“As a woman, you can never win with housework. If you don’t do it, you’re a slut. If you do it, you’re a stupid slut who lets herself be exploited.”
Everyone wants to talk about feminism, about cool topics that appeal to young women. About the gender pay gap, for example, or pubic hair. But housework is definitely not a cool topic. Because nobody cares about the oppression of the housewife. But when feminist author Jacinta Nandi talks about housework, things suddenly get quite interesting. Nandi reports on her personal experiences in a household with a teenager, a toddler and a mostly absent man who refuses to help – after all, she, his partner, is a housewife and hence responsible for the kids, the cooking, and the all the mess of family life! Nandi reflects on unpaid care work, poverty and dirt, she clicks exhaustedly through lifestyle blogs by cleanfluencers, seeks advice in online housewife communities and survival help in podcasts on cleaning techniques and miracle courses. Jacinta Nandi angrily writes against seemingly invincible stupid old role models – and wonders how on earth she got there.