{"id":18698,"date":"2010-01-08T10:27:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T15:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=18698"},"modified":"2013-12-15T04:35:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T09:35:15","slug":"who-cleans-the-house-of-a-cancer-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/01\/08\/who-cleans-the-house-of-a-cancer-patient\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Cleans the House of a Cancer Patient?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jillian Y. sent a really interesting example of the gendering of housework. The example comes from a non-profit organization, Cleaning for a Reason<\/a>, that assists cancer patients with house cleaning.<\/p>\n

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The organization is for people struggling with any type of cancer (not just breast cancer, as the pink ribbon suggests), but it still only assists female patients.<\/p>\n

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Jillian didn’t want to trivialize how useful and important such a service is, and I don’t want to either.\u00a0 There are reasons why women may need this service more frequently\u00a0than men.\u00a0 The first reason is, of course, that women do the majority of housework in the U.S.<\/a> and most Western countries (see also the links below).\u00a0 So when a woman gets sick and she can’t do her<\/em> job anymore, this organization steps in and helps.\u00a0 When a man gets sick, the housework (apparently) keeps getting done with no problem because it wasn’t his job in the first place.<\/p>\n

This, of course, assumes that everyone who gets sick is (heterosexual and) married (and able-bodied to begin with).\u00a0\u00a0What about single people?\u00a0 Who does their housework?\u00a0 Much of the time their female relatives do some of it… but let’s assume that single people are especially vulnerable because they have no one to help them do the daily upkeep of the house.<\/p>\n

I recently saw a study that\u00a0stunned me.\u00a0 It looked at the frequency with which married couples separated or divorced after a cancer diagnosis<\/a>.\u00a0 Get this:\u00a0 If you are a man, the chance that your relationship will break up after diagnosis was three percent.\u00a0 Three.\u00a0 If you are a woman, the chance is 21.\u00a0 Twenty-one<\/strong>.\u00a0 One out of five women diagnosed with cancer (compared to one out of every thirty men) finds herself single.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, maybe it makes sense to be especially aware that female cancer patients have a burden that many male cancer patients do not (whether by virtue of the fact that housework is gendered or the fact that female cancer patients\u00a0are more likely to\u00a0end\u00a0up\u00a0single).<\/p>\n

That said, I don’t appreciate that the organization reinforces the idea that housework is women’s work; nor do I like that it excludes men who need help (largely by making single men or men with partners\u00a0who cannot do housework\u00a0invisible).<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

See also our post on how health-related activism is sometimes for women only<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For examples of how women are responsible for the home, see this KFC advertisement offering moms a night off<\/a>, this a commercial montage<\/a>, Italian dye ad with a twist<\/a>, women love to clean<\/a>, homes of the future<\/a>, what\u2019s for dinner, honey?<\/a>, who buys for\u00a0the family<\/a>,\u00a0liberation through quick meals<\/a>, “give it to your wife<\/a>,” so easy a mom can do it<\/a>,\u00a0men are useless<\/a>, and my husband\u2019s an ass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Historical examples of the social construction of housework: husbands \u201chelp\u201d wives by buying machines<\/a>, gadgets replace slaves<\/a>, feminism by whirlpool<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, of course, it’s hilariously funny to think that men would actually do housework:\u00a0 see our posts on \u201cporn\u201d for new moms<\/a>\u00a0(also here<\/a>),\u00a0the househusbands of Hollywood<\/a>, and\u00a0calendar with images of sexy\u00a0men doing housework<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jillian Y. sent a really interesting example of the gendering of housework. The example comes from a non-profit organization, Cleaning for a Reason, that assists cancer patients with house cleaning. The organization is for people struggling with any type of cancer (not just breast cancer, as the pink ribbon suggests), but it still only assists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,55,2088,252,272],"class_list":["post-18698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-gender","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-healthmedicine","tag-marriagefamily"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18698"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60584,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698\/revisions\/60584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}