"The Second Shift" (was Re: [OT] Germ Rant)

"CatNipped" <CatNipped@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5uhid5F1igt60U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Maybe it's just because I'm fighting off this grunge that has taken
possession of my lungs, sinuses and ears and won't vacate the premises no
matter what I've done, but I've become very attuned to TV commercials
advertising germ killing products (Lysol, Purell, etc.). I just watched
three in a row.

First of all, germs evolve just like any other animal or organism, they
just
do so millions of times faster since their reproductive cycles are so
short.
Purell just announced that it kills 99.9% of germs on your hands. Think
about it, what happens to the other .1%? *THOSE* are the germs who have
survived in the fight for survival of the fittest. They are the ones who
have not only been allowed to live and breed but have been selected by
*US*
to pass their hardiness and ability to survive germ destroying substances
on
to the next "generation" of germs.

When we get so compulsive, here in the US, with everything being "clean
and
sanitized", what we're really doing is helping to breed the next
unstoppable
pandemic! Is the risk really worth it just to avoid a few days or weeks
of
illness?

I've always been of the philosophy that my children needed to eat a little
dirt in order for their immune systems to learn how to handle the stress.
They were never kept from animals because of a few sneezes or sniffles,
their bottles were never sterilized, I never freaked out if they ate a
grasshopper or picked up and ate some dropped food off the floor. The
result is that they are the most remarkably healthy adults I have ever
known
in my lifetime. Neither have ever been hospitalized or even had an
illness
serious enough to send them to their beds for more than a day.

Thankfully, they've learned these lessons well and are treating their own
children the same way, but I'm afraid that in the face of the rest of our
nation's germ-a-phobia this is just a drop in the ocean to counteract our
selective breeding of germicide-resistant organisms.

</rant>

Inspired by a radio show I listened to on the way to work this morning
called "the second shift' that discussed the fact that despite many women
work for just as long outside their homes in paid work as their male
partners do, they are still bear the brunt of the housework....

And it fits into this thread nicely...

<rant>

The whole issue surrounding gender and housework strikes me as one that has
its roots in how we expect each gender to behave. We *expect* boys to be
'grubs' but train little girls to be clean, neat, and concerned about their
appearance. This continues through adolescence (just look at the advertising
related to *appearance* aimed at pre-teens and teens and see the difference
in gender) and into adulthood.

We expect the bachelor to live in a pigsty, we even celebrate the stereotype
of the young male asleep on the couch, old socks, empty beer cans and used
pizza boxes strewn about him.

We don?t' associate old pizza boxes, stinky socks and empty cans of beer
with young girls, at least, not *nice* girls, however. Hence the phrase
expressing an unkempt area "this place looks like a brothel". Virginal,
pure, *nice* girls are clean, tidy, neat little things, and the sluts, the
whores and nasty girls are *dirty*.

A messy house, no matter who happens to have the most time to do housework,
who happens to be the neat one, whose 'job' it happens to be, still reflects
badly on the woman's character. And the woman knows it.

My man of the house simply either doesn't notice or doesn't care about the
fact my house wouldn't pass the 'white glove' test (nor the middle-grey
glove test!). The kid has no clue about clean or tidy and is just as content
to eat his gourmet perfectly nutritionally balanced lunch off a spotless
china plate as he is to graze on snails in the garden. Logically, I know
that whilst my house is messy, and I haven't autoclaved very single item
into utter sterility, it is not a health hazard to anyone living it (bar the
odd injury to the arch of the foot from stepping on lego pieces in the dead
of night). So, even though I'm the one who works ridiculous outside the
house, even though I know my family is happy & content, why do I feel guilty
and ashamed about not having a shiny, germ free, junk free house that could
feature Better Homes?

Because I know that people *do* judge me, my mothering ability, indeed, my
*character* on my ability to housekeep, and I don't want people reporting me
as an unfit mother to DOCs just because I haven't done the washing up.
Sometimes I feel it would be better, in the eyes of society, to otherwise
neglect my kids but have a spotless house than neglect the housekeeping in
favour of the kids. This is patently ludicrous, but the link between unfit
mother and unwillingness to keep a tidy house (its always unwillingness,
rather than inability) seems so strong in the media.

I still have no idea how women of yesteryear kept a spotless house and had
time for their children, and am truly astounded and amazed that women of
today work 40 or more hours a week outside of their home, and keep still
spotless house happy children.

But perhaps it?s a myth we as women perpetuate amongst ourselves. I am
guilty of going into a panicked cleaning frenzy if I know someone is going
to visit, and then apologising profusely about how *filthy* the house is
when in actuality it?s the cleanest its been in weeks. Why can't I be honest
about it? Why can't I, like the stereotypical bloke with socks, beer and old
pizza boxes, just admit that I think housework above and beyond
functionality is a waste of time and be proud that the time I would have
wasted sterilising the toilet (what a pointless activity) I spent, instead,
playing with my son? Why am I still buying into the myth that, for women at
least, that cleanliness is next to Godliness? After all, even the worst male
slobs I know still do their laundry (although may not iron and put away) and
do occasionally eat of clean plates (even if they've just washed it moments
before) and sometimes even remove the worst of the skid marks and mould from
their porcelain fittings. This is probably all that is strictly necessary in
terms of actual staying healthy and surviving. Anything above and beyond is
not so much a *necessary* part of living but a *want*, and therefore it?s a
personal choice.

So in the end, us women are simply *choosing* to make a whip for own backs
because we for some reason equate good upstanding moral character with
neatness and tidiness and therefore spend far more time doing housework than
our menfolk do out of *choice*. It is not a matter of equality, it is a
matter of undoing some of the brainwashing that we have bought into, and
giving ourselves the back the right not to martyr ourselves on the vacuum
cleaner. Men & kids simply don't notice or care whether there's a bit of
dust or a few toys hanging around ? why do us women continue to play
one-upmanship with each other with our housekeeping when there's both far
better things to do than housework and far better ways to measure character
than who's got the cleanest toilet? Just say no to unnecessary housework,
and enjoy your pizza, beer and stinky socks.

</rant>

Yowie


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