My lady will clean...I'll be on the porch with a beer

Can you believe this article? From today's Sydney Morning Herald: a survey of young men and women and their thoughts on the division of domestic labour and childcare. The article talks about the way that women have moved into the workforce in droves, thus leaving a gap to be filled in looking after children and managing the house. However, men haven't picked up the slack. The childcare/housework gap is being filled by hired cleaners, carers and childcare centres. The irony is in the extra work that families need to do to pay for these extra services, and, in my view, the twisted logic that women use to make themselves feel guilty about hiring someone to clean the house and watch the kids so that they can fulfil themselves professionally and have an independent income.
Of course we should be able to go to work if we want to: in the same way that we should be able to stay home and keep house or watch the kids if we want to. Just as men should be able to go to work, or stay home, as they please. The conundrum seems to be though that we haven't reached psychological agreement as a society about what's OK for who to be doing. Even though it's virtually impossible today for a couple to exist on one income, therefore forcing the second person (usually the woman) to work, she still has the societal burden of being in charge of the kids and house. She has to clean, cook, wash and all the rest of that boring crap that men seem to escape. She feels guilty about the fact that the house looks like a bomb hit it and that she's too tired to cook...again. The article also discusses how this factor has led to a rise in obesity levels as families buy more ready-made and takeaway meals, which are often higher in fat than home-cooked meals.
The most infuriating part, for me, is the attitudes displayed by younger men and women about what they expect from a partner.

More than 40 per cent of the boys interviewed said wives would provide the domestic labour. "My lady is doing the cleaning," said Mike, a year 11 student from Sydney. "I'll just be on the porch having a beer." Another said it was more likely "robots" would be doing the housework than he.
Some boys did expect to share housework, but few envisaged a 50-50 split. One respondent said he would share but "not quite evenly". And that's not all. Many young men already had tactics in mind for minimising how much housework they will do. Some will use flattery. "[I'll] suggest my wife is a good cleaner," said Smithy, 17.
Others planned to make a healthy contribution early on and then scale back as their partner "relaxed". "You should be able to help for the first few years [of marriage] then it might wear off," said Kevin, 17, from a country high school.
The girls had different ideas. Most of them expected housework to be shared and some said they would demand joint responsibility.

Damn straight, they would demand joint responsibility! Who says those lazy-arsed boys can just sit around "on the porch" while she does the slave labour? And where did these attitudes come from? Aren't we now living in 2006, thirty years after the feminist explosion? What mothers did these boys have?
Their old-fashioned caveman attitude is backed up by conversations I've had with young women (years 11 and 12) in the past year or so. When I asked them what they expected to do as a career, a significant number of them responded that they'd like to get married to a rich husband and stay home. OK, I said. What about you and your life? Will you have any interests or hobbies you'll pursue professionally? No, they said. I just want to relax and have an easy life.
This is a fair enough statement. But I cringe at the thought that these girls have no comprehension of what their options would have been a generation ago. It's as if we've fought for more, got it (in the most part), and then decided it's all too hard and we're happy to be the little woman again.
Similarly, when I tried to discuss feminist theory (in the Alien movies, of all places), there were more blank and disdainful faces staring back at me than I've ever seen. What's a feminist, I asked. Lesbians with hairy armpits, they said. Who believes that women shold be able to do whatever they want? I asked. Hands went up. Well then, I said, welcome to feminism. Aghast, they were. Shocked.
I can only relate this article to myself and my own domestic problems. I'm lucky in that if I ask for help, I usually get it, and my partner does things for me that I never get time to do. Like vacuuming out my car, vacuuming the house, tidying my desk, doing all the washing and hanging it out, making the beds. He also washes up almost every night (and I cook...but I like doing that, so it's a win-win situation). But I despair for the future partners of these chauvinist boys who so value their beers and their downtime that they can't imagine pitching in to share the housework.