On a typical day, men spend a third as much time cleaning as women.

通常，男性花在清洁上的时间是女性的三分之一。

Does that make women beacons of cleanliness, while men are genetically unable to see the messiness in their midst?

是否女性已成为清理标杆，而男性的遗传基因决定他们无法看到周边的乱？

This myth is a common explanation for why men don’t do as much housework as women. Men walk into a room and apparently can’t see the dust bunnies gathering on the floor or the piles of laundry stacked up on the couch.

常见解释是男性不像女性那样爱做家务。男性走进房间时，显然他们看不到地板上的满是灰尘的兔子玩偶，也看不到沙发上堆积成山的脏衣服。

It lets men off the hook for not doing their fair share of the household cleaning.

这让那些没有做好家庭清洁工作的男性摆脱困境。

But in a recent study we show that men aren’t dirt-blind – they can see mess just as well as women. They are simply less severely penalized for not keeping their spaces neat and tidy.

但在最新研究中，我们发现男性并不是瞎子-他们和女性一样能看到脏乱。只是他们不会因为没有保持整洁而受罚。

Chore inequality

家庭琐事的不平等

Despite massive gains in education and employment, women still shoulder a larger share of the housework than men.

尽管社会在教育和就业方面取得了巨大的进步，但女性仍然比男性承担更多的家务。

Women today spend, on average, roughly an hour and 20 minutes per day cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. About a third of that is just spent cleaning. Men, on the other hand, spend about half an hour performing these duties – and only 10 minutes scrubbing and tidying.

如今女性平均每天大约花1小时20分钟做饭、打扫和洗衣服，且其中大约三分之一的时间是用来打扫的。而男性则大约只用了半个小时来完成这些任务—且仅仅只有10分钟的时间去擦洗和整理。

This household chore inequality is evident over time, across professions and even when women work longer hours and make more money. Even in Sweden, where government policies are strongly geared toward promoting gender equality, women do more housework. Swedish women do two times as much daily housework than men even though women are much more likely to work full-time than in other countries.

随着时间的推移，这种家庭琐事的不平等在各行各业都很明显，甚至当女性工作时间更长，赚钱更多的时候。就连瑞典这个有政府政策极力促进两性平等的国家，妇女也会做更多的家务。尽管女性全职工作的可能性比其他国家大得多，瑞典妇女每天做的家务仍旧是男性的两倍。

Naturally, the more time spent on chores, the less a woman has to spend on other activities like sleep, work and leisure.

自然，花在家务上的时间越多，女性花在睡眠、工作和休闲等其他活动上的时间就越少。

In our study, which was recently published in Sociological Methods and Research, we asked 327 men and 295 women of various ages and backgrounds to assess a photo of a small living room and kitchen area.

我们最近的研究刊登于《社会学方法和研究》，我们让327名不同年龄和背景的男性和295名女性来评估一张小客厅和厨房区域的照片。

By random assignment, some participants rated a photo of the room looking cluttered – dirty dishes on the counter, clothing strewn about – while others examined a much tidier version of the same room. All participants looked at the one photo they were given and then rated how messy they thought it was and how urgently it needed cleaning.

通过随机分配，一些参与者得到了一张房间看起来杂乱无章的照片-满是脏盘子的柜台，到处散落的衣服-而另一些人则得到了该房间的整洁版本。所有的参与者都看了看他们收到的照片，然后表明他们认为照片里的房间有多凌乱，以及它有多迫切需要清理。

The first thing we wanted to know was whether men and women respondents rated the rooms differently. Contrary to popular lore, men and women saw the same mess: They rated the clean room as equally clean and the messy room as equally messy.

我们首先想知道的是，男性和女性受访者对这些房间的评价是否不同。与主流观点不同的是，男人和女人看到的脏乱是一样的：干净的房间干净，凌乱的房间凌乱。

Differing expectations

期望值不同

So if “dirt blindness” isn’t to blame, why do women do more housework?

那如果并不存在“污物盲症”，为什么女性还要做更多的家务？

One argument is that social expectations are different for men and women. Women may be judged more harshly for having a less-than-spotless home, and women’s awareness of these expectations may motivate them to do more.

有个观点是，对男性和女性来说，社会期望是不同的。女性可能会因为一个不那么一尘不染的屋子而受到更严厉的批评，所以女性对这些期望的认识可能会激励她们做更多。

We tested this idea by randomly telling participants that the photo they were looking at depicted either “John’s” or “Jennifer’s” living space. Then we asked them to rate Jennifer’s or John’s character – how responsible, hardworking, neglectful, considerate and likable they were – based on the cleanliness of their home.

我们对该观点进行了测试，随机告诉参与者他们看到的照片描绘了“约翰（John）”或“詹妮弗（Jennifer）”的生活空间。然后，我们要求他们根据家里的整洁程度来评价詹妮弗或约翰的性格-他们有多负责任，有多勤奋，有多不修边幅，有多体贴，有多讨人喜欢。

We also asked participants to assess the extent to which she or he might be judged negatively by unexpected visitors – extended family, bosses and friends – and how much responsibility they believed Jennifer or John would bear for housework if they were working full-time and living alone, working full-time and married with children, or a married, stay-at-home parent.

我们还要求参与者评估她或他在多大程度上可能会受到意外来访者的负面评价-包括家人、老板和朋友-同时还需要评估詹妮弗或约翰在全职工作和独居、全职工作和已婚生子，或者已婚、家庭主妇（妇男）的情况下会承担多少家务责任。

This is where things got interesting. Participants rated the photos differently depending on whether they were told that a woman or a man lived there. Notably, respondents held higher standards of cleanliness for Jennifer than they did for John. When they were told the tidy room belonged to Jennifer, participants – regardless of gender – judged it less clean and more likely to inspire disapproving reactions from guests than when the same exact room was John’s.

事情变得有趣的地方在于，参与者对照片的评价会根据居住者是男性还是女性发生变化。值得注意的是，与约翰相比，参与者对詹妮弗的清洁标准更高。当他们被告知整洁的房间属于詹妮弗时，参与者们-不论性别-认为这间房间不那么干净，更有可能引起客人们的不满，但同样的评价不会发生在约翰的房间。

We’ve all heard ‘men are lazy’

我们都听说过“男人很懒”

Still, we did find that both men and women pay a large penalty for having a cluttered home.

然而，我们确实发现，男性和女性都会为脏乱的屋子付出了很大的代价。

Compared to their tidier counterparts, both Jennifer and John received substantially more negative character ratings and were expected to garner much more negative judgments from visitors.

对比房间更整洁的他人来说，詹妮弗和约翰受到了更多负面的角色评价，并可能会从访客那里获得更多的负面判断。

Interestingly, John’s character was rated more negatively than Jennifer’s for having a messy home, reflecting the common stereotype that men are lazy. Yet participants did not believe John would be any more likely than Jennifer to suffer negative judgment from visitors, which suggests that the “men are lazy” stereotype does not disadvantage them in a socially meaningful way.

有趣的是，约翰的角色评价比詹妮弗更消极，既拥有一个凌乱的家庭，反映了“男人是懒惰”的这一普遍的刻板印象。然而参与者并不认为约翰比詹妮弗更有可能受到访客的负面评价，这意味着“男人懒惰”的刻板印象并没有使他们在社会上处于不利地位。

Finally, people were more likely to believe that Jennifer would bear primary responsibility for cleaning, and this difference was especially large in the hypothetical scenario in which she or he is a full-time working parent living with a spouse.

最后，人们更偏向于詹妮弗承担主要的清洁工作，而在假设他们均是全职工作且已婚已育的情况下，这种差异特别大。

That people attribute greater responsibility for housework to women than men, even regardless of their employment situation, suggests that women get penalized more often for clutter than men do.

人们认为女性应该比男性承担更多的家务责任，不管她们的就业状况如何，这表明女性比男性更容易因为不整理脏乱而受到惩罚。

Judge not

论断

People hold women to higher standards of cleanliness than men, and hold them more responsible for it.

在整理清洁上，人们对女性有比男性更高的标准，并让她们担负更大的责任。

Some women may internalize or embrace such standards. But for many, it is unlikely a love of cleaning but rather a fear of how mess will be perceived that is the real problem – and one possible reason why many women frantically clean their home before unexpected visitors arrive.

有些女性可能就此内化或接受这种标准。但是对于许多人来说，真正的问题并非是对清洁的热爱，而是对如何看待脏乱的恐惧。还有一个可能的原因是，许多女性在意外的访客到达之前就会彻底打扫清洁他们的家。