Tag Archives: Wife

A New York Times article assessed whether men and women had an unequal distribution of work in the household. The original argument that women do more stemmed from the authors’ own experience and those of the women she knows. She went on to explain a little of why she believed what she did in the first place. Her investigating on the matter, led her to analyze the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In it, she appeared to be convinced by their data that women in fact do not do more work than men. I remain skeptical of this data. I have many questions left unanswered. For example, what was considered paid work or unpaid work? What was categorized as leisure rather than work? What questions were asked to determine these findings? I think that many women and mothers do things that may not be considered work or even essential to the functioning of the household but rather just to make things a little better for the family. I do agree that perhaps mothers spend more time thinking about the functioning of the family which would remain unaccounted for. Essentially, the argument of whether or not the workload between spouses is equal does not matter. If the arrangement of the household works for the individual family, then why keep tabs? However, credit is due to mothers who do live the role of housewife and take care of children and the household. It is arguably the most underpaid job out there and has the least vacation time (none!)!