It’s very important to me that my home is the most comfortable, welcoming place I know. And that means having a clean house. I keep my body clean and well-groomed, why wouldn’t I want my home to be clean, neat, and attractive as well?
This is a great way to put it. It’s very hard for me to relax if my surroundings are cluttered and dirty. Some people, including my husband, are oblivious to their surroundings, at least visually. I’m not one of them. It just occured to me: I really enjoy art museums and my husband does not. Connection?
Well, I guess I’m just weird. A tidy house is nice, but not a big deal to me. If someone drops by unannounced and sees a messy house, tough noogies. They should have called first if it bothers them. My real friends don’t care.
Cleanliness in the kitchen is important because of food safety. I clean my kitchen counters and stove after I cook. I sweep the floor when it gets crunchy. I clean the cat litter box every day so it won’t smell. I even clean the human beings’ toilets for a similar reason.
Clutter has to be pretty dam bad before it bothers me. There are a whole slew of things more important than tidiness.
Finances, that’s another story. Now that I can do so, I check my bank balances every morning, because my dear husband has the habit of not telling me about withdrawals and debit card purchases promptly. I balance the account anyway when I get the statement, and I handle all the bill payments and do all the tax returns. We have a wonderful credit rating partially as a result of that.
I don’t have unannounced guests. All of my friends are the same way, they don’t like unannounced guests. Please, this is not a debate on that, don’t drag it in.
Anyway, I don’t mind clutter but I mind filth. Dishes get washed, garbage gets taken out, food doesn’t get left laying around.
Other than that, I never ever make my bed, unless I know someone is coming over. Why? I’m just going to be messing it up again.
Provided the floor is clear, I don’t mind stuff stacked on shelves, or books not altogether in shelves, or a bit of chaos here and there. As I look around my computer/sewing room right now, I see mess here and there, clutter, - but no filth. i don’t mind this.
A super-clean house is not only not important to me, it’s kind of annoying to have to do it all the time, as you just have to keep cleaning it. My free time is short enough as it is!
Just my own opinion, which only works in my house. Although I have avoided inviting certain people over because I know they can’t stand even a little clutter - so why subject to it? And FTR, I do clean up before people come over, but these particular people seem to get anal over even a little bit.
When living in the Boulder, CO area, we paid $55 per visit for a woman to clean ~2000 square feet of house. That was a family room, living room, dining room, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, hallway, stairs, master bedroom. She vacuumed, swept/mopped the hardwood floors, vacuumed the furniture (we have pets), cleaned the kitchen/bathroom sinks, counters, mirrors, toilets, and the top of the stove, and did cursory dusting (ie, she doesn’t pick up every single knicknack and dust it, but she does do the large flat surfaces)
For the same work in the Middle of Nowhere, MI, we pay $35/visit for about the same space and same stuff.
For me, I can get along with cleaning twice a month. Mr. Athena likes it once a week. Yes, we’re the anti-couple, clutter doesn’t bother me very much at all. I’m more worried about cleanliness - I don’t care if there’s piles of books everywhere, but I want my toilet to be clean! Mr. Athena is the opposite. Before we lived together, his apartment bathroom could be so dirty that I took showers and was afraid to touch the sides of the walls, but the place always was tidy and looked really nice.
I realise you did say you weren’t intentionally generalizing, but I have to disagree. I think these attitudes are less natural than they are learned. I also think that the tendancies you mention vary from individual to individual in a way that isn’t based totally on gender.
I myself (a female) am going to pick functionality and convenience over looking good almost every time. If I can achieve a good balance of the two, I’m happiest. But given the choice, I pick ‘how the set-up works’ over ‘how the set-up looks’.
Just using the people I know well ( not an all-encompassing sample, I know, but it’s what I’ve got) - the mix of style-oriented people and functionality-oriented people is very close to 50/50 between genders.
I have to say, even in my most ‘stylish’ mood, I’m gonna spend my time on the proverbial desert island doing what your theory stipulates as the men’s work. I enjoy building and creating. I made 75% of the furniture in my flat (well, me and my precious, precious drill made it).
I think I have the completely opposite view. I don’t decorate; I don’t buy art; I have a minimal set of furniture in my apartment – no couch, no table for eating – just a bed and computer desk; I accumulate a pile of unopened junk mail; I leave my computer files unorganized until the clutter reaches a threshold.
However, I disagree that this reflects a disorganized mindset. There is one aspect in which I am quite organized – source code. (I am a programmer by trade.) Perhaps, it is a different type of organization of the mind. Some people are concerned with categorizing things and putting things in their correct place. I am usually concerned with the most elegant way to express transformations of data from one form to another.
