The first day of spring. In honor of spring cleaning, two takes on the gender balance of housework. A response to the midlife realization of dwindling options. And our bodies and our emotions – how you feel is not just in your head; it can be in how you stand. And sit.
:: Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier. Why men still don’t do their share of the dirty work. (New Republic)
“Which is all to say, it’s seen as socially admirable and masculine for a man to be on diaper duty or to sous-vide a steak, but there are no closet organizing tips in the pages of Esquire, no dishwasher detergent ads in the pages of GQ. Considering the strides that have been made in getting men to share the labor in other traditionally female domestic areas, why has cleaning remained the final frontier?”
:: How to make a dude sweep the floor (correctly), without you even having to tell him (Jezebel.com) [alert: salty language]
“Later, Travis wonders why Alice can’t just constantly leave him notes to tell him what he has to do? Sure thing mister, right after she cuts the crust off your PB&J. Fortunately, there are people who have figured out how to share household work equally, and they offer some concrete solutions for navigating this depressing scenario that feels more retrograde than Mercury.”
:: Behind the scenes of a mid-life crisis (Conversion Diary)
“But believing something and living it are always two different things, and it wasn’t until my little mid-life crisis that I realized just how much hope I placed in having options. Rather than resting in the life that God has given me, and trusting that he’ll give me whatever opportunities I require to do what I’m meant to do in this world, I still relied on having lots and lots of choices for the future in my back pocket (you know, as a backup, just in case God dropped the ball with his plan and I had to take over). And when I realized that many of those choices were gone now, with more disappearing with each passing day, it was a startling moment of coming face to face with my own attachments.”
:: Fashion and Emotional Anatomy (aligned4wellness.com)
“And do you want to know what I think is just so totally weird? Is the fact that it is now cool to stand and hang around like this. Like it doesn’t matter. Like what we do with our bodies is not having an effect upon us at the deepest level. Cellular. Emotional. Mental. Physical. Spiritual. Even Peanuts knows that how you stand affects you emotionally. Like, it matters. It really does.”
:: Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are – Amy Cuddy (TED Talk)
“Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how ‘power posing’ – standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident – can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success. Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions – and even our own body chemistry – simply by changing body positions.”