The secret to male happiness lies in domestic chores

Breaking news from the realm of awesomeness. Guess what a new study suggests is linked to male happiness and contentment? Bigger paycheck? Faster car? Boobies?

Nope. According to this article, “an intriguing new study suggests that men are happier and less stressed when they do more of the housework.” The authors designed the study to test their hypothesis that doing more of the housework would make men less happy. (Many men find housework demeaning, apparently – since it’s ladybusiness.) But instead they found the opposite was the case.

We can’t say for sure, of course, what explanatory factors underlie these results, but the authors of the study speculate: “Men who leave the chores to women may be subject to more complaints than men who do their share of home chores.” (Though you’ve got to worry a little about the gender-norms implicit in this explanation – i.e., dudes are happier if they can finally get some peace from that relentlessly nagging woman of theirs!) And also, perhaps more interestingly, the authors comment: “It is also plausible that some men want a more equitable role in the home and their well-being is reduced when the pressure of their jobs gets in the way.” (Though if I had to speculate about the correlation between housework and happiness based on the experience of my own household, it would be something more like: men enjoy the intense feelings of moral superiority they get from having done the dishes THE RIGHT WAY.) Whatever the explanation, though, the results are interesting.

Get scrubbing, gentlemen! We only care about your happiness.

 

(Thanks for the tip, J!)

Another “What Is It Like”

Feminist Philosophers’ sister blogs What Is It Like to Be A Woman in Philosophy and This is What a Philosopher Looks Like are the latest targets of a fauxphilnews parody. The spoof site reports that another marginalized group of philosophers, zombies, have created their own “What Is It Like” blog to educate readers about obstacles faced by zombie philosophers.

Excerpt:

“I think the expansion from women to other marginalized groups is the natural next step,” says Noam Chompsky, the site’s unfortunately named creator. “Zombies typically rank somewhere between pedophiles and atheists in terms of the general level of distrust among the public, and I think some of that distrust finds its way into the discipline.”

But are there good news stories for zombie philosophers? Can we look forward to a What We’re Doing About What It’s Like to Be a Zombie in Philosophy blog?