Housework as Hobby

But she’s pushing it when she wants us to buy that she’s got some kind of “real job.” If Corey’s husband decides to opt out of the labor market in favor of full-time gardening and home improvement, I think we’d call that “early retirement.”

I agree with most of the rest of the post, but I'm confused about the "real job" part. You're right that people would call it "early retirement," but I think it's particularly crazy to insist that an activity that adds value is considered not a real job because it's not performed on behalf of someone else. Especially if you would pay someone else to do your housework, gardening, home improvement, whatever, I think it's clear that doing it yourself is a "real job" with real economic value-- perhaps not the most efficient use of your time economically, but still something that many simplistic accounting schemes miss.

I think this is what the evopsych folk like to call a "spandrel": There are genuine biological reasons why women would tend to be more disposed to specialize in *childcare*, and maybe related reasons why men would be disposed to specialized to venturing out of the home to (literally) bring home the bacon (or at least the boar). And the upshot of that is a division of labor that leaves women specializing in home management, though this is a side effect of other adaptations, rather than an adaptation in itself. That said, we're a ways from the woodland savanna, so it's not clear why any of this should count for a great deal; I don't expect anyone to subsidize my boar hunting.

But the idea that there is something ineradicably feminine in folding towels is on a level with the idea that there is something ineradicably masculine about pipe-smoking and good-natured sexual harassment.

Concur in part, dissent in part.

From an evolutionary perspective, isn't there possibly something to the idea that men do have a predisposition toward "good-natured sexual harassment"? I mean, I'm strongly against it and all, but the reproductive imperative is rather strong, evolutionarily speaking. The anti-sexual harassment norm seems like a (great) recent social norm developed to counter what was in part a strong evolutionary urge.

Whereas, it seems very hard to imagine why towel-folding has anything to do with female evolution. (Also true as to pipe-smoking and males.)

Just read the article. I should say I don't see anything bad about discussing this particular matter. It's not necessarily enough to say "because it connects to old stereotypes (woman in kitchen)". The relevant issue here is that all people should find fulfillment, and identity/group identity factor into fulfillment. If someone's view of femininity includes doing XYZ, and XYZ is not terrible, I think the discussion is helpful, not immoral.

I think she does an admirable job of discussing in a self-aware way, with due deference to all possible explanations (including "indoctrination has rotted my brain").

The counterargument to this is that "these stereotypes are a touchy subject so this is not the right time or venue to raise this discussion." That's a fine position to take. But it's not valid in my book to say she should not have written this article because gender-behavioral differences are definitely 100% socially indoctrinated, and thus her article reinforces an incorrect stereotype.

As I mentioned, we need to wait for the science to know the real facts. In the meantime we have to find a practical compromise between 1) stereotype management and 2) an unfettered discussion of feminine identity.

She walks the delicate line just fine, in my view.

I think this is a question for evolutionary biology and neuroscience. It's not a question we can solve by exploring our moral vision of the ideal world.

The same is true about a lot of things, such as the nature of intelligence and whether geography has influenced cognitive evolution over the past few hundred thousand years.

But, Will's point is still OK to make in a different way. Stereotypes can be corrosive. The relatively certain negative consequences of them usually outstrip the possible truth they may have.

There's nothing biological about women being the ones to look after the home and children. It's just that someone has to do it and the grunt work was traditionally delegated to those with less power. Also, we socialize our girls to think that this is what they should want lest they be considered bad wives and mothers.

More power to Ms. Corey if she gets all excited about folding towels. I for one am glad that women have more choices now- I'm not all that biologically inclined to housework and I'd hate to have to go all Sylvia Plath.

Could not one make a case that it is feminine to do housework? Or is there absolutely nothing biological about women being the ones to look after the home and children, and it's been completely socialized?