Do Women Have a Preference for Domestic Labor?

In this episode, the hosts delve into the complex and often controversial topic of gender roles in household and childcare duties. While one host argues that women naturally prefer and are better suited for tasks like cooking, cleaning, and childcare, the other host counters with anecdotal experiences, social expectations, and humor to provide a nuanced view. They cite various studies that suggest women tend to gravitate towards household tasks and enjoy them more, often influenced by both evolutionary and cultural factors. Additionally, the episode explores the disparity in standards between men and women in fulfilling these roles. With a blend of data, personal stories, and humorous insights, this episode examines whether traditional gender roles are a product of innate preferences or societal pressures.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] speaking of childcare duties, I have a big duty in this bears outfit

Malcolm Collins: , okay. I'll let you do the things that you enjoy doing. Have a good time with your little recreational task there.

And I will see you shortly.

Simone Collins: Hello everybody. I am so excited to be speaking with you today Though very conflicted because as a san francisco bay area raised Woman, I was raised in blank slatism and women can do everything in my life should be about having a career and never getting married and never having kids and yet today I am going to argue to you that women have no place to complain that they share an undue burden in household tasks because of one woman.

They choose to do more household tasks than men, and two, they enjoy them more, and this is backed up by both science and humor both of which I think are very legitimate. This

Malcolm Collins: episode is going [00:01:00] to focus on that women Should be in the kitchen.

Even if they have a job, they should also be in the kitchen.

What's worse though,

Simone Collins: is that they, they want to be in the kitchen.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so actually, Shu On Head had a thing about this recently, where she was like, doing an episode, and she let it slip. She goes, you know, all women, and of course, she didn't mean all, she meant most women when, when somebody says this. But she was definitely speaking about herself.

They go, they want a man to take care of them and support their babies. And I've like,

Simone Collins: I can't believe she said that. Like, honestly, that's, I mean, it takes balls to come out and say that as anyone.

Malcolm Collins: Right. I mean, this episode is definitely going to be one where the you know, like Funday, Friday type people, the people who love to criticize conservatives for saying what is reasonable and statistics based because they're like, no, but we should all live in a fantasy world that doesn't exist.

And again, to clarify what she's saying here is women shouldn't feel [00:02:00] forced into these positions. However, creating societal expectations around women not taking these positions, which we have done as a society right now where it is as a woman, you feel bad. If you are doing too much of this stuff, you are being a trad wife.

And many women are like, I would never, it's a white, white nationalist to be a trad wife, right. To, to, to cook meals and do the dishes and dress well. And you know, so they, they are going to feel bad and feel this cognitive dissonance. Yeah, but then

Simone Collins: the problem is that the converse of this, let's say that a woman like politically is like, okay, well, we have to split everything 50 50 just to make things right and proper as they should be, they'll be less happy.

Because they'd rather do

Malcolm Collins: a lot of these things

Simone Collins: by the statistics and again, not

Malcolm Collins: every

Simone Collins: woman, not everyone we're talking about, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but you'll also see going into what some of these household labor tasks are that like most women would be like, Oh, but well, I, I want to do that, like, you know, home aesthetics decorating for [00:03:00] Christmas.

Women are like, Oh, I mean, you know, like they'll be like, Oh, it's such a struggle. You know, I'm just decorate for Valentine's day, but like, and shopping, Oh God, I'm so sorry. You don't want to go shopping anymore. That's okay. That's okay.

Malcolm Collins: Simone get into the data.

Simone Collins: Yes. So big hat tip to Diana Fleishman for cluing us into this.

The, the research that we're looking at this for the research, research portion of this episode is a paper called gendered perspectives on sharing the load, men's and women's attitude toward. Family Roles in Household and Child Care Tasks, one, they just sort of note the general research that in broadly, acknowledges this to be a truth universal that there's this like sort of mismatch between labor and desires. They cite, for example, Miller 2020 in that young people today are holding onto traditional views about who does what at home.

And young people are no more likely than older couples to divide household chores equitably. So both young and old people are still kind of [00:04:00] Attracted to these traditional roles, which should be surprising to people they, they also site Steve Stewart Williams, who's really, I think, active on Twitter and really interesting that selection has equipped human family females with not only the physiological apparatus for maternal care boobs and vaginas, I guess.

But also the psychological drives that are necessary to operate it successfully. That is strong communal tendency. So women also kind of have evolved the tendency to want to take these tasks on. They,

Malcolm Collins: and let's be clear about what is, is meant here because this is clearly seen across studies that women perform and feminists will laud.

Oh, women perform better at emotional tasks. Women are better in group dynamics. Yeah, but once it has

Simone Collins: to do with like home labor, they're like, But, but, they also, they, they cite Wood and Eagley in 2002 research they point out this isn't just like across studies, this is across cultures. Females engage in more childcare than males do in every human [00:05:00] culture for which they're reliable data.

So this isn't like a United States thing, it's not a trad European thing. It's not a Chinese thing or a Mongolian thing or a Nigerian thing. It is. It's a thing. You know, a man woman thing. It also they cited from Brennan some 2020 research so fairly recent national data indicated that women are more likely 44 percent more likely than men at 25 percent to say that given the freedom to do either they would prefer to stay at home.

to take care of the house and family rather than work outside the home. So there's also this greater interest among women. So this is sort of the premise into which the researchers were coming into this. They're like, the actions have stated that women are gravitating toward the home and they're gravitating toward childhood.

What they wanted to explore was, well, okay, so women spend more time on household labor and childcare. Is this a product of their preference? Because normally people are like, Oh, it's culture. It's obligation. It's because they have tits and the [00:06:00] kids need to breastfeed. So of course they stay home. Well, what they did was survey 323 emerging adults.

So like young adults and 113 middle aged adults that probably being on email about one, how much they like, or dislike 58 different household tasks. and 40 childcare task