYTHING to get this dude in school. I researched his classes, got him registered...everything had to be laid out exactly in front of him or else he never would have done it properly. And yeah, part of why I'm always on his ass is because the GI Bill living stipend REALLY helps with our collective living expenses, but my frustration stems from the fact that I just don't understand how he can be so blasé about FREE FUCKING COLLEGE.

That's so awesome that he remembers things like that, and that you guys can communicate like that without words. We've only been together a couple years here, so this one still likes to fight me on every little point, but he's getting better. I'll get there with this one, I think. If not, I know where to hide the body. :P

[roseofjuly]

They must be related somehow because I did the same thing for Ron - filled out almost all of his applications, managed his paperwork and badgered him into registering for the things I couldn't do myself. It paid off because I just found out today that he got into my university :D

I was on Ron partially because he can get housing through the university nearby the campus and we can finally live together next year. He's on base and I'm in the city 80 miles away. And Ron still fights me, it's just that sometimes he recognizes when I'm right. It's happening more often than it used to, so stay the course!

[heartlockedx]

ugh sounds like my husband. he's on the GI Bill too and pulling the same bullshit. I want to kick his ass all the way to neptune. In the meantime I am $40K and counting on student loans. He doesn't know how lucky he his.

[snora]

RIGHT?! I'm going to be looking at what is very likely to be a similar amount in loans, and I've spent 3 years busting my butt at a community college to qualify for as many scholarships and grants as possible for when I transfer--all while working a minimum of 45 hours a week. Then you've got d-bag over here, playing ME3 and going out with his buddies instead of studying and not knowing how close he is to losing his ability to breathe on his own without mechanical assistance. I get that they have to go through a lot of shit to earn these benefits, but damn, shouldn't that serve as some sort of motivation to take full advantage of them now that they've got them? Le sigh.