"Girls like doing tedious jobs." This statement, offered by a peer, was
the reason why women were drawn to housekeeping, child-rearing, and
other womanly pursuits.
As one of three women in the class of twenty, I unsuccessfully tried to bite back a scoff.
Tedious tasks. Really. I shared an eye-roll with my nearest female classmate.
My inner feminist started to offer counterpoints.
"Just because women can stay focused on difficult or mind-numbing tasks
for long periods of time, doesn't mean we're best suited for every
tedious task."
"We just prefer to use our brains over our muscles."
Fortunately, I am pretty good at censoring out my inner feminist, so
none of these reciprocal sexist remarks made it to the open air.
I started to think about my interests. Was this an instance where a sexist remark was based in a kernel of truth?
I enjoy crafts such as latch-hooking, cross-stitching, simple
crocheting, sewing and scrapbooking. All involve a need to pay attention
to detail.
I enjoy baking, with its precise measurements, and the satisfaction that
comes from keeping a clean house. Once more, a need to pay attention to
detail is present.
I get joy from sorting my kindle books into their distinct categories, despite the time-consuming nature of this task.
I typed 22 pages of recipes, in order to be able to reduce my number of cookbooks in my house.
Is it possible that I enjoy tedious, meticulous, time-consuming tasks?
Granted, enjoyment from tedious tasks is not a valid reason to restrict
the career choices of women, but in economics, there is a concept called
comparative advantage. Essentially, people, businesses, and countries
should produce what they're best at producing.
In my household, I track the budget, (primarily) do the dishes, make
menus, go shopping, fold the laundry, and do general house cleaning. My
husband is the one to wash and dry the clothes, because my back makes it
hard for me to do that. He works more hours outside of the home, so I
work more hours inside the home. He handles interactions with bill
companies as necessary and filing for taxes is his domain. He typically
takes out the trash, but I'm able and willing to when the trashcan is
stinky, full, and he's not home yet. We both drive, but he's typically
the one to fill up the vehicles and perform general maintenance as
needed. We split the household and work tasks not based on male-female
jobs, but based on our strengths and preferences.
So maybe my peer was partially correct. A large amount of tasks that I
enjoy to do, do turn out to be tedious in nature, but I'm not
necessarily representative of women everywhere. Some women do enjoy
tedious tasks, but so do some men. Some men like physical tasks, but so
do some women. I like the balance my husband and I struck in our
marriage. We play to our strengths, passions, and amount of time at
home. This balance would look differently, in different households, with
different strengths, preferences, passions, and external time
commitments. No one can define a "normal" balance of tasks within a
household. So maybe I do prefer tedious tasks, but only because that's
where my personal interests are (not because I am a woman).
