A man with duster...

Minerva · Post by **Minerva** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:31 am

A new research in US shows women find men more attractive if they help out around the house. Read more.

What do you think? I think men are more attractive if they do *all* house work.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:50 am

Note that the expression men "help out" around the house is used several times in the article...says a lot - why use the expression "help out" as if it was the woman who should have the main responsibility or do the major part of this work? You don't "help out" when you do work in your own house.

As for me, I never do any housework, I simply hate it and I think I do humanity a much greater service by sticking to my research: The hubby is slightly more interested that me but not much so we pay somebody else to do it.

josh · Post by **josh** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:56 am

Would it be the same the other way around?

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:05 am

As for men helping around the house...

...nothing new with that really, as far as my family is concerned.

My parents have four sons and no daughter and we were trained to do household work even if we have maids. They would always tell us that being boys is no excuse not to do household chores and that maids are helpers not slaves.

So we do the dishes, set and clean up the dinner table, clean the toilet, wash the cars; bathe, feed the dogs and clean up their mess; sometimes we cook, do some ironing and other stuff.

In fact we used to have a schedule from Monday to Sunday that shows who is scheduled to do a particular type of work on that particular day.

What I hated was cleaning the greasy pots and pans outside at the dirty kitchen where there are mosquitoes biting my legs and feet.

No biggie there, really. The philosophy there is that even if you can get others to do the work for you, you know that the person doing it for you is doing it the right way. Of course, it also means that you can survive even if you're away from home and on your own.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:39 am

Originally posted by C Elegans
Note that the expression men "help out" around the house is used several times in the article...says a lot - why use the expression "help out" as if it was the woman who should have the main responsibility or do the major part of this work? You don't "help out" when you do work in your own house.

Complete agreement. The piece is tacitly sexist, and dated, too. Research has long estabished that most US women now hold fulltime jobs, many of them in professional and managerial fields. They could hardly function as well as sole homekeepers, reliant on a "bit of help from dad."

But then, should we take seriously a puff piece that includes such remarks as "...research in 'love labs' in the University of Washington found that women are more likely to feel amorous if men help out around the house"...? I strongly suspect this kind of report is the BBC trying to be witty. They seem to have lost the knack over the years.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 9:18 am

If helping around the house is sexy, then ladies your screwed cause I aint movin a muscle.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 9:59 am

Originally posted by Minerva
<SNIP>I think men are more attractive if they do *all* house work.

Are you suggesting a switch role between you and your love one ?

Gwalchmai · Post by **Gwalchmai** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 10:03 am

Ignoring the sexist and dated aspects of the article, I now understand why my wife married me!

Originally posted by RandomThug
If helping around the house is sexy, then ladies your screwed cause I aint movin a muscle.

This is so very contradictory when read a certain way….

Galuf the Dwarf · Post by **Galuf the Dwarf** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 10:58 am

My 2 cents or more.

Well, I try to do as much work around house, still living at home, even at 19. (Is that really any bit embarrassing if I put it honestly?). I've hauled wheelbarrow-loads of stones out, I take my dogs out of the house and help them get set up in the winter (otherwise, my grandmother takes care of that), and a lot of other chores. This is not to say that I don't internally and externally question my usefulness quite a bit, concerned for my present AND my future. My mother does admit that I do make her gardening a lot easier by doing alot of fetching around the house.

My family seems to split up alot of the tasks around the house between members of the house. I do alot of stuff to help other family members' chores go faster, my dad handles the caretaking of the house and the yard as well as the bills, while my mom handles the dishes, and most of the laundry (sometimes I put loads in the washer and dryer for her). My grandmother takes care of feeding the pets and the birds (we have a multitude of wild bird feeders). Of course, my younger brother mainly does stuff in his own interest, so he's not always much help. *shrugs*

I admit that I agree what Gwalchmai, fable, and C Elegans have to say. Who says that all married men are really just lazy oafs? Really biased sounding.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 11:16 am

Originally posted by C Elegans
As for me, I never do any housework, I simply hate it and I think I do humanity a much greater service by sticking to my research: The hubby is slightly more interested that me but not much so we pay somebody else to do it.

..good for the economy too.

I am curious about two facets of this report. First off what are the "love labs" they refer to? I presume they are husband/wife combo labs but some sniggering misconceptions could be imagined... Second, I am confused as to the connection between fathers doing housework and children having more friends. The kids go over to their friends houses and help their friend's parents do chores?? Then the friends parents tell them to damn well keep those kids as friends?? Don't see the rationale there..

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 11:27 am

Seriously, cleaning up is not my specialty

But cooking is of of my specialty, does it count ?

Enchantress · Post by **Enchantress** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 6:43 am

I hate housework and am rubbish at it. I like men who can do housework and cook.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 8:22 am

Just as well I don't find housework abilities a sexy thing then eh?

OK, so this is sexist research but the ironing vs sex poll was pure scientific fact...................................................

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 1:40 pm

Originally posted by fable
But then, should we take seriously a puff piece that includes such remarks as "...research in 'love labs' in the University of Washington found that women are more likely to feel amorous if men help out around the house"...? I strongly suspect this kind of report is the BBC trying to be witty. They seem to have lost the knack over the years.

I thought so too, but then I checked the Universities website, and they actually use the same wording

Read it here *sigh* http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=611

However, something that makes me slightly suspicious is that neither the BBC nor the Universities website mention anything about where this study is going to be published. They speak about the result and they interpret the results, but as a scientist, you never make anything public until it is peer-reviewed since you know you need the objective critisism and analysis from outside. That's why when popular media reports a scientific finding, they always write where it's going to be published: scientists have already sent their work for review before they even breath about something to popular media. So...I am sceptic not to the study per se since it's obviously survey data they have put together, but to the conclusions they draw.

Originally posted by Grendel
..good for the economy too.

I am curious about two facets of this report. First off what are the "love labs" they refer to? I presume they are husband/wife combo labs but some sniggering misconceptions could be imagined... Second, I am confused as to the connection between fathers doing housework and children having more friends. The kids go over to their friends houses and help their friend's parents do chores?? Then the friends parents tell them to damn well keep those kids as friends?? Don't see the rationale there..

Hopefully yes

I have now finally had time to check things, and the "Love labs" they refer to are simply the department at Washington University that this professor in psychology, John Gottman, is head of. Gottman and his coworkers do research on couple- and family relationships, that's probably why they call it the "love" lab. They use surverys and interviews with couples, and they follow couples over time in order to find out what relationship pattern lead to succesful or failed relationships etc.

Regarding the conclusion that children who have seen seen their fathers do more housework also have more friends, this is merely a correlation. They researchers have analysed the survey data and found that there is a correlation between those two factors. A correlation says nothing about causality as you know, it merely tells us that those two factors exist simultaneously. The researchers speculate and hypothesise about the causes as you can see in the BBC report, but - and this is very important - the original research report is not published yet. I have searched Psychinfo and Social Science index without finding it. I found 28 works by S Coltrane, some in non peer reviewed journals. I found no works co-authored by S Coltrane and M Adams, the two researchers who have conducted this study. Since the original report can't be found, it's impossible to tell whether their conclusions and speculations are founded or not, but I do react negatively against the way these researchers express themselves in terms of causality. An example:

Sociologist Scott Coltrane of the University of California, Riverside, who led the research, said: "When men perform domestic service for others, it teaches children co-operation and democratic family values.

How does he know what causes what? Maybe it's the other way around, that in families who already have more co-operative and democratic family values, the males tend to do more domestic service. Or, their might be a third, background factor, that results in both co-operative values in children and men doing more housework. There is no way you can get causality determinant data from a survey, for godssake!

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 12:43 pm

Originally posted by C Elegans

I have now finally had time to check things, and the "Love labs" they refer to are simply the department at Washington University that this professor in psychology, John Gottman, is head of. Gottman and his coworkers do research on couple- and family relationships, that's probably why they call it the "love" lab. They use surverys and interviews with couples, and they follow couples over time in order to find out what relationship pattern lead to succesful or failed relationships etc.

Regarding the conclusion that children who have seen seen their fathers do more housework also have more friends, this is merely a correlation. They researchers have analysed the survey data and found that there is a correlation between those two factors. A correlation says nothing about causality as you know, it merely tells us that those two factors exist simultaneously. The researchers speculate and hypothesise about the causes as you can see in the BBC report, but - and this is very important - the original research report is not published yet. I have searched Psychinfo and Social Science index without finding it. I found 28 works by S Coltrane, some in non peer reviewed journals. I found no works co-authored by S Coltrane and M Adams, the two researchers who have conducted this study. Since the original report can't be found, it's impossible to tell whether their conclusions and speculations are founded or not, but I do react negatively against the way these researchers express themselves in terms of causality. An example:

How does he know what causes what? Maybe it's the other way around, that in families who already have more co-operative and democratic family values, the males tend to do more domestic service. Or, their might be a third, background factor, that results in both co-operative values in children and men doing more housework. There is no way you can get causality determinant data from a survey, for godssake!

Quite so. Gives good science a bad rep IMO. If the study is not peer-reviewed it is not worth the paper or PDF it is written on. Moreover, PIs should not speculate on causative mechanisms from correlative studies unless it is clearly stated that this is speculation. This is either a case of bad journalism or bad scientific judgement.

Funnily enough I had run the names through Pubmed and came to reason it was unpublished too. I can still see no correlation between the father doing housework and children having more friends. This probably is indicative of the event but not the event itself. Probably the father is more verbally involved with the kids and family than a dad who ignores them and the wife. This behaviour is manifest in part by domestic participation and so is an indirect marker of child social development and skill. Other than the mother holding a loaded gun, I can't come up with a causative background factor. But ain't that science for you? Keeps everyone gainfully employed testing the next hypothesis

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 3:00 pm

Originally posted by Grendel
Quite so. Gives good science a bad rep IMO. If the study is not peer-reviewed it is not worth the paper or PDF it is written on. Moreover, PIs should not speculate on causative mechanisms from correlative studies unless it is clearly stated that this is speculation. This is either a case of bad journalism or bad scientific judgement.

I couldn't agree more on all of the above. Every scientist worth the name refrain from even commenting their own results publicly until it is peer-reviewed. I actually think it is both a case of bad journalism and bad scientific judgement, seeing the headline the BBC had choosed, and the wordings the university used when they described the study on their website.

Funnily enough I had run the names through Pubmed and came to reason it was unpublished too. I can still see no correlation between the father doing housework and children having more friends. This probably is indicative of the event but not the event itself. Probably the father is more verbally involved with the kids and family than a dad who ignores them and the wife. This behaviour is manifest in part by domestic participation and so is an indirect marker of child social development and skill. Other than the mother holding a loaded gun, I can't come up with a causative background factor. But ain't that science for you? Keeps everyone gainfully employed testing the next hypothesis

I ran it through Pubmed first, but seeing the study consisted only of survey data, I figured it wouldn't be on Pubmed but rather Psychinfo or Social Citation index. But nope.

We can't see the correlation since the study is not published, we just have to believe the word of the researchers for that. However, sociological survey data often consist of for instance questions that are rated and then run through a big correlation matrix and then you see some factors coincide. My guess is that that's what has happened: the two things coincide, ie the same children who have many friends also have fathers who do more housework. I prefer not to speculate in causality from correlation data, but if I had to, I would believe that both factors are indirect markers of the other more fundamental aspects of the family interaction pattern.

Yes, I'm so happy and grateful to these people who keep us other scientists busy

Kayless · Post by **Kayless** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 6:02 pm

Am I the only one who thought this thread was about a guy with a cool trench coat?

Tybaltus · Post by **Tybaltus** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 6:40 pm

Originally posted by Kayless
Am I the only one who thought this thread was about a guy with a cool trench coat?

I thought it was a promotional thread for Janiking...

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Yes, I just pulled a Kayless marketing ploy myself.

Kayless · Post by **Kayless** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 1:06 am

Originally posted by Tybaltus
Yes, I just pulled a Kayless marketing ploy myself.

The student has become the master... bater.

Tybaltus · Post by **Tybaltus** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 10:22 am