@juergen_hubert Out of curiosity, do you think the reason most men don't do their share of the housework is capitalism? Or is it because we want to maintain the power dynamic of women cleaning our toilets?

@juergen_hubert I'd like to keep it in enough order I have space to do stuff like baking or sewing...

@juergen_hubert almost all people I encountered that had an overly clean and tidied home turned out to employ cleaning professionals 2 times a week.

@juergen_hubert "the notion that people should be able to maintain "a clean, well-organized household" came from the 19th century Western "upper classes" where the wife was expected to stay home and do this full time".
In those days both the upper, middle and even the lower-middle classes (eg bank clerks or shopkeepers) could still afford to have a servant or servants for the wife to manage, rather than she having to clean or cook, or even dress for the themselves.
The middle class stay home wife who had to actually look after the house and do the chores was largely a 20th century innovation.

Im currently reading a history of women brewing in the UK 1300-1600, commercially or not, and it is absolutely the case that even peasant women wanted to maintain a “clean, well-organized” household. They were *more* ambitious, as their households were also productive; the women’s work included kitchen gardens and the hens, spinning, sewing, brewing, dairying, and helping with whatever the men did.

You’d have to be organized and clean or that would all collapse.

@juergen_hubert

@juergen_hubert

And to be very clear, the wife's job of maintaining "a clean, well-organized household" meant acting as manager to a large crew of staff -- the women from the village who did the actual work of cooking and cleaning, and the men from the village who worked in the stable in the garden, and the household guards

All of those people had jobs, and then went home to deal with their own houses

After ww2 in the US, manufacturing plants switched from aircraft and tanks to making washing machines and vacuums, and needed to get rid of their female workforce. So they started promoting the idea that middle class families could have a simalcrum of that upper class lifestyle, with a smaller staff and a bunch of machines. Remember the Brady Bunch and their housekeeper/cook? Or Bewitched, with a bit of magical help!

Even working class, or very lower middle class, families could emulate this, in theory, with the wife running the machinery. See the excellent Blondie movies, as an example

@juergen_hubert

The Politics of Exhaustion comes in many forms.

Wages so low, it takes two jobs to keep a roof over your head.

Chained to a job you hate just because it has health benefits.

Forced into long & expensive commutes just because Koch Network funds disinformation about public transit.

Forced into less productive "back to the office" because the boss doesn't want to be seen making his own coffee & downtown commercial landlords are afraid of losing money.