Real Men Do Housework: Ethos and Masculinity in Contemporary Domestic Advice

Abstract

As advice books on caring for the home become more popular, they become more specialized. This essay analyzes one target niche of domestic advice: cleaning books for men. The authors of books like Clean Like a Man adopt as their primary persuasive strategy an ethos that establishes their own masculinity and, by extension, affirms the masculinity of readers. Though they explicitly argue for more equitable sharing of domestic tasks, the ethos adopted by the authors reveals general ambivalence about the changing notions of masculinity associated with such behaviors.

Notes

¹I thank RR reviewers Michelle Ballif and Sharon Crowley for their constructive feedback on this manuscript. I also thank Nathan Bauer, Roberta Harvey, Deb Martin, Jeff Maxson and Christine Tardy for their suggestions on earlier drafts.