The egalitarian myth is described in this article through the lens of Nancy, a full time social worker and mother of one. She describes herself as a feminist, and in theory believes in a 50-50 split of housework. However, due to problems with her husband sharing it, has to give up more and more to stay happy, or to at least keep from becoming resentful. She describes her husband as cleaning the downstairs and she does the upstairs...which sounds even. However, when you look at the amount of work that goes into each task...she is clearly getting the shaft. Emotion work, or a mans emotional commitment to a marriage, is very important. The closer a couple is to a 50-50 split of house work, the more likely they will be in a happy marriage.

The Holts situation is not atypical. My own family was very similar in that my mother, who earned less, would do the majority of the housework. My father would cook a lot, but when it came down to cleaning...it was mostly the kids or my mother. However, general car and house maintenance were always handled by my father, (and there was a lot of it) so there was almost a 50-50 split of house work.
The ideology of domesticity, or the dynamics of a household (more specifically a biological unit, places 3 major constraints on the division of work in our society. There are that:
1. An employer has the "right" to expect the ideal worker.
2. A husband must live up to this expectation.
3. A wife is delegated extra work because the husband must live up to this expectation.

SO did this exist in previous times? I woud say no. IN class, we discussed how the family unit was one based on survival. There was security in a household. It was even suggested that homosexuality didn't exist in the capacity it does now BECAUSE of the immense importance placed on marriage and the family. The expectation of an ideal worker has nothing to do with survival.

The sex discrimination arguments are interesting, specifically when “free choice” is brought up. Free choice assumes that males and females have these gender roles simply because they choose them. According to the article, many have claimed that women do not have as high of an interest in “traditional male positions,” and therefore do not pursue them.. The same can probably be said about men in female positions. I know being one of only a handful of males in the elementary ed program at BC that there these just isn’t the same interest.

The division of labor in lesbian and gay couples is remarkable similar to that of heterosexual couples. Both have underlying, though often invisible, ties with domesticity. As Carrington puts it, monitoring the cleanliness of a house, the supplies in the storeroom or even the birthdays of a calendar are big signs of domesticity. Yet they often go unnoticed. The biggest difference though between homo and hetero couples is the construction of gender and gender roles within the family. In fact, Carrington points out that the development of gender identity is of major concern for homosexual families. In the situation of Andrew, a school teacher, he even said he developed a “summer wife stint”, because he had summer off.(93)… It is rather interesting to me that Carrington would use this example and relate it to gender identity, especially after the previous article had described “free choice”.