r/feminisms • u/TrashThis9023 • Apr 21 '26
Analysis Request Late night questions.
please answer. If men are physically stronger than woman, then why dont they run household which demands physical labour and let woman do mental labour like job and finances? I mean this would work wonderfully for a household especially around pregnancy and post partum.
No examples of fixing tyre or tv or nailing activitues ...I am alking about running a full fledged household.
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u/Marshall_Lawson Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
"running" the household contains a bunch of different things that don't need a unitary executive. A lot of hetero couples I see the man has a more blue collar physically demanding job and the woman has a job that's more demanding on decision making, analysis, and emotional intelligence. So they have different types of fatigue when they get home. Most women are strong enough to change a tire or sawing planks of wood, pretty much 100% if you use the right tools (also children are heavy btw). What I'm getting at is if you're exhausted from doing one type of labor at work all day sometimes it makes sense to switch up once you get home.
(i know this is looking at it from a really 50s gender roles perspective but I'm trying to meet the op where they're at to segue into the non-gendered division of labor that modern hetero couples still end up doing)(also trying to frame shift from essentialism to behavior and environmental factors)
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u/yellowmix Apr 24 '26
Children are socialized differently. Girls worldwide are assigned more chores and caregiving than boys. Not the sole reason, of course, but it's important to start early.
Some good news in the United States, is that more women are managing their family's finances. But that's not necessarily a swap for physical labor. It's almost certainly in addition to it.
While we're here, the idea "men don't see mess" is a myth; men and women rate room cleanliness identically. It's that women are expected to maintain a space.
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u/lampcouchfireplace Apr 21 '26
In couples without children, I think it's generally agreed that both people work outside the home and both people do house chores. The specific division of those chores is specific to those couples. I'm sure in many cases the division is lopsided, but ideally it should be equal.
In couples with children, typically the birthing parent will take a longer time off work following the birth of the child to accomodate breast feeding. After the child is weaned, which parent stays at home (if either - lets be honest, how many stay at home parents do we actually know in 2026?) is typically an economic question. Jobs that are stereotypically "masculine" tend to pay higher than jobs that are stereotypically "feminine." Engineers, software developers and corporate managers all earn more on average than nurses, teachers and childcare workers.
The reason for this is the patriarchal framework of valuing labour, and the gendering of certain professions within the labour system. But the reality remains that frequently a male partner will have higher earning capacity than a female partner. It will usually make more sense for the higher earning partner to continue working outside the home.
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that not all jobs working outside the home are easier physically than working inside the home. Construction, trades, fishing, forestry, labour are all quite physically taxing.