Why does it seem like spill-cleaning is women’s work? What’s independent about being so useful, so encumbered, as if every trip to the office were a trek on the Appalachian Trail? lisaxmiller writes
Photo: Pascal Preti/Getty Images Several weeks ago I saw a young woman on the subway accidentally dump a full cup of iced coffee into the seat next to her. A large puddle rippled in the molded plastic divot, threatening to overflow at any moment. Panicked and helpless, the embarrassed woman gazed at her mess. She couldn’t disown it. And yet the two flimsy napkins she’d thrown into the pond did nothing to sop it up.
An evolutionary psychologist might have designed the coffee-spill experiment to prove once and for all that spill-cleaning is coded onto the X chromosome. A recent study by psychologists in Colorado and Texas showed that women are more prone to disgust and to displaying an aversion toward illness and lapses in hygiene than men are. Their explanation mirrored my thinking: Perhaps mothers rush to clean stuff up to protect their progeny from contaminants.
Around the French Revolution, women’s silhouettes grew slimmer and bulging interior pockets were seen as an impediment to style. Instead, women were encouraged to carry their stuff in a small bag on a string called a “reticule.” The Rational Dress Society, founded in the 1890s, arose along with the burgeoning suffrage movement; its adherents argued that female independence could not be achieved in a tight-fitting, pocketless dress.
But what’s independent about being so useful, so encumbered, as if every trip to the office were a trek on the Appalachian Trail? In my large tote, I always have makeup, magazines, tissues, and a wallet the size and weight of a brick. Usually I also carry my lunch, a Kind bar, an extra plastic bag in case I need to walk the dog, an extra fold-up tote in case I need to go to the grocery store, and sometimes also an umbrella, a sweater, yoga clothes, a water bottle, and an extra pair of shoes.
Freedom from having to carry stuff is power. No wonder decluttering and closet organizing are framed as female aspirational goals. No wonder there’s a subreddit in the “minimalism” community for women endeavoring to go purseless. An informal survey of my social-media feeds finds a surprising number of women already wise to the joys of not carrying crap. Some women refuse to carry bags, in order to block their husbands from using those bags as repositories for their crap .
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