Gender Roles (9/29)

After reading "Even the thought of earning less than their wives changed how men behave," I began to think about my current living situation. My boyfriend and I have lived together for four years now and he's a bartender/bar manager. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but he works mostly late nights as I go to school full time during the day. I feel like in this scenario he realizes that I am going to end up making more money once I graduate than he will, and has taken on the role of what I like to call my domestic engineer. He cooks, keeps the apartment immaculate, and does my laundry; not to mention he's on forever cat box detail. What could be better, right? I feel like I kind of have it made with this unspoken arrangement that I'm very much okay with. He keeps my life incredibly comfortable during my long school week and we're both entirely okay with this situation. It might not work for everyone, but it works for us. He's way better at domestic engineering than I am and he recognizes this.

It's really funny how gender roles have shifted and no one is locked into any particular role. My grandparent's generation was so vastly different. My grandmother, who was very June Cleaver-esque, and her three sisters all were stay at home mothers who were expected to have dinner on the table and the house cleaned upon their husbands arrival home from work. They were all dressed in pretty clothes that their husbands bought them, but I think deep down they were bored. Had the gender norms been bent and twisted as they are now, I feel like their lives could have been very different. Now, career hungry women like myself are able to achieve their goals and aren't expected to pop out a bunch of children and stay at home cleaning all their days. Then I think on the other hand, does the partner that doesn't earn as much as the other subconsciously take on the role of the homemaker? It's hard to say. Couples tend to be meeting more in the middle as far breadwinning and household duties which is truly a partnership in which they contribute maybe differently, but equally.