I don’t know why, but I always have this mental image of people who identify as male/masculine to just have their living spaces look like a dumpster (okay maybe its a bit hyperbole, not a literal dumpster, but you know what I mean), while people who identify as female/feminine to be extra tidy? (Perhaps its mainstream media’s portrayal affecting my subconscious?) Is this actually true?
Sorry if this sounds offensive, I don’t mean it that way.
I care much more about things being clean and orderly than my wife, like, by quite a lot. I do a lot of cleaning.
I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination. The mess my wife can make for just daily tasks is mind-blowing to me.
We have probably a 12-foot long dual sink counter in our bathroom. Her shit fills her side and will make it to my side. I can have all my day to day stuff in a foot square space.
Not and n/a, cis woman, too old for this shit. I kind of manage to get rid of any rubbish eventually and to avoid mould but people aren’t allowed in the flat. Somehow I never learnt the necessary self discipline and skills for keeping a space presentable, even though my mum was stay-at-home and kept her household shipshape. She just seems to have forgotten to teach me how to do anything. Is what I tell myself while ignoring that my younger sister has little issue in this regard. In my defense, I have ADHD and chronic fatigue.
If there’s any (any!) magic spell I’d like to be able to do, it’s “Eene meene kidney bean, my flat is now clean - hex hex!” I don’t need money or fame or whatever, just a spell to have a clean living space. I can work from there.
Growing up my sisters’ room was so messy you couldn’t see the floor. My(amab) room however was rather spartan
It actually drives me crazy when people don’t keep their living space clean. It’s way easier to maintain as you go than do those crazy cleanups once every blue moon
Do Men/Boys usually clean their living spaces less frequently than Women/Girls?
That depends heavily on the question if my robot vacuum is a boy or a girl.
(I admit I haven’t looked yet).
people who identify as female/feminine to be extra tidy?
Yes, I also think that people who identify are sometimes extra tidy.
I’ve known both men and women who had equally nasty living spaces. I think it’s a personality trait that doesn’t depend gender.
My ex wife and I were both depressed. She was somehow grosser than I was.
I’m in my 30s. My parents raised us with old-timey gender roles, expecting the girls to cook and clean and the boys to, idk, get used to being served?
It did neither side any favors. One brother had some very difficult lessons to learn when a way-out-of-his-league girlfriend told him what’s what. They’re married now and he’s pretty candid about how bullshit those gender roles were and how he’d never setup a son for failure by not teaching them basic life skills of cleaning and feeding themselves, nor teach a daughter she has to shoulder it all.
Finding myself in a relationship with a man who plays weaponized incompetence games to manipulate me into traditional gender roles is my nightmare. I got taken advantage of in some of my earliest relationships and I now attempt to vet for it better up front. I can say there are certainly still men who don’t think it’s their job to clean, but I think it’s better with each generation.
IDK if women are any better, we might need a 50/50 bi person for their perspective.
Good for your brother for growing up. Most men raised like that never do.
Women are just as bad. It’s not a gender thing, though there are the old stereotypes you mentioned
My experience is women are very unclean if they don’t think it will be noticed or on display. Cleaning is more for appearances with little influence from hygiene or being organised. Men seem to do it out of necessity only, it’s not the bare minimum, but the state of something can be left longer, like a pile of clothes not being big enough to deal with yet. But there are those that can’t survive without their mothers.
As a single parent, I never stop cleaning.
Ever.
Anecdotal evidence but on my limited sample of male and female friends and acquaintances whose homes I visited, it doesn’t matter. People range from obsessively clean to very messy, but I didn’t notice a correlation.
I’m only able to really keep my place super clean by being OCD about it or by hiring cleaners to come once a month. If I’m just being mellow version of myself, the correct place to put whatever object down is the nearest flat surface. Whether table, desk, counter, space on top of a bookshelf, etc.
I live in clutter, but not dirt. My partner opts to clean our place because she thinks that’s better than paying people to come monthly. We still have them quarterly to do a deep clean. She also picked up a vacuum and mopping robot last month to automate more of the work. It’s reasonably effective.
I tend to wash the dishes that I use immediately because I don’t cook much. When she cooks, there’s a lot more involved and we use the dishwasher. I take the trash and recycling out. I’m too lazy to fold my tshirts and splay them out on my dresser. The kitties are happy with that because they nap on them.
i am non-binary transfem and my living area is usually messy but nowhere near like a dumpster. however, i do have some bad habits from having ADHD and also never being told to clean as a kid because my mother was an obsessive house cleaner so she got to everything first. so while i was raised male i’m not a man but i definitely was allowed to be messy as a boy… so i’m sure that contributes to a degree. my guess is we raised boys to be less tidy because we wanted them to focus on more traditionally masculine career paths.
It’s definitely not universally true. I don’t like my space looking like a dumpster and I dated a woman for 13 years who absolutely, positively, would not clean, and didn’t know how to use a garbage can. Would drop trash on the floor and leave it there until I finally got sick of it and cleaned it up. She would leave dishes unwashed and just laying around.
But outside of that experience, most women I know have kept neater spaces than me. As I said, my place doesn’t look like a dumpster, it’s organized and tidy, but I probably sweep less, dust less, and so on. I do dishes daily because they get gross fast if you don’t.
Also it is to be noted that I lived in absolute filth in my twenties and I had to teach myself how to clean and be tidy over time, it took about ten years until I was in my thirties before I was consistent on cleaning.
I’m embarrassed about being a slob. I’m definitely messy and it’s a point of friction in my marriage. (I’m trying to get better but it’s hard to reprogram stuff from childhood.)
I dated a woman for 13 years who absolutely, positively, would not clean, and didn’t know how to use a garbage can. Would drop trash on the floor and leave it there until I finally got sick of it and cleaned it up.
Fuck. I feel like an army drill sergeant now in comparison.
My living space is probably slightly below average in cleanliness and organization, but I’m really self conscious and upset about it not being slightly above average. I’m really depressed.
I feel like I’m pretty messy, but also have two cats and two dogs and live in the dessert. If it’s not pet hair all over, it’s dust, and I just don’t know how to find the will to keep up.
