Pre-reading tasks

1. Look through the key words and expressions and guess what this text is about:

to make a mess to decide

to keep rooms neat and tidy to give the rights

hostile/female territory to take the role of a parent

to feel like guests to feel responsibility

to have the last and counting vote martyr

a reaction against a command

2. Look through the text to see if your guess about its contents was correct. If it wasn’t, give the information that you have missed.

Are Men Lazy?

Why does it seem like men make more mess than women do?

Maybe we do make more mess in some places but we usually keep it neat and tidy where we work or where we have our hobbies. We mess more when we are in "female territory", where we for some reason feel that we are guests. And why do we feel like guests in some areas?

Often the woman occupies the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and the bedroom. She often decides how it shall look, she buys the curtains, she chooses the colours, she makes the food and so on. What would happen if the husband tore down the curtains and said they were tasteless and looked horrible? I guarantee there would be trouble in the air. If the opposite happened, she took down the curtains, nothing much would happen. We, men, are somehow used to that. We would adjust to the new curtains in "our" room. It is difficult to make men feel responsibility in an area where the woman has the last and counting vote. Why do men always delay practical work at home?

Most women have heard our excuses: I will do it tomorrow. Does it have to be now? Maybe tomorrow.

This is not because we are lazy, but more like a reaction against a command. We wish to have something to say about things, and the very least we can do is to decide when to do it, since we are not in the position to decide if it should be done. We know it is the best time, right now, but do not like that she decides all the time. It is also annoying always to be asked to do this and that. And there is no difference in her voice whether she comments her little boy or her husband. She takes the role of a parent towards both. We immediately remember our mother when she was angry. We do not need a new mother. So, if a wife keeps up this mothering thing, she either gets a new son or an angry husband.

Why do not men feel satisfaction when cleaning?

We do not feel any satisfaction while cleaning up in her world. That is also why we would rather do it later. When we do it, it is to please her, not ourselves. While we discuss whether to do it or not, she often already has begun to do it herself. And now nothing can stop her. Now she will go on until she is finished. She is now the martyr, and enjoys feeling the hate against him and put another little note in the "black book".

Give us some of your domain and we will feel different about. Give us half of the rights, and we will do half of the work.

Then there is a woman who has heard about this, and declares that from this minute he has half the rights and tells him to go on with it. She has totally misunderstood. One must start from the beginning and make some choices. Do I need a husband, or do I need a butler? Am I ready and willing to take the consequences by giving my husband the right to decide how the bedroom should look like?