在家時,爲什麼男人還是不會弄髒手?
British women who kick off their work shoes and get stuck into the housework when they get home of an evening, even when their male partners have been at home all day, probably won't feel any better when they learn that it is much the same in other parts of Europe.
夜晚時分，英國女性回到家中、脫掉工作鞋、就開始忙於各種各樣的家務活（儘管她們的老公已經在家一整天了），當得知歐洲一些國家也是相同情況時，她們也不會好受吧。What might make them throw their shoes at someone, however, is a suggestion by academics that women are "displaying their femininity" through housework, even if they have little free time, while men are "demonstrating their masculinity" by ducking out of it.
然而，真正讓這些女性生氣的是學術界關於該問題的見解：女性做家務活是在"展示她們的女性魅力"，即使她們很少有空閒時間，而男性不做家務活則是"展示他們的男性魅力"。A joint project between academics in Utrecht and California looked at data from almost 30,000 people in 27 European countries, and in Israel, to examine the impact of recession on domestic labours. The research found that women in the UK spend more than twice as much time doing housework as men: 15.7 hours a week compared with 6.3 hours. The gap closes if the woman is in work and her partner is unemployed, but only slightly.
烏得勒支和加利福尼亞州的學術界聯合開展了一個項目：研究了歐洲27個國家以及以色列近3萬人士，以檢查經濟衰退對國內勞動力的影響。研究發現：英國女性做家務活的時間是男性的兩倍多：女性每週15.7小時，而男性每週6.3小時。如果女性有工作而男性失業，那差距就會縮小，但只縮小一點點。
Where the woman was unemployed, her housework hours rose further, while working men in homes where the woman was working did the same amount of housework as men in households where the woman was unemployed.
但如果是女性失業，她花在家務活兒上的時間就更久，而有工作的男士，不管他們的妻子有沒有工作，他們做家務活兒的時間都一樣。
The researchers, Professor Tanja van der Lippe and Lukas Norbutas at Utrecht University and Professor Judith Treas at the University of California, Irvine, have published their findings in an article in the journal Work, Employment and Society, published by the British Sociological Association. They say the reason behind the figures could be that unemployment helps neutralise "gender deviance" so that "unemployed men who fall short of the male breadwinner ideal may reassert masculinity by avoiding stereotypically women's work, while their wives compensate by doing more. Indeed, women in partnerships where they earn more than their male partner are sometimes found to do more housework."
烏得勒支大學的Tanja van der Lippe教授和盧卡斯·諾布塔斯教授以及加州大學歐文分校的朱迪斯·特雷斯教授在《工作、就業和社會》（Work, Employment and Society）雜誌上刊登了他們的研究成果，該雜誌由英國社會學協會出版。他們說導致這一數字的原因可能是失業有助於中和"性別偏差"，因此"失去了男性養家者形象的失業男士就會通過不做典型的女性工作來增強自己的男性氣魄，因此他們的妻子就需要多做些活兒。事實上，情感關係中，如果女性掙得比男性多，有時她們做的家務活兒還會更多。"So as men's feelings of wellbeing decline because they are out of work, they do less housework, while women overcompensate, which means that, in the face of unemployment, the division of housework is even more gender unequal.
由於男性失業，他們的幸福指數就會下降，因此他們做的家務活兒就更少，而女性就要做更多的家務活兒，這就是說，在失業的情況下，家務活分工更加體現了性別不平等的現象。
