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A man washing up dishes in a kitchen, with a woman in the background
Men ‘systematically overestimate their contribution to domestic work’, the paper claims. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images
Men ‘systematically overestimate their contribution to domestic work’, the paper claims. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

Philosophers tackle ancient mystery of why women clean and men don’t notice

This article is more than 1 year old

Affordance theory highlights difference between the genders over domestic chores, say academics

A friend and her husband recently moved home. Clearing out their old bathroom together, her husband turned to her in astonishment: “Look at this, we’ve lived here for three years and this soap dispenser has never run out!” Of course, the dispenser had run out many times – it’s just that he has always unwittingly relied on her to fill it.

Now, philosophers believe they have found why women continue to shoulder a disproportionate amount of housework and childcare in the modern era – but men think they do half of the chores.

Writing in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, philosophers Tom McClelland and Paulina Sliwa suggest the disparity is down to “affordance theory”: the idea we experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached.

“We argue for the existence of gendered affordance perception,” said McClelland. “We suggest that disparities in domestic and caring labour come about not just as a result of deeply held beliefs, desires and feelings but also as a result of gendered differences at the level of perception: that two partners in the same domestic environment can experience very different affordance landscapes.”

Gendered affordance perception means a married, different-sex couple – Jack and Jill, for example – may differ in how they perceive their domestic environment: when Jill enters a messy kitchen, she sees jobs to be done, Sliwa said, while these perceptions do not present Jack with a corresponding task.

“It is very plausible to expect that Jill will end up doing a greater share of those tasks,” said Sliwa. “Over the course of the day, such small differences quickly add up to significant disparities – and Jack will systematically overestimate his contribution to domestic work and systematically underestimate Jill’s contribution.”

The hypothesis puts Jill in a catch-22 situation, argued Sliwa: “She ends up either expending effort on doing the task or expending effort on consciously ignoring it. Moreover, if Jill wants to delegate the task to Jack, this, too, requires effort on her part.”

But this does not mean women cannot hold male partners to account, said McClelland. “Lack of sensitivity to domestic task affordances is not a visual impairment; it’s not like, say, colour blindness,” he said. “In the absence of affordance perception, you can still reason your way to what is to be done.”

He added: “Moreover, if Jack is aware of his affordance blind spots, he ought to take precautions … he can adopt the resolution to check for crumbs every time he waits for the kettle to boil.”

But Jill’s philosophical “tug” towards emptying the bin does not equate to a natural affinity for housework. McClelland said: “Social norms and individuals’ affordance landscapes are inextricably linked: social norms shape which affordances we perceive.”

This means, however, individual efforts are not enough to change the status quo: society needs policy-level interventions such as longer parental leave.

The impact of such wide-scale intervention will have impacts outside the domestic sphere as well as within it. “Is a woman more likely to perceive mugs in the office kitchen as affording cleaning? Is a woman more likely to see a distressed colleague as affording aid?” asked McClelland. “If so, how might this contribute to inequitable distributions of labour in the workplace?”

More on this story

More on this story

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  • From doing laundry to washing the dishes: unpaid work is bad for our mental health

  • I let go of cleaning the house and embraced the mess. I chose myself

  • ‘The woman’s to-do list is relentless’: how to achieve an equal split of household chores

  • ‘No reward or recognition’: why women should say no to ‘office housework’

  • Today’s ‘woman’ is supposed to people-please yet also be an empowered ‘girlboss’ – why?

  • Lockdown-fuelled novelty of domestic chores wanes for men

  • 'Women-only' housework questions on Italian Covid form spark ridicule

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