There’s been another ‘study’. And we all love one’a them. About gender roles in the home, this time. Oddly its been done by Oxfam. Though why they are spending money due to be sent to starving Africans on worrying about who’s doing the housework over here is beyond me. I don’t give to Oxfam, I don’t like them. So its your money they’re wasting, not mine. But even so…

They found that women spend more time doing housework than men. That’s worth 25 grand of anyone’s donations all by itself. A revelation.

But true gender equality, they feel, can never be reached until men and women spend equal amounts of time cleaning toilets. That’s their benchmark. Or skidmark, as its called in this context.

The fact that men (on average; of those surveyed, blah, blah, blah) spend 3 times as much time as women changing lightbulbs and taking out the rubbish is not viewed as ‘unequal’ in such an equal way.

Everything is based on an assumption. Basically that ‘there is no difference between a man and a woman beyond a penis and a few other bits and pieces; therefore they are the same, other than the extreme influences of cultural demands and expectations’. And that, as we all know, is so much bollocks. Women don’t have those either.

And its precisely this lack of testicles that creates the difference. Men and women ARE different. We should embrace those differences because they’re fun and nice and lead to all sorts of wonderful things.

Perhaps women are just better at cleaning toilets? They should be with all that practice. But maybe its a chromosomal thing? Like men are good at throwing things, parking cars, scratching scrotums (scrota, I know, I fucking know), women are good at washing up, having babies, changing channel during FA Cup matches.

There’s a workplace in London that is to give women ‘period leave’. When they feel pained and grumpy at ‘their time of the month’ they take a few days off. Presumably paid, not counted as sick leave or holiday. Just a couple days a month. 25 days a year? Well that’s equality. To balance this I should be able to take a couple of days off after Spurs lose a game and my hormones are all off balance. Its only fair.

Ok, I’m going out to wash my wife’s car. Or maybe I should give her the opportunity to redress that little imbalance too???

Happy Friday

A xxxx