Food, Home and Style

Love in the Time of Layoff: A Gentle Response to Joe the Trader

In his post this week, Joe the Trader chronicles a meeting of the He-Man’s Unemployment Club. Roberto is the one who dumps the lunch he brings from home. Joe complains about picking up the iron and recycling the trash. Their girlfriends and wives, they say, spend too much on soy lattes and artisanal cheeses. I do love Joe’s humor—and I truly hope the gecko survives the downturn.

Yet like that New York Times article Joe gripes about, in which a stay-at-home Wall Street wife considers divorcing her unemployed husband because he can no longer deliver coin, Joe falls back on some too-easy stereotypes himself.

Let’s start with the stereotype about how women nag men to do more housework—moreso, perhaps, now that they are home. It is a truth universally acknowledged that women who work outside the house have long worked two shifts, the second being the one they do at home. When our laid-off men grouse about all the work that needs to be done, part of me wants to say: Welcome to our world!

Then there’s the one about how it’s us-versus-them. When Joe turns to his fellow He-Men for advice on how to “manage my new taskmasker,” meaning, his lady, He-Man TJ tells him to nip any concept of being a man-servant in the bud. “You can’t give in or it’s all over…Man-up and never surrender,” he says.

I thought that “manning up” in more modern times might mean treating your partner with R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Acknowledging that you’re in this thing together. Acknowledging that all those yucky housework tasks no one wants to do are not her job to begin with. Unless, of course, that’s the deal you both have struck, like that divorcing couple in the Times.

Let me just say that I can certainly relate to the He-Men’s sense of overwhelm. Though I work full-time, I have become a bit of a Helicopter Wife on the side, and I am not proud of this new identity. My laid-off husband’s list of tasks continues to grow, he is having a hard time keeping up, I get frustrated, and I’m not always able to hold myself in check. Just this week, for instance, after we had our bathtub reglazed so that we can put our apartment on the market (best to sell before we lose on our investment, we figure), the painters forgot to turn the water back on. I couldn’t reach the nozzle, so our toilet couldn’t flush. When Marco came home from his daytime freelance gig hoping to spend some time that night on his design portfolio, I asked him to fix the toilet, and to remove the paper shielding the sink as well. While cleaning up the kitchen, Marco dropped a glass bowl  on the kitchen floor, shattering into a million tiny specks, which he then had to clean up while I held onto the psycho kitten that wanted to lick the floors. Needless to say, my man lost it. And after some chilling out myself, I could definitely see his point.

But that’s exactly my point. These times call for massive doses of empathy. From everyone. Including ex-He-Men for their gals, who probably feel the same way they do about the iron.

But there’s hope for the He-Men. These guys have got heart. TJ admits that trashing his leftovers is pathetic. Joe, in comments, compliments Laura Y for her note about men and women’s relative wages (i.e., the ongoing salary/wage imbalance favors men, so if a female manager makes 80% of what a male manager does, it makes sense to keep the woman if you’re needing to axe one). As Joe himself suggests, one upside of this downturn maybe that at long last there will be an equalization of pay for men and women down the road. Perhaps another will be an equalization, in couples where both partners work, at home.

In the domestic battle between the sexes, it’s time to declare a new truce. Joe, I salute you for addressing this stuff, I wish you the best in your job search, and I’m really serious about the gecko. If you and the He-Men would like to grab soy lattes sometime, please feel free to call me up. My treat.

Deborah Siegel is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild and creator of the group blog Girl w/Pen. Read more of her Love in the Time of Layoff columns here.

Tags: Love in the Time of Layoff, relationships