The Meadow Report - Divisions of Labor

The hosts discuss gendered divisions of labor and how society devalues invisible labor. They explore how household labor is divided and the concept of invisible work, which encompasses cognitive work like anticipating and managing household chores and childcare. They discuss the benefits to a patriarchal society of undervaluing domestic work, such as allowing men to excel in the workplace. The hosts share personal stories of how this division of labor plays out in their own lives. Hello everyone, welcome back to the Meadow Report. I'm one of your hosts, Ava. And I'm the co-host, Lauren. And today we're gonna be delving into the phenomenon of gendered divisions of labor. So we're gonna be talking about how labor is divided in the household, how our society devalues invisible labor, what that is, and what we can do about it. And we're gonna be joined by one of our friends, Safa, to talk a little bit about our own lives. So we hope you enjoy. Thank you guys for joining me, I appreciate it. Of course, I'm so excited to be here and just really think that the topics that we're gonna talk about today are super important. So I'm really excited that we're gonna get more into it. And I'm excited to learn something new. Yeah, I'm excited to like rip into something new. Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited to jab their heart open and then dissect it. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're gonna be doing today. And obviously there's always another side of the story, but for this episode, it's just the one side and it's the women. It's the women. It's the women. So yeah, let's get into it. Today we're gonna be talking about divisions of household labor. So basically what that means is like how we divide work in the home. Like chores, social childcare, and all of that gets divided. Whether that be by husband and wife, brother, sister. We're also gonna be talking about this concept called invisible work, which, have you guys heard of invisible work? I have not. Okay, so invisible work is basically this term that a lot of like psychologists use when they discuss the cognitive work that women shoulder the brunt of, which basically allows them to like anticipate and police household chores and like childcare. So that kind of looks like not just taking the garbage out, but knowing that the garbage has to go out on Tuesday so that it gets picked up on Wednesday. And if you miss that, you're gonna have garbage stinking up your garage for a week, right? It's that you have to sign this permission slip by Monday so that Jimmy can get on the bus for his school trip on Friday and to pack it in his bag because you know he's gonna forget it if you don't, right? So that's the invisible work. Yeah, it is. Thank you. Great. So basically all these terms, the reason we're defining them for you is because our episode is gonna kind of explore why our society gets away with and why they choose to devalue domestic work. So why is it beneficial for our patriarchal, capitalistic society to keep women at home, undervalued, underpaid? Why that's useful to them, which I can answer for you right now is because if we don't value women's time, the opposite is true, that we overvalue men's time. Keeping women at home also allows for men to get ahead at work. If there's no women to compete with, men are gonna be succeeding. I never thought about it like that either. Well, that's one of the reasons why women find it so hard to break the glass ceiling, have it all, because they're expected to do all this invisible work, do the childcare, and men are not. So yeah, that's what we're gonna be getting into today, how this has happened to us and how we can fix it. So Safa's gonna start. She's gonna talk about her brother. I am gonna talk about a boyfriend from years past. And Lauren's gonna talk about some other people. And we're gonna get into it. Let's do it. Oh my, yes me. Let's get into it. Okay. So how would you like to start? Yeah, so I have a younger brother. He is about two years younger than me. So when we lived in the same household, we were both in high school. And actually the specific instances that I'm gonna talk about now was when he was between the ages of 16 and 18. So think about kind of the person that you were at those times as a woman. And I'm gonna talk to you about how my brother kind of differed in the way that I was. With my brother, he just got a lot handed to him, which makes sense because he's the youngest person in the family and he's also a boy. So my mom and even my sisters and I would tell my brother, hey, you need to pick up the dishes after all done eating dinner. You're gonna rinse them off and you're gonna put them in the dishwasher. So my parents were just realizing that the dishwasher was literally getting clogged from like food. Oh my God. So we realized that my brother was putting the dishes in the dishwasher without rinsing them. There was food on the dishes. They weren't getting cleaned properly. Like he wasn't scraping them before. Like I'm not even kidding you, there would be dinner pieces like in the bowls. And obviously the dishes aren't gonna get cleaned. Like the dishwasher is like kind of your second go-to. Like, you know, you're rinsing it, you're whatever. And then you're putting it in the dishwasher. It's not even that he wouldn't know. It's like, he's definitely seen everybody else. Well, that's because it's that invisible work. Like, you know. He's not doing it. Like I will say, no one sat him down and gave him a lesson. What did you, what did you, did you get sat down? I didn't get, no, I didn't get to sit down and get a lesson. I saw my parents do it. Right. And was it your mom or your dad who did it? My mom. Okay. So I mean, not necessarily like, yeah, I didn't get to sit down and be like, stop it, this is how to wash a dish. And you knew that before. I saw my sister doing it. It's gotta be a little clean. Right, exactly. Because you know, I understood what a dishwasher's purpose was, you know? So I, like my whole life, I used my eyes and I observed and I was like, okay, I'm going to rinse off my dish and I'm going to put it in the dishwasher. So like, even after multiple times telling him like, this is not how you do it, like what, like he just was like, well, I don't, I don't know what else to do. Could go some of it to teenage angst, but also. Yeah. He didn't want to physically do it. Yeah. He didn't want to do it because it's work. And he's not getting paid for it. Now, when he did that, like did, was there ever a moment in time where your mom were like, you know what? Just leave it. I'll do it. I personally have just been like, you know what? This would take me probably five minutes. So the thing that's important to know is that that's three minutes of your time. So if he weaponizes his incompetence and says, you know what? I just don't do it right. You do it. He's not spending three minutes of his time. He's basically taking three minutes of yours. You know, like my mom will have to get up, leave the table, do it for him. Besides dishes, there's also like acts of service things that we can talk about. Lauren, you have an example with your grandpa. Yeah. Okay. So for context, my grandpa, he came from an Irish Catholic household. So he had six brothers and one sister. Poor girl. Poor girl. Poor girl. No. Poor girl. And my mom told me this story, kind of as a joke one day. And it was funny. And it is funny. But in context of this conversation, you can see how it's not really that funny actually. But the story goes, numerous times she tried to ask my grandpa to go to the grocery store to get the same ingredients that he has seen in his cabinet. A million times. Yeah. His whole life. The whole time that he's lived in that house with her, he has seen the same ingredients. And also he's a computer engineer. He can do math. He can do math and he can look at the lowest price and he can read the grocery list that she has to give him. Okay. Just to go. These are what we need. Like he's not illiterate. No. Brain dead. Yeah. Right. And every single time, he would come back with nothing on the list or a very like odd assortment of ingredients. A crazy assortment of ingredients. They would never be the cheapest ones. And sometimes he would kind of abandon the list if she said, go get something for dinner. Like instead of getting a spaghetti, he would end up with bread and ice cream and anything that he thought was just good. And maybe some sauce, but then he forgot the spaghetti. He lost his mind in the grocery store, apparently. And so at the end of it, she just looked at him, cause she would inevitably have to go back to the grocery store immediately after. But she was just like, you know what, Doug? You're banned from ever going to the grocery store alone. Right. You are not allowed to go anymore. I will never make you do that again. But the pure fact that you're like your grandma had to ban her husband from entering the grocery store because he physically, well, he physically could. He didn't want to. He chose to not do what he, he literally had a list. You know, that's where it gets me. My mom sends my dad to the grocery store sometimes and she'll get 30 phone calls before he can check out. My dad's got his master's degree at Columbia, but he can't find the right mayo at the grocery store. Are you kidding? Like, this is the problem. I just don't understand. Well, I'll tell you, let me tell you. Please, and this is why we're having this conversation. This is the point of this episode is that the reason why these things occur is because it benefits men and our society to devalue our time. If we don't have to pay for it, we are saving money. If we make sure that it's women doing all of this invisible work, it's a lot easier to climb the ladder when you don't have to run home and pick up your kids from school. It's a lot easier to keep your mind on getting your education when you're not also bouncing a baby on your knee. So it's all of these things that put obstacles in women's way, which is why it's not just the problem in the home. Like, this is a problem that originates in the home, sure, but it's also something that extends to the public. There's a statistic that it's 70% of the most successful men in the United States have a partner that's a stay-at-home. Quickly, I'm gonna talk about Brendan. Oh, Brendan. Oh, Brendan, yeah, he's gone now. Not dead, but he's gone. He's staying on. Oh, he's gonna stay on. But I'm gonna talk quickly about my experiences with a boyfriend who very obviously didn't do invisible work. So Brendan was a year older. When I was on campus this past summer, would come and stay in my apartment with me for extended periods of time, like weeks on end. So we lived together basically for those weeks and we would eat together and we would cook together and put all of the chores of the household, so the dishes, for example, I did those things. And I don't, I obviously, it was my apartment, but they were dishes we were using, we were both using. Together. Together. They were pots and pans that we cooked. He was also a guest. Right. And when he did start to do the dishes, I actually caught him one day doing them with a paper towel. You never told me this. I haven't told you this. Because honestly, you probably would have been like, why are you still dating me? Yeah, I would have. Yeah, okay. I caught him cleaning a pan that we had used to cook with with a paper towel and I said, what are you doing? And he goes, oh, the dishes. And I go, with the paper towel? And he was like, well, yeah, I didn't want to like use up the sponge. Use up the sponge? What are you using up? Babe, babe, that's what it's for. Also, you're using up the paper towel. Okay. And I was like, okay, well, I was like, is there soap on it? And he goes, oh, no. Are you kidding? Are you kidding? No. This is a fucking grown-ass man. This is a grown-ass man. And then he goes, excuse me. This is a grown-ass man. This is a grown man. He is a year older than me. I am 21. He was 22. Out of college. Out of college, okay? And he was doing the dishes with a paper towel that had no soap on it. And I had to say, you can't do that. So this is what we're talking about when we say invisible work. The policing that women have to do to make sure that household chores are done right. The fact that he said, well, if you want it to be cleaned like that, then why don't you just do it? And then I did it. Shows that he doesn't value my time. And it's just a microcosm for like how men view the work that women do. My dad didn't end up doing them, but he couldn't do something without being told to do. Like I specifically, my mom is the one who sends our tax forms to, I don't know, the magic tax man. Yeah. But she. Yeah, that magic man. But in the months before tax day, when they need to get sent, she's asking my dad to get his tax forms together. It takes so many times of her reminding him to do this one thing for him to do. It's that emotional labor that you were talking about. What can we do about this? And why should we do it? Why does this matter? From the research that I've done, communication is key. Every day or even once a week, if you sit down with whoever it is, whatever man in your life that is not dividing labor with you equally and say, I need you to do this, this, and this for me without me having to tell you. Is that something you're capable of? Obviously, if it's a healthy relationship, they're gonna work with you. And sure, it might not be the first time that they get it. Your husband or your brother still might walk by the garbage, see that it's full and not take it out. And you might have to be like, hey, remember what I said? But it's kind of like going to the gym where if you start and you get into a routine, it becomes easier. And then it becomes second nature, right? If we do train them, then our children learn from them. And then they don't have to be trained. If we keep women's time as something we don't value, they can never catch up.