I WFH and even like that I can’t keep my home super clean. It’s just not very cluttered. I’m actually thinking of hiring help. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it’s for single mothers to work FT, parent, cook, aaand clean. The expectations placed upon women by society are absurd and unrealistic.

All I know is that a LOT of single moms who divorced their husbands claim that it's actually far easier in terms of cleaning and keeping a tidy house, because they basically don't have a man burdening her with all the messes HE makes daily. All a single mom has to do is care for the messes her kids and her make, and I can totally believe that.

I don't know of a single woman that doesn't have some sort of pet peeve or annoyance about her husband (or ex) leaving dirty clothes all over the place, leaving dirty dishes piled up, leaving shit out without putting it in its place, etc., and all this inb4 someone comes with "well MY man is the one in charge of cleaning" or "I have MALE friends/family and they're cleaner than me and I'm the dirty/messy one" and so on... congratulations, you're the exception to the rule; the majority of men dump their burden of house chores onto their female partners or even female family (usually mom, but also grandma, sisters).

One thing I still haven’t been able to make sense of is the fact that while I was married, my husband seemed to be the one cleaning more often. Yet, when we separated, so now I had to do all the cleaning myself, (1) it didn’t seem like I was cleaning more, and (2) the place stayed cleaner.

How it is when I was solely responsible for cleaning, rather than one doing the smaller share of the cleaning, was it both less work and more effective? Did he just single handedly create such a disproportionately larger share of the mess? Pair that with the peace and quiet, and being able to plan around a reasonable amount of food consumption, I don’t see why any divorcees ever remarry.

I'm single and my place is always immaculate. I clean as I go, everything has a home, and I only bring things into my place that have a purpose and are also lovely to look at. People find time for what's important to them.

And I'm so unbelievably happy I didn't get trapped in marriage and motherhood, i.e., a big house full of clutter and ugly man-crap.

Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?: A Story About Women and Economics by Katrine Marçal is a book that goes into this topic; it discusses how a lot of economic models and analyses are flawed because they ignore how heavily men have relied on the unpaid contributions of women in the domestic sphere throughout history (E.g. Adam Smith had so much time and energy to write because his mother and cousin were cooking his meals and washing his dishes).

The beautiful clutter my own mother had was one of the culprits of my own mysery growing up. What I mean is: the woman had many a dozens of VERY intricate, expensive and rare decorations - most (if not all) of them for visitors, as status symbols. I'm not even sure if she actually likes them... As she got older, I saw a shift.

They all needed to be dusted, some of them polished, cared for in very particular, special ways, they all needed to be placed in the exact right places and positions to look their best. Control. Maybe OCD. Who tf knows.

That's why I never got on the hate bandwagon of minimilasric millenial, IKEA, concrete gray spaces. I get it. Well... I never got on any decor hate bandwagon really cause I don't care about other people's spaces - you do you. Who am I to bash you. Even with super intricate decor. As long as I'M NOT FORCED TO MAINTAIN IT ALL or else I risk someone getting angry at me and abusing me.

I do understand my mother grew up in completely different times (she was born in 1944). And there's no fucking way in hell I'm spending COUNTLESS weekends and after work hours on waxing wood carved statues and furniture, polishing silvers and crystals, dusting corals and hand, flat washing expensive, "exotic" carpets. IF it's not what I wanna do.

Nah.

I was taught cleanliness as a mean of exerting control, self-control and coping. In the sense: if I feel I lack general life control = go, clean. Even if things are already clean at their max. I did not espouse this life lesson.

Women back in the day sought the feeling of power and control where they possibly could. To simplify... They couldn't control the husband cause man. They couldn't control their careers (if they had any). They couldn't control their children (not by default, you all probably know what I mean). Putting any boundaries down was a no-no...

So homesteading and cleanliness was what they had. Cause home was technically a woman's domain (lol, if husband allowed it).

OP, you got me real heated here, on this whole topic.

When I was with my ex-husband the house was a disaster and I could hardly keep it clean (his 2 chores of his own laundry and taking out the trash was too hard apparently). The man didnt clean the litterbox a single time. When I got tired and fell behind on it, he chose to game in a urine scented room rather than help clean it. He swept the floors once across our 2 year marriage. My quality life and home has significantly improved since being single.

I don't clean my place showroom levels of clean, but as someone who is still responsible for their own place, I still like to avoid clutter and filth when I can and usually stay on top by cleaning as I go (such as immediately doing dishes after eating, wiping up messes as they appear, wiping around the sink directly after washing dishes, cleaning the shower when grime appears, etc).

Dusting is one of the things I struggle with most, but I think household tasks are far more manageable when I'm only responsible for my own messes, as opposed to the mess and filth created by men and children in addition to cleaning up after myself.

We should also claim minimalism from the male fetishists. It was meant to be a lifestyle of no more than is needed, not a farcical display of going without any scrap of comfort.

Kitchen cleanup is also drastically easier if you don’t keep or prepare meat in the home.

In my current living situation, I'm the one who cleans. It's not really fair, but I do enjoy a clean living space and I'm a naturally tidy person (if it's messy, I feel unsettled or agitated). I put a lot of work into the house because I'm not working full time at the moment and I have the time to do a big clean every morning.

That being said, I know when I do live on my own, my living space will definitely look more lived in. I don't think most men even get close to realising what a huge job keeping an entire house immaculately clean is. I don't think most men experience the amount of domestic work a woman does in their entire lifetime.

My house is clean, cause there is nobody to make a mess there except for myself. I do deep cleaning every three months. I like when it's clean, and it's rewarding cause I know nobody will ruin it, and when I MYSELF do, I will hold no resentment while just cleaning it again. So I think living in nice, clean spaces will only become more common for women.

Single or not, it's those damned 40 hours a week that ruin everything else, be it cleaning or anything else.

That said, my friends always pay someone to come and clean. In my country, a messy house is considered pretty rude.

I feel like all I can keep up regularly is dishes, cleaning the kitchen counters, sink, etc, and laundry. But I eat simple one pot stuff. I try not to wear any clothes than need special washing or need to be hung up. I do this intentionally to reduce my demands. Having less clothes helps (I got rid of clothes that I would have worn to appease the male gaze.)

Bathroom and the floors rarely get done, unless it looks like it really really needs it or after I can’t stand it anymore.

There are too many demands and a lot of stuff just doesn’t get done. But like others have said, at least I don’t have the burden of also cleaning up after a man.

The women in my family would get bent out of shape about cleaning. They would be miserable if something wasn't perfect. From them i learned to never make myself miserable over a clean house. My regret at the end of my life will not be about wishing i had cleaned more, unless i am crushed from hoarding

Let's not forget that just living with a man-child is very taxing on our mental and, eventually, physical health. 

SO. MUCH. EMOTIONAL. LABOR.

Definitely easier to keep clean living alone than it would be with a man or children around! I keep my tiny apartment presentable but I have systems that are woven into my daily routines so it's never a huge chore. While cooking I have a method to clean as I go. Even when having a friend over for dinner, I just tell them I'll clean up myself after they leave, because when they try help stuff ends up all over the place. It's just easier for me to do it the way I want.

I disagree. Most women enjoy a neat and tidy home, it’s peaceful and comfy

I've never had a showroom house and never lived in one. I read what Angela Davis wrote about housework in Women, Race and Class in my early twenties, and though I can't remember the exact wording, I agreed, and feel these are more or less fairly recent bourgeois expectations. I honestly don't know anyone who expects real people to live in a showroom quality home. The "showroom" expectation never existed for many households and communities.

Practically, you can live in a vaguely clean and cosy home without putting that much time into it. I got a dishwasher, a robot vacuum and a washer/dryer and I just turn these on and go about my day. And I have a dustmite killing (apparently it electrocutes them?) handheld vacuum to kill the dustmites and I use that occasionally.

I honestly think this regular folk having a showroom house is a cultural expectation that has roots in a class system and availability of cheap/free labour for housework, and it's a fairly new thing, because for most of history most women have worked, including non-urban "housewives" who had to raise children and/or do things like bake bread from scratch and do sewing and farmwork, and keeping a beautiful showroom home is way down in the to-do list. I've never had people over that had this expectation, and never gone to their homes with this in mind. Personally I find visibly lived-in homes more charming, but you're the main person living in your home. It's nobody else's business if all your surfaces are covered in cat hair.

I feel like it's already happened. Maybe it's just me and my friends; but clutter is a vibe. We are millenial women.

Pretty easy for me to keep my house cleaner than everyone I have seen so far when visiting. I don't deep clean constantly, maybe 2 times a year, the rest is normal cleaning, and it helps a lot that i have a robot vacuum and mopper.

I disagree because of two (intertwined) things: Status and Capitalism.

Cleaning has become much easier over time (my mom handwashed sheets in hot water heated on a coal stove). Because it's becoming easier, having the same standards is not as high status as before, so standards became higher.

Compare it to fashions in weight: when it was hard to be fat, high status people were fat. Now when cheap, high caloric food is plentiful, it's far more high status to be skinnier.

Whatever status takes more resources is going to be higher status. People can't keep an immaculate house? The an immaculate house is now something to show off because it's showing off the resources needed (time and/or money) to attain that.

See Veblen's conspicuous consumption.

So as each step in cleaning has become easier, there was a higher step added on the status ladder. It's no longer just clean floors; there's now immaculate pantries, all everything in their own container, which shows off the resources (time to do that and money for the containers) to do that.

And a "clean house" is something that seems to be attainable for most people. It's not like becoming an expert athlete. But the social media level of "clean" IS unattainable for most, because most people don't have the time and/or money to pull it off.

That's when capitalism comes in with a "remedy" for the status anxiety: "Hey, you want a clean house but you don't have the time? Well it's EASY with our cleaning product/machine! In no time at all, this will give you the clean house you deserve!"

Of course that's a lie. No cleaner will instantly turn a dirty house into a clean one. So the anxiety circle keeps circling with a new product hitting the market that honest to god, cross their fingers, WILL make cleaning easier.

I think that if you are correct, then that's going to lead to sickness that takes a lot of lives, the governments will lose a lot of money to trying to salvage the situation, and the money they will spend will be greater than the money it would have cost them to prevent this. Even if that prevention was done via free house keepers hired by the government for every citizen.

Being dirty leads to minor sickness at a higher rate, it's not drastic, but if everyone is a little more dirty, they're sick a little more often, and that leads to more medicating, and more opportunity for strengthening diseases. Today the flu is not that big of a deal, but with all these sick people contributing to upgrading it, tomorrow it might be black plague level.