Women can reject the pressure to maintain spotless homes and focus on what really matters to us.
I
want so badly to want to clean. But then I
invariably set aside such desires and settle in to knit for the night.
This
is not what the mini Marie Kondo inside my brain wants. But it’s what
my artist’s heart wants. And it’s what all people ought to want as we aspire
for a just world.
Cleaning
is women’s work. This is not an assertion — it’s an observation.
In
spite of the rise of the stay-at-home dad, women still do most of the
housework. According to a 2020 Gallup poll, women are “much more likely than
their husbands to care for children on a daily basis, shop for groceries, and
wash dishes.” Even modern commercials for cleaning products are often
gendered.
There’s
a strong moral component to clutter. We may harshly judge those people —
especially the women — whose messy homes we step into, mentally running our
fingers along dusty shelves and noting greasy prints on the refrigerator.
We worry about being judged when people enter our
messy homes. We are expected to feel shame over the clutter. Our mental health suffers when we can’t keep up with
cleaning, some studies say, likely because we fear being
judged.
Countless online cleaning guides offer “secrets” and “tips” to keeping a house clean. But there is no secret to house cleaning except 1) having the desire to do so, and 2) setting aside the time to make it happen.
The
first is achieved by that societal messaging and moral pressure. The second is
made nearly impossible for working parents. And still, far too many of us waste
our precious moments of free time endlessly cleaning our homes.
There
is a third (dirty) secret: wealthy families simply outsource house cleaning
to domestic workers — who are disproportionately
women of color and immigrants who enjoy few labor and legal protections.
The
rest of us — Marie Kondo included — eventually succumb to the mayhem of real
life.
Kondo,
the queen of clean, profiled recently in the Washington Post, found that balancing a life of
work and child-rearing leaves little time — and, dare we say, desire — to
maintain perfectly clean countertops: “The multitasker seems somewhat humbled
by her growing family and her business success,” the paper said.
She
revealed: “My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way
for me at this time at this stage of my life.” That should have been her
message all along.
As
a person of Indian origin, I grew up in a sparkling clean home. My grandmothers
were relegated to the quiet submission of presenting perfectly clean homes and
producing daily multidish family meals, while balancing paid jobs as teachers.
The
demand to clean is a direct descendant of the enslavement of women in the home.
It’s no coincidence that the labor rights long denied to domestic workers also
descended from the exploitation of the enslaved.
Today,
I routinely reject the desire to clean and instead embrace all the
possibilities of creativity that were denied to my female ancestors.
As
a working woman with multiple jobs, responsibilities toward two children and
two elderly parents, a home, and more, I’m often asked: How do I write, make
dinner and shop for groceries, knit and paint, agitate for political change,
and still take time for self-care?
My
secret — one rarely revealed in moral exhortations against messy homes — is to not
clean until it’s absolutely necessary. And, most importantly, to reject the
sexist pressures of guilt and shame that are inflicted on women.
It’s time to take back our time.
Sonali Kolhatkar is the host of “Rising
Up With Sonali,” a television and radio
show on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. This commentary was produced by
the Economy for All project at the
Independent Media Institute and adapted for syndication by OtherWords.org.
