The pest control technician had assessed the basement and found the hole where mice had been getting into the crawl space. He set up a few bait traps and said, “It’s probably a husband job, but you can just get that wire mesh from Home Depot and put it in the hole and then calk around it or use that spray filler stuff…”
I turned to the cupboard where I store the chocolate chips and shoved a handful into my mouth.
“A husband job,” I thought.
There were too many chocolate chips in my mouth to talk, which was for the best. I continued to silently listen to detailed instructions intended for a husband, while turning around the large glob of chocolate in my mouth.
The term “husband” makes me think of breeding sheep. A husband begets an heir by a wife and is a master of his house. I believe that the modern lexicon could use an update. “Partner” is an alternative word, but I’m not fond of that one either because it sounds like we might set up adjoining offices, where I can wave to you occasionally though the glass.
“Wife” has its own charming origins. Some scholars believe that the term “wife” has Indo-European roots in “ghwibh,” meaning “shame.” So, that’s an encouraging title to assign to all the married females.
While I was working in a well-known Boston bakery, the pastry chef weaponized the term “housewife.” I was separating eggs, passing the yolk back and forth from one side of the shell to the other. He snatched an egg from my hand and asked me if I was a housewife making cookies. He demonstrated how a “real chef” separated eggs in his hands by letting the white slip through his fingers. Since then, I’ve watched talented chefs separate eggs using both methods, but being called a housewife was the opposite of being capable and felt like the worst thing to be called as a woman in a professional kitchen. Wives were not chefs.
While down the internet rabbit hole researching the etymology of “wife,” I came across “fish-fag,” which refers to the wife of a fisherman, or female fishmonger. All things considered, rather than wife, I prefer the term fish-fag.
Regardless of verbiage, the pest control technician thought that patching holes in the crawl space was not a job for me.
But, this fish-fag is a one woman show. If it's not already obvious, I resented the cultural assumption about household duties and division of labor that came with this man’s innocently intended statement. Somehow, mowing lawns, grilling, mouse management, and anything to do with Home Depot (aside from the paint colors) fall under the category of masculine chores. I wonder if some men begin to feel incapable of childcare and laundry in the way some women never learn how to use power tools. Wives, husbands, partners, or fish-fags, underestimation is harmful to everyone, limiting the ways we contribute to our never-ending to-do lists. As Glinda once said to Dorothy, “You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself,” and I am happy to report that I am capable of ridding my home of all the vermin.
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