We are busily working on laying the foundation for our new company that extends the S.STEIN brand into an eco-friendly line of products. Sher and I each held focus groups at our homes with friendly audiences. Our other partners will be doing the same in the coming weeks. I invited a ton of people to mine, and was hoping for a mix of men and women, but ended up with women only for one reason or another.

My group was fascinating. One topic we discussed was work, and what work is. The work that the women don’t get paid for outstrips the work they do get paid for by many times. All of the women in my group were engaged in teaching of one sort or another as part of their paid work. I might add here that none of them do this full time because their other responsibilities in life require that they are there for those. One woman had no children at home, and the rest did. Some of the common threads of unpaid work were:

cleaning, of course
tutoring
volunteer work (mostly related to child rearing but not all)
driving (kids in modern times need to be driven everywhere)
organizing
social coordination–all of the women were married and responsible for coordinating social activities.

I found myself relating perfectly to all of these jobs.

I usually feel lucky compared to other women I know because my husband cooks and does laundry. He never has, to my knowledge, cleaned the toilet, but he does vacuum from time to time. When he isn’t traveling for work, or isn’t at work, he shares car duty. Nonetheless, he is a man, and as I was talking to these women in my dining room last night the point hit home quite succinctly.

A couple of the women who came to the group brought their children with them. That was fine. If I wanted them there I needed to accommodate kids too. Ken said he would look after them, and set them up with a movie to keep them out of our hair. Not five minutes into our discussion, the screaming and laughing voices of children drowned out our own voices. I went to see what was going on. All four of the kids were playing in my office of all places. I pushed them out to the great room, banishing them from “our” half of the house.

I wondered where my fabulous husband was. So, I went hunting. I found him stretched out on our comfortable bed reading a novel, completely oblivious to what was going on anywhere else in the house. I tried to remain calm. “Ken, can you give me a hand with the kids?” He seemed confused. “I mean, you did say that you were going to keep them contained.”

When I returned to my group I could feel my anger welling up. When is the last time that I stretched out on a bed to read a novel? I know, it was the last time I went on a trip without my family. I should add that he has just returned from a three week long trip to Brazil where he was studying concepts of time on the beach of all things. Clearly, he learned the lessons there all too well, and has not adjusted to the hectic pace of family life in the northern climes.

So, in the end, I am just like all of these other women, and my husband isn’t any better than any of theirs, but he does do laundry and cooks. The next group I do is going to be all men. I am dying to hear how they define work and how work defines them.

Real Women use Tools

Originally uploaded by A Page.

Why is it that we think men and tools are synonymous? Okay, there is the obvious answer that men are tools. No, I didn’t mean that. That men have tools? Too obvious. Is it because we never see pictures of women using tools?

This photo, which I posted on flickr a few days ago, has had a good response (at least by my pitiful flickr standards). My husband marked it as a “favorite.” I haven’t asked him, but I’m sure he thought it was pretty sexy. A very fashionable friend who lives her life half in London and half in Copenhagen comments that she had the dream of “the hardhat aesthetic” for women when she was in art school.

Anyway, this got me to thinking about women and tools. Is it true that women don’t use “manly” tools? I do. My husband doesn’t. Just last weekend I installed our new thermostat, an activity that I took great pleasure in. I am also the one who assembles anything that we purchase that needs assembly, and I am the one who repairs household appliances that are broken. Isn’t that what all women do?

On a different but related topic, my eight-year-old son recently came home from playing with a neighbor girl. He was super excited about having just baked a tiny cake in her Easy-Bake oven. He loved it, so I asked him if he wanted his own Easy-Bake oven. His face filled with an embarrassed disbelieving look, “No! Are you kidding? It’s pink!”

“Hum,” I said, “I wonder if it comes in a different color?”

“It doesn’t. I already know,” he said.

“I wonder why,” I mused, “since lots of boys like to cook, guys like your dad.”

“Yeah, it’s not fair.”

Somewhere between the tools and the Easy-Bake oven there is a story to tell. We haven’t come as long a way as we would have liked to baby.