What Does Folding Laundry Have to do with Adam and Eve?

My husband read this quote to me this morning from an Inside the Vatican book review entitled "The Will to Disbelieve" by John Jay Hughes.  In his review of Mary Eberstadt's Adam and Eve after the Pill, he says his favorite bit of humor in the book

is an extended quotation from Caitlin Flanagan, an American woman unwilling to accept feminism's demand that men should do the same household chores as women.  They can be cajoled into doing this, Flanagan writes, but they will not do them the way a woman would.  They will do as men have always done:  reduce a job to its simplest essentials and utterly ignore the fillips and niceties that women tend to regard as equally essential.  And a lot of women feel cheated and angry and even---bless their hearts---surprised about this...

I found this delightfully funny in light of the uncharitable thoughts I often have about my sweet husband's laundry-folding abilities.   (Sorry, dear)  But I (usually) hold my tongue and count my blessings that I have a husband who not only works his behind off to support his larger-than-average family, but also takes the trouble to help out in the domestic arena.

If I've learned anything in my 26 years of marriage, it's that men and women are very different and we should celebrate those differences, not try to make everyone just the same.  How could we fulfill our roles in the world and the family if we were just alike?  I shudder to think what my family would be like if he were like me:  indecisive, emotional, lazy...!

~~~

In doing my "research" to blog that little tidbit, I took the time to read the entire book review, which is not as delightfully funny as the bit quoted above.  It's a very serious look at the effects of the sexual revolution which are all around us for anyone who has eyes to see:  rampant pornography,  abortion, infidelity, abuse of women, divorce, cohabitation...and the list goes on.  The article is well worth the read, and I expect the book is, too.