“Mija, debes de saber a cocinar, o nadie te va casar.”
“Un esposo no va querer un esposa que no puede cuidar a la casa.”
Those are just a couple of the dichos my family would tell me and my sisters when we were young girls. I have always hate these dichos. As a young girl I felt confused and even lost on how to navigate the value of being. I asked myself, “Why is this important? Does this create value in my being?”
Throughout my life I have seen various examples of this inherent patriarchy in my family and throughout the Mexican and American traditions. In my grandparents home, all the men (grandpa, dad, tios, guy cousins) all sat and were served at the table first. They were served by a woman or girl of the household. Often our own mom wasn’t there so it was expected of my sisters and I to serve our dad. This was not a practice in our home so we often protested by saying, “My dad has legs and arms that work, he can get it himself.” This is just one simple example of the inherent gender biases that existed in my own upbringing. I now think: why didn’t anyone question this custom?
Now, the only person I know to have protested it was my own mother. And although my mom had a feminist approach to this tradition, she did still adhere to gendered expectations. She still taught us that housekeeping was a viable indicator of being eligible for a partner ending in marriage. My dad continued to grow in his feminist fatherhood and made sure he placed an emphasis on our education and professional growth; this was equally important to our mom. It was hard to navigate these declared paths for me – I didn’t know how to navigate this early on so through my emotions I protested.
Young people are advocates for justice and fairness until we, as a culture, beat it out of them and tell them, “Everyone for themselves.” So, my immediate rebellion was to avoid learning how to cook and do laundry. To add another layer, there was trauma (abuse) attached to learning these skills. When learning these skills it didn’t seem worth it to get beat to learn a skill in order to validate my self worth for a partner. Read that sentence again. But, that is part of the machista culture that I was born into and didn’t know to fix it as a kid
According to Simone de Beauvior’s The Second Sex, traditional marriage participates in misogynistic traditions that view marriage as a contract. Marriage traditionally began in Western culture to serve as a contract, the trading of goods and services; husband provides goods, wife provides services. You can see this played out in my own familia and the machistas that hold it. You also see these tropes supported by the Catholic Church (I grew up a practicing Catholic). In all Christianity practices, they use the same origin story, Eve comes from Adam’s rib. She is always a part of him, he gave part of himself to her, therefore she should have been subservient to him. Do as he says.
Now, forward to my mid-20s and I am trying to move away to San Francisco. At this point I knew that I was stagnant in my work, friend group, relationships and my art. I felt like I was never going to grow as an individual if I stayed home and allowed the narrative to stay the same. Since I was stubborn to learn how to survive, I found myself living in my college dorms not knowing how to cook or do laundry. In my first week living on my own, I wondered why were these essential skills taught to create validation and not self-reliance? Nonetheless, I found a partner who didn’t hold these machista values. Now, in our marriage I am discovering that my own reluctance or stubbornness is borne out of an emotional trauma and generational machismo.
While I continued to read The Second Sex‘s chapter on marriage, I realized even more so, that my partner does not always adhere to these tropes of holding up a caste system in our home. He is willing and loves to take on the responsibility of cooking; therefore the kitchen is his primary responsibility. The kitchen has always been my place of protest and failure, so I get anxious being in there. I’m supposed to help out with dishes, but even then I feel my mom watching me, waiting to smell the dishes once I put them on the rack.
The responsibilities we try to split are laundry, dusting, mopping, gardening/yard work work. And other than me pumping (11+ months), we are equal when it comes to child rearing – prepping the daycare bag, bath time, daycare drop off and pick up. Although I make the milk, he knows how important it is for him to support me and Ro.
This takes constant, intentional work – to just work as a team. For both of us, our primary Love Language is Acts of Service. When we decide to take on a chore or task that is out of the ordinary, then we try to let the other one know we did it in their own as an Act of Service. Keeping our Love Language at the forefront of the tedious household needs allows us to put in a real effort when we see there is imbalance. So, I took to instagram to ask my friends and followers how do they deal with housekeeping under the guise of a gendered-lens approach. Above you see the stats of those who answered and which trends I noticed. The most shocking to me was that no matter how “woke” or conservative couples were, it did not play fair for who radically talked this through, and who adhered to Western gendered norms.
So mommas, if you would like to begin radicallizing your home, start talking to your partner about the chores you feel insecure about and which ones you are willing to do. And if you have intentionally radicalized this already in your home, keeping doing you! Share with us your tips and tricks in the comments.
Stay rad mommas.