Honey, Your Man Doesn’t Care about Martha Stewart: Confessions of a Slacker Housewife

by Nicolette Westfall

I wasn’t attracted to the book initially, because it has a yellow and pink cover, with ironing board, pearls, and a woman’s high heel, but something must have drawn me to it, because I picked it up, bought it, and read it within hours. Essentially, Muffy Mead-Ferro’s argument is that women don’t really need to put on the Martha Stewart or the extreme anti-bacterial war stance that contemporary advertising assists in brainwashing them into.

Personally, I’m not the type to crochet fancy clothes or buy instruction books on how to make fancy dinner napkins—a card table in the kitchen and a couple torn chairs does us fine, thanks. My unashamed spare furnishings and lack of ornamentation, to The Gentleman’s credit, never bothered him. It really is as Muffy suggests—women choose to waste precious time on unnecessary domestic frivolities.

When a man has his buddies over, they tend to eat out of chip bags and use paper towel napkins, not the latest in fine linen clothes. Although Muffy and her women folk have the urge to just go out and buy chips and dip, they choose instead to slave away for hours upon days in their kitchens, experimenting on creating the perfect dinner menus for guests that they just don’t have time to socialize with.

Muffy’s husband is somewhat more supportive then many other men—he’s actually changed a diaper or two (just pretend the other 4,000 changes don’t exist). He also understands that she juggles both a career and raising the wee tots. He just doesn’t get it that she puts energy into things like dusting things people can’t see, like the tops of light fixtures.

One oddity I found was her coverage of their sex life. She admitted to being tired from the dual duty of mom-career woman and treating sex like it was just another chore on the list. Completely in tune with Muffy, her husband patiently waited it out—there is no mention of porn at all (unless I missed it), implying that he isn’t into it. She also brings up her brief experimentation with toys, and notes that she has no need for self-satisfaction, preferring only him.

When I was with The Gentleman, I continued to live on my own and was solely responsible for rent, household cleaning, my schooling, etc… and yet I still found that I had sexual energy. The only damper was the fact that The Gentleman tended to wander, and so, he was the root cause of much dissatisfaction. He also took part in the common male habit of downloading gigs upon gigs of pirated porn on one of his hard drives. Alas, Muffy’s relationship with her man is quite different, as he is clearly stronger and more patient than most men when it comes to denial of their physical needs.

Beyond her commentary on intimacy, Muffy’s attempt to humorously enlighten women really is an important memoir-manual. Whether we like it or not, we exist in a sexist society, one in which men do not women seriously—yes, Muffy’s husband does ask her where the bread was, expecting her to keep the groceries stocked—in my household, all family members (ok, there’s just two of us, but still…) are expected to take part in weekly grocery shopping and the prep of family meals.

While her hubby recognizes and validates her as a career woman (lucky for her, because many men, like The Gentleman, don’t), he has trouble validating her domestic work, especially the more frivolous things. These hobbies that take up so much of some women’s time don’t concern men at all. These time wasters as distractions from the real issues at hand; men are still in power and as a result, women are often treated as sex objects that get tossed to the curb once their expiry date hits. While men become more respected as they age, women are seen as obsolete with their first wrinkles. She uses the example of female anchormen, who don’t last long, while their male counterparts carry on for decades.

Her book certainly won’t convince the die-hard Martha Stewarts that all the hand made, colour coordinated ribbons and bows for the dinner party aren’t necessary, but it will show others out there that dust bunnies are ok and that yes, the children can wear the same pants more than once before they are tossed into the wash.

Now, if she can just pick up on the idea that her hubby needs to do his own laundry. Even The Gentleman did his own laundry when he was still living at home with mommy and daddy! The offspring here does his laundry as well—I didn’t dirty his clothes and he isn’t 3 anymore. Upon discussing this book with other women, I was absolutely shocked to find out that they too, do their partners’ and teen children’s laundry. Other members of the household won’t appreciate your hard work if they don’t experience it for themselves.

Oh, and one more thing, as written in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Minister’s Wooing, if you don’t tell your male partner about how much hard work went into your domestic presentation, he’ll never know. The man needs to know that it took you 4 hours to prepare and bake that layered strawberries and cream cheesecake, with strawberries you grew in your own organic backyard garden. He may think you’re a little crazy for spending two weeks searching out the appropriate new recipe, instead of using your mother’s time-honoured version, but at least he’ll know why you fell asleep before the foreplay started.