Moron “The Dishwasher Dilemma” July 30, 2012

awhile back, i wrote about what i believe is the genesis of most “domestic squabbles” between heterosexual partners, and that it is essentially male entitlement, and forced-perspective, and mansplaining and womens resistance to men and what the het partnership — and male entitlement, and forced-perspective and mansplaining — do to us.

now, i would like to address something i have heard so frequently from everywhere — from individual women and from pop culture and everywhere — which is that men do not seem to appreciate, at all, what it means to have a nice home, or more specifically, something to call your own, or at least a temporary or semi-permanent “home base” that is aesthetically pleasing and as sane and comfortable as possible.  men do not appear to care about this — they foul it up in every meaning/sense of the word.  if they live alone, or with each other — certain notable exceptions being, well, notable — their living spaces are fucking gross, and disgusting, and filthy.  in every corner there is literal filth — and porn, which is figurative filth isnt it?  they like it that way.  they live in their own shit, and they create and project shit so they can live in filth and shit, more.

women do not seem to understand why this is, and like they are wont to do, think that if they can figure out “why” that the problem can be solved — if everything is just a misunderstanding (ours) it gives hope.  answers to these questions are acceptable only to the extent that those answers are consistent with maintaining the het partnership, and with maintaining an affinity for men and living with men and taking care of them forever.  if not an individual man — sometimes individuals are beyond help and this is realized, painfully, after much time and resources are wasted — then with men as a class.  the primacy of the nuclear family and the primacy of the het partnership must be maintained, because without that, where would women be?  if only we would start imagining this, for real — identifying the (immediate?) problems that would cause and then solving them ourselves.  like the problem of realizing well into your forties (for example) that everything you thought you knew is wrong, and that where youve ended up is devastatingly off course and the forks in the road are so far back you cant even see them anymore, and youre exhausted and — blind?  not to mention all the legal requirements on many of us at this point — legal and moral guardianship over other people, for example.  legal and moral ties to men.  thats not a small thing.  this problem is real.

anyway, in the interest of changing the frame, and suggesting answers that are not compatible with maintaining the het partnership — to the extent that the truth is not compatible with maintaining a lie, or a structure founded on and maintained by pouring, building and maintaining lies — regarding the problem of men not appreciating a nice home, may i suggest the following thought exercise: women, imagine that the entire world is your literal and figurative toilet.  now imagine the dissonance you might feel — you, who experience the entire world as your toilet — if you were then simultaneously expected to keep your actual, real toilet — the one in your bathroom — clean.  why bother?   and indeed, men dont bother — their actual, real toilet — where they shit — is supposed to be clean, while the rest of their world is dirty because they shit there too?  why?

this takes on additional significance for modern men, doesnt it — men who literally piss outdoors, or wherever and whenever they please despite indoor plumbing.  i cannot even imagine the entitlement they must feel.  i know i dont want them in my space, to the extent i can help it — and definitely not in my bathroom, thanks anyway.  whats a little spatter to someone who regularly pisses in the alley, or knows he could, or that he would with no hesitation or logistical problems at all?  they do not care about this, and they apparently cannot be made to care about it.

but sadly, and not unexpectedly, theres more.  the home is the only place many women can go, where we can BE where we are relatively safe, and i think that includes abused women too, doesnt it?  i dont mean safe from abuse, i mean safe from the world which is an extremely difficult and dangerous place for women in general.  the “public” where we have literally no control or power, and are leered at by necrophiliac pervs and harassed and assessed by rapists every single second of every single moment we are out there.

and granted, being forced to “keep house” is often the beginnings of trouble for women who are coerced into this role, including with threats of and actualized violence for not doing a good enough job (in reality, its used as a pretext to inevitable abuse from an abuser) but in general, wouldnt women keep a nicer home than men even if this role were not coerced?  i think we would.  because its the ONLY place where we have some control over our surroundings, where we are subjects — rather than objects — in our own lives.  where our environments are or can be reflective of *us* at all, even though this is limited too, by what (for example) is available to us to purchase or make.  or, maybe in the absence of patriarchy, everything would be different, including this.  maybe if we werent animal feed and rape-objects in real life, we could afford to let a few things slide.

its also possible that we are a different species from men, and that we do not share their beginnings and will not share their ends, and that *this* explains or better explains what i am calling “the dishwasher dilemma” and why women in general tend to keep a nicer home but either way, its not exactly consistent with maintaining the het partnership now is it?  not if actually resolving this conflict is important.  species-difference is suggested in “the sisterwitch conspiracy” to explain this and other observable sex-based difference — and that book is at least as subversive and damaging to men and the institution of the het partnership as the SCUM manifesto, if not more — i suppose this one isnt on the radar because the author didnt speak mens language (the language of violence) and valerie solanas did, or she did once?

note to self: men are stupid, and speak *only* one language — and that appears to be the language of violence.  that is all.

META:  please note the change in the comments policy at femonade below. 

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