We've been talking a lot lately about the delegation of household tasks. And while the conversation is obviously rooted in history, society, a traditional gap and the burden of context, one question inevitably comes up: if women want things done right, do they have to do them themselves? As the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus puts it today, "I could delegate more to my husband, but then I'd also have to accept that pasta with store-bought pesto equals dinner. If you want someone else to step up to the plate, you have to live with what he puts on it." And she puts it even more strongly: "In fact, to some extent women are reluctant to yield dominion over the home front even as they become the majority of the paid workforce."

Of course, this doesn't really address why she's not satisfied with the same sketchy domesticity. Gail Collins touched on the same issue in her interview with Doree Shafrir yesterday when she said,

Half of the world believes it's because guys genuinely do not have as high a standard about making sure you get invited to dinner every once in awhile, or having matching socks. It's possible that guys, if they don't care, then it's very hard to impose those standards. Others argue that this is all a plot and the guys are just waiting out the women. I would go for 50-50. Clearly guys enjoy the higher standards-they just don't want to be in charge of them.

I'm not the one to ask; my boyfriend and I both come from the 'wait-as-long-as-is-humanly-possible-before-tackling-squalor' school of housekeeping, whose equality, it could be argued, is certainly a harbinger of some kind of progress - or of our generation's general lack of responsibility. Growing up, my father was indifferent - and to my mother's chagrin, would ask friends over with impunity when the house was in a state she found humiliating. Maybe that was more the core issue: she saw the state of the home as some reflection on herself; my dad did not. Of course there are Felix Ungers who are defined by house-pride and a love of domestic routine. But that's why they're a comic stock character: the trait was regarded as effete, effeminate, humorous.

Discussing the report "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, Marcus observes,

Both sexes agree that women continue to bear a disproportionate burden in taking care of children and elderly parents, even when both partners in a relationship have jobs," John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira write in one chapter of the report. Here's the interesting subtext, though: Fifty-five percent of women strongly agreed (and 85 percent overall agreed) that "in households where both partners have jobs, women take on more responsibilities for the home and family than their male partners." Just 28 percent of men strongly agreed, and 67 percent agreed. That's a pretty big perception gap.

Marcus suggests that part of this disconnect is rooted in, not just self-congratulation for doing the minimum, but a sort of martyrdom. As she would have it, women want help, but also control. There is, she says, "something comforting in keeping a connection to mundane household tasks even when you're running a major-league research lab. Perhaps younger women don't feel this tug toward domesticity. But for women of my generation, there remains an impulse to live up to the standards of our stay-at-home mothers even as we race out the door each morning." I'd say younger women do, indeed, feel the tug of domesticity - but largely because it's a choice. Canning, knitting, home decor - these have become reflections of who we are rather than the other way around. And the quotidian rites of household maintenance, more than servitude, imply adulthood - which is a whole 'nother kettle of ambivalence.

The Nobel For Brisket Goes To . . .[Washington Post]

Earlier: Gail Collins: "The Revolution Will Be Achieved When No One Has To Do The Ironing"

As for those who've decided to take the plunge officially, another new study shows that married couples who suppress their anger towards one another are more likely to die. The research, done at the University of Michigan, says that 27% of couples who both suppressed their anger had one member die during the study and 23% of the couples died off in pairs.

The take-away? That couples don't even have to be married to make each other miserable for the rest of their days, and that laundry, dishwashing and domestic duties in general can not only extinguish the flame of passion but literally kill a couple. A suggestion for the Brits: why don't you take that extra £17,370 (the average cost of a UK nuptial these days) and blow it all on housekeepers?

Married Couples Are No Longer The Social Norm [Telegraph]
Goodbye Married Couples, Hello Alternative Family Arrangements [Guardian]
The Equality Hypocrites: It's OK For Women To Work - As Long As They Do The Ironing, Say MEN [Daily Mail]
A Good Fight May Keep You And Your Marriage Healthy [EurekAlert]

• Breaking News! Men go for hot women, according to a speed-dating study. Researchers found that the men in the study "tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold." However the women chose men whose attractiveness was on par with their own, because every chick knows a hotter dude will dump her in a ditch as soon as something sexier comes along. And this is how Brangelina was born. [CNN]
  
• Law enforcement is posting decoy ads on Craigslist in hopes of catching those who use the site to exchange money for sex. But how else is "Jews or Italians W/ Hot Faces Or Thick Cocks" supposed to find her dream guy? [NY Times]
  
• Oh fiddle dee dee! The hour-glass figure made famous by Sophia Loren, Scarlett O'Hara, and a few missing ribs is no more. Women's waists have grown seven inches in the last 50 years. Clearly we have feminism to blame for all that excess breathing room. [Daily Mail]

• Family therapy works better than individual therapy in treating bulimia. When Mommy insists that "no one loves a fatty" and Daddy says that ice cream is for losers, we can see why the 'rents might benefit from therapy too. [NY Times]
• Chronic stress may give some women fertility problems. So just relax, sit back, and spread 'em! [NY Times]
• One in 20 pregnant women smoke while one in 25 continue to drink even after they find out they're with child. Ladies, you have the rest of your lives to kill yourself with lung cancer and liver disease — let the child choose whether they want to party like it's 1999 after they come out of the womb, okay? [Daily Mail]
• A 14-year old girl stabbed her 16-year-old sister to death in a dispute over a guy. We repeat, over a guy. Sigh. This is depressing. Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield got into some cat fights over guys (remember Todd Wilkins?), but they never forgot the sisterhood. [Daily Mail]
• A serial stalker in the UK has been banned from being alone with any woman in Scotland for five years. Does it count as alone if he's 20 feet away, crouching behind a telephone pole? [BBC News]
• Women are more likely to die from major heart surgeries than men according to a study from the European Society of Cardiology. As a result, the group is reconsidering it's treatment of heart problems for women as the usual go-to-treatments like angioplasties and bypasses (which help men) are more likely to result in death in women. [MSNBC]
• Polycystic Ovary Syndrome is a leading cause of infertility but according to MSNBC there's a far greater price to pay — the acne and facial hair that sprouts as a result of increased testosterone. Totally fucking humiliating. [MSNBC]
• A Kansas teen died when she jumped onto the back of her boyfriend's SUV as he drove away with another girl — the cheating bf didn't bother to stop when he heard "something" fall of the back of his car. He's being charged with reckless murder — not to mention being the worst boyfriend ever. [KCTV.com]