Even I can do man chores....

...when I am absolutely forced to

I have learned something about my own thought processes as my husband hobbles through his recovery after breaking his leg New Years Eve.

I am sexist in my thinking. Feminist though I am, I am sexist, through and through.   

I have discovered that in my mind, I divide work into tasks that are gender neutral and  those I think of as “man chores.” 

Vaccuming? Either one of us can, and do, tackle that.  Cooking dinner? Same. 

Plumbing? Man chore. Anything with electricity, jumping the batteries of vehicles, or machinery? Man chore, man chore, man chore. 

Instead of calling these “thought processes,” maybe it’s better to refer to them as “thought patterns.”  An article on the website NeuroLaunch  called these the “mind’s hidden blueprints.”

“Thought patterns are recurring mental frameworks that influence how we process information, make decisions, and respond to various situations. They’re like well-worn paths in a forest, guiding our mental processes along familiar routes. Some of these paths lead to lush, vibrant clearings, while others might trap us in thorny thickets.”

I have discovered my very own thorny mental thicket.   

My gender division of tasks became evident to me in the first few weeks after Pete’s accident. That’s when we needed a new shower fixture installed in the downstairs bathroom, had another plumbing problem upstairs and had a dead battery in our Gator, which is sort of like a mini-dump truck a little bigger than a golf cart. 

All man chores, I thought, slightly panicked. Which meant: I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to do them.  Yet my hubby still can’t put any weight on his left leg, so the man chores became, overnight, my problems.  

I realize the utter luxury of my thought pattern. My single, widowed or divorced friends  just handle these things as they come along, because they must. I, married for 41 years, am used to deferring some things.   

When I outlined to Pete what I have discovered about my own sexist preferences, he laughed, and said, “Those aren’t man chores. They are just …. chores.”  He calmly ordered the plumbing parts I needed from a hardware store.  I picked them up. 

A female employee waited on me at the store. She explained that she had the same plumbing problem the previous month, and she pulled apart one of the more mysterious fixtures to show me, step-by-step, how to install it.  The instructions, complete with suggested videos, were all idiot-proof. I made the necessary repairs. 

Then Pete explained to me how to recharge the battery in the Gator without blowing it up, which I managed to do without incident.    

The view from my log-splitter. The wood pile was a lot higher when I started!

I realize my thinking has a very uneven gender divide. For example, I happen to really enjoy splitting wood. With a sharp enough ax and just the right strike on a knot-free chunk of timber, it splits down the middle with no force at all. Almost anyone could do it.  Amazing. These days I use a mechanical log-splitter, but it remains deeply satisfying to reduce a pile of wood to a neatly stacked collection of kindling for our family room wood stove.

Splitting wood: not a man chore.

When our pellet stove stopped working a few years back during the Covid quarantine, I figured out that the problem was the igniter, sent away for the part ($19.99 for two) and fixed it with the help of instructional videos from YouTube.   

Fixing stoves: not a man chore. 

And then there is Pete’s and my origin story: He asked me out on a date, and I said I would go out with him if he taught me how to tune up my car. This was in the days (how quaint!) when an ordinary human being COULD tune up a car, because cars were mechanical and did not have computers and “check engine” lights that turned on if you looked at the car the wrong way.

Pete immediately agreed to my proposed deal, which is how I met my future mother-in-law with my shirt, hands and arms blackened with grease and motor oil.  (I’m willing to bet that she was horrified, but she hid it well.) 

As Pete said, the quirkiness of my own thinking aside, none of these are man chores. They are just … chores.  But as much as I appreciate the insight, I am looking forward to the day - still weeks away - when Pete can put weight on his leg again. Then I will revert back to my sexist thinking with a vengeance. For, as any psychologist can tell you, having an insight doesn’t necessarily mean change.