Housekeeping and mankeeping

Men, amirite?

One minute, more than a third are saying that sexting with artificial intelligence isn’t cheating. Next minute, they’re…serving as a seamstress for their girlfriends and getting clucky? 

This isn’t some niche TikTok phenomenon where performative blokes learn some very basic household chores and are declared either dream partners (by women who have spent too much time being burnt on Hinge) or weak beta cucks (by manosphere types who have spent too much time being burnt on Hinge).

For the third time ever, women hold more payroll jobs than men in the United States. In contrast to the previous instances - after the Great Recession and Covid pandemic - this isn’t the result of a recessionary shock. It’s structural, and it’s probably not going away.

So if men are spending more time at home, what are they doing with it?

Playing video games and messing around on computers, apparently. The US National Bureau of Economic Research found that roughly 70% of the hours young men aren’t working are being spent on these activities. 

That’s not great, for men or women. For women, research has found that the more they earn, the more housework they do. 

For men, it’s a surefire way to loneliness, depression, and a lack of identity. Which perhaps helps to explain the cluckiness. One survey found 57% of men said they wanted to have children someday, compared to 45% of women. 

Among the proposed reasons for the desire to become a parent is an attempt to work towards or control something in an uncertain world. But remember, a kid is for life, not just because you’re bored of applying for jobs on Seek.