Leah Ruppanner, author of Drained, proves men CAN see mess

Read an extract from Drained by Leah Ruppanner.

Men Aren’t Dirt Blind—They Can See the Mess

Let me give you an example from a research project I conducted with colleagues Sabino Kornrich at NYU and Sarah Thébaud at University of California, Santa Barbara. We set out to test an idea that kept popping up when I presented on gender inequality in household chores: an idea that blamed women for letting themselves get stuck doing an unequal share of the work that keeps homes running smoothly.

I’ve long been interested in housework (as a concept, not an activity, thank you very much) and have spent over twenty years publishing articles quantifying that labour and investigating why, even in the most egalitarian countries in the world, women still do more housework than men.

These papers helped build a robust body of interdisciplinary research on which factors made the biggest impact on the domestic labour gender gap—working hours, income level, paid family leave, etc.—and resulted in tons of data from decades of research showing that the inequality is to do with how society is structured, not to do with individual women’s failures.

But even as I got invited to talk about my findings all over the world, I kept hearing the same argument again and again—from both men and women—that women were doing more house cleaning because they were more likely to ‘see the mess’ in a house. According to this theory, women’s standards are just too high.

I heard similar things when I wrote or presented on research showing couples are more likely to fight with each other and divorce when women did a disproportionate share of the housework. Among the responses, invariably, would be a this-is-more-of-a-comment-than-a-question about how perhaps the real problem was that women were just ‘controlling’ or ‘neat freaks’.

It wasn’t just lay readers, either. Even scholars in related fields told me, based on zero evidence, that domestic inequality was due to these women being overly invested in a high standard of cleanliness. If that was true, the solution was obvious: women, individually, should decide to care less about whether their homes were messy. If women didn’t care so much, then they could spend less time cleaning and less energy resenting their partners’ lesser contributions to cleanliness, men would feel less nagged, and the divorce rate would plummet.

Win-win, right?

Now, I do think that women should care less about the cleanliness of their homes. I think everyone should: our lives are busier now than ever before, and if something has to give, I’m in favour of it being housekeeping rather than socialising, parenting, career-building or (heaven forbid) sleeping. But the idea that women are, en masse, neat freaks who are making themselves miserable for no reason at all? That just didn’t add up.

A big part of my work is noticing patterns in behaviour that seem to defy logic, and re-examining the whole equation to figure out what variables we’re missing.

The study idea was simple. First, we would test whether women could, in fact, see mess better than men. It seemed unlikely that women’s eyes were physically distinct in ways that make them better at spotting piles of clothes on the couch than men’s, but possible that women had been in some way socially conditioned to notice mess more immediately or intensely. We could design a way to test both.

Next, we would measure the consequences of being perceived as messy for men and for women. If the consequences were the same for both groups, it would suggest that internal pressures— standards women expect of themselves—were a major factor. But if the study showed consequences differed, we’d have evidence the pressures were external.

The blacklight would reveal that women’s generally higher investment in housekeeping was a way to avoid being punished for messiness in ways that messy men are not.

To gather the data, we first showed participants a photo of an open-plan living room and kitchen. Half of our research participants got a photo in which the room was messy and

half in which the room was clean. Then, we asked them to rate the room as messy or clean and to rate the personal traits of the person who owned the room. Here is the twist: some were told that the room was owned by ‘John’ and others by ‘Jennifer’.

Right away, male and female study participants rated the messy room equally messy, and the clean room being just as clean. The idea that men are ‘dirt blind’, or that women more reliably notice mess? That’s garbage—go ahead and neatly chuck it in the bin, no matter what gender you are.

Men and women notice mess equally, perceive the same level of messiness when looking at the same scene, and are equally aware of what constitutes a clean room.

Next, we asked some harder questions related to participants’ opinions of Jennifer’s or John’s housekeeping. Again, a clear pattern emerged: people judged the room more harshly if they believed it belonged to a woman. Even when presented with a photo of a clean room, our research participants rated it as needing more urgent cleaning if they were told it belonged to Jennifer rather than John.

So, women are held to higher standards of cleanliness than men, including when their rooms are objectively ‘clean’: good enough is perceived as not good enough if it’s women’s work.

Our following step was to ask research participants to rate Jennifer’s and John’s moral character based on the state of their room—whether they were responsible, hardworking, considerate, likeable or neglectful. Here’s where things got interesting.

Participants thought Jennifer was a less moral person than John, even if her room was relatively clean.

We asked them what would happen if someone dropped in unexpectedly, like a boss, relative or friend. We asked this because we often think others will judge us for things we may ourselves not really care about, things like the pile of shoes by the door. Would their opinion of Jennifer change? And would Jennifer feel uncomfortable based on the state of the room if these people showed up unannounced?

The answer was a resounding yes—Jennifer would be seen as a less capable and competent person. And, yes, Jennifer would feel uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than John, hosting company even in that clean room.

This is why women worry about the standards. This is why women anxiously clean before guests come over. This is why mothers apologise for the state of their mess to unannounced guests and offer lengthy explanations for why backpacks, toys and sports equipment are strewn across the hallway.

They expect others to see cleanliness as evidence they are competent, trustworthy, valuable people, and messiness as evidence of the opposite—and they are correct.

Men are not held to the same standards and do not face equivalent penalties.

Even if a heterosexual couple shares the cleaning of the home, it will be the woman who is held accountable for the planning and execution of the homemaking, and even if she is not consciously thinking about it, she knows it. When women talk about the sky-high standards of having homes that are always in an ‘Instagrammable’ state, these standards are not in their heads. These pressures are real, the consequences for women are significant, and we have the data to back it up.

This is one of the many research studies I conducted through my lab at the University of Melbourne, to explore how women experience the world. I have spent decades studying these types of questions: why do women do more at home? How do we help men step into the family? Why do housework and childcare create so much conflict between partners? What is the impact of all the invisible labour, or the mental load, at home and at work? What does it mean for men and women who care in different and diverse ways?

I looked at thousands of studies on these topics. I have personally combed through hundreds of thousands of data points. I have published over seventy-five academic articles and a book on the insights I discovered. I have shared my research findings with millions of people around the world.

This has been my passion and life’s work for decades. I use sociology as my superpower to help us all better understand our worlds.

An edited extract from Drained by Leah Ruppanner, out now!

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Drained

by Leah Ruppanner

A groundbreaking new way to understand the mental load—and why it's crushing so many women around the world.

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