Empty Monster cans clutter the closet, sweaty t-shirts hang from the pull-up bar, a used bath towel is draped over the desk chair and the only things neatly stacked are tubs of protein powder. Welcome to the stereotypical college man’s dorm room.
One of the prevailing cliches of college men is how filthy our living spaces are. I’ve seen many men’s college dorm rooms and apartments, and the bar is lower than even I thought possible. It’s time to man up and clean up — not because discipline is inherently good, but because it’s a key step toward gender equality. Let me explain.
I’m as much of a slob as the next guy. For most of my childhood, my father sought to instill in me the value of a clean house. When I began dating my first girlfriend, he saw it as an opportunity to further motivate me: “If you marry that girl,” he would say, gesturing to a sinkful of dirty dishes, “are you going to leave the house like this for her?” I realized that sharing housework was one of the reasons for my parents’ successful marriage. They both valued a clean house, so they never argued about housework. Even better, my father’s willingness to share the burden of cooking and cleaning left my mother ample time to pursue her art business. I decided if I wanted to be seen as husband material, I should put more care into cleaning up.
Many studies have found that women spend more time on household work and childcare than men. Single women without children spend more time on housework than their male counterparts, and after marriage, this gap widens. After having a child, surely men take on more responsibilities, right? Nope. One study found that men actually cut back on domestic labor by five hours a week after becoming fathers while women take on far more.
This inequality in household labor is a major driver of the gender pay gap. Longitudinal economic studies of the U.S., Germany and Italy find that spending more time on housework lowers wages more for women than men. In part because of an increased domestic workload, women in the workforce see their incomes fall by half after becoming mothers. This isn’t because husbands spend more hours breadwinning. Even in heterosexual marriages where women are the primary earner, they still spend more time on housework. Equal opportunity in the workplace depends on equal responsibilities at home.
What explains this troubling trend? Since housework is assumed to be their responsibility, women face greater social pressure to keep a tidy house than men do. In one study, people rated an identical room as messier when it was said to be “Jennifer’s” versus “John’s.” Mothers are more likely than fathers to apologize for a messy house. This results in undue stress: Married women have been found to have greater increases in cortisol levels, a hormone associated with stress, than their husbands when their space is messy.
Millennial women have tried to encourage their male partners to pick up the slack. A new book and accompanying 100-card deck titled “Fair Play” is one solution marketed to young dual-earner couples for quantifying and rebalancing housework. But many women have found it to be an uphill battle, having to provide constant reminders to their male partners to ensure they get the chores done. Turns out, it’s hard to build new habits as an adult, and cooking and cleaning regularly isn’t as easy as it sounds. Men are facing a skill issue.
What has to change here? We do, gentlemen. For the sake of gender equality, we need to care more about cleanliness.
Here’s the good news: Generation Z men, still in the habit-building phase of early adulthood, are uniquely situated to shift the culture here. As I’ve written in a previous column, college is the time to build good habits. If you think cleaning a dorm room is hard, imagine a three-bedroom home. If you build the habit now, you’ll start building intrinsic motivation to keep a tidy home. Even if you don’t see marriage or children in your future, your actions can go a long way toward raising the bar for other guys.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to schedule an hour or two of cleaning time in your Google Calendar this week. Make a Target run. Buy some Windex, a second bath towel and maybe even some organizing bins and labels. By cleaning your room, you’re doing more than improving your living space — you’re raising the standards of tidiness for yourself and your brothers-in-arms, and thereby advancing gender equality.
Evan Tao ’27 can be reached at evan_tao@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
