Filed under: Storage & Cleaning, Storage & Organization, Cleaning
Taking out the trash was a nightly routine when I was growing up. My dad would pack it up, take it outside to the trash can and, before trash pick up days, haul the can to the curb. While I was asked to do the dishes and clean my room, my parents never asked me to take out the trash. And I never offered.
Photo: Alamy
When I moved out on my own after college, I started to take it out myself, although I often put it off and took it out only once it was clear that something was rotting. When I got married and my husband moved in, taking out the trash was just like old times -- in my mind at least.
If there is a man around, I kind of expect him to take out the trash. And I don't think I'm alone, which raises an interesting question: Why is it that men usually take out the trash? Or, more importantly, why do women expect them to?
I asked three people -- a historian, a marriage counselor and a kid -- to explain why it's often assumed that trash duty falls to men.
The Professor
Christine B. Whelan, visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, says that the assumption that men will take out the trash is a holdover from the breadwinner/homemaker model. Men were in charge of the "dangerous" and "dirty" tasks outside of the home -- this included factory work and manual labor -- while women remained "delicate" and "pure" in the home.
She says that government data shows that this is still a trend today, with men putting in time doing chores like lawn care, car maintenance and yes, taking out the trash. (Women, Whelan notes, do practically everything else.)
The Marriage Counselor
Men tend to take on this task for chivalrous reasons, says marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman, author of "Connect to Love." "Trash tends to be heavy," he says. "And it's often put in a part of the yard where animals and bugs might congregate." Since it's often taken out at night, men would rather not send their wives or girlfriends out in the dark.
And while times have changed and plenty of women take out the trash, Neuman says one thing remains the same. "Men and women believe they have their strengths and weaknesses," so they defer to each other at times. The difference is that those strengths or weaknesses are no longer dictated to us by society; we now get to choose.
"No matter what we choose," says Neuman, "couples need some roles, no working system can share everything 50/50." (Amen to that.)
The Kid
"I think when women see garbage they get lazy and very scared," says five-year-old Shawn Brown, Jr. "Since men are brave, they have to be the ones to take the garbage out." Ha!
So what does it say about your man if he insists on playing the garbage man? "There is certainly a benefit in moving away from gendered roles within relationships," Whelan says. "The idea is to move toward equality and shared responsibility within the home, but woe unto the man who says he doesn't want to be pigeonholed by the 'man's job' of taking out the trash and doesn't do something else in place of that chore!"
Shared responsibility is the name of the game, whatever that looks like for your and your significant other.
Check out these other great stories on ShelterPop:
Quiz: How Clean is Your Home?
How to NOT Get on "Hoarders"
Maximize Space in a Big Kitchen
Here's a video on how to build a kitchen cabinet trash bin.