NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Ladies, if you are stuck doing laundry you have only yourself to blame.
Hey, don't get mad at me. I got numbers to back me up, from General Electric (which, as it happens, would love to sell you a washing machine).
Sure, 70 percent of the time women are stuck with the laundry chore. But there's a dirty little secret in this laundry room: 75 percent of the 510 women in the 1,042-person survey said they do the wash because THEY DON'T TRUST ANYONE ELSE.
Ah-ha!
So it should come as no surprise that 95 percent of the no-do-laundry men surveyed said they don't do it because their partner won't let them. And in case you are wondering, 88 percent of those guys are married.
This bears out what I said last year when GE first came out with one of these hokey surveys. The laundry divide is largely of women's own making.
Sure, accidents and pink shirts happen. But in the laundry room, "wrong" is often in the eye of the beholder.
For example, I like to fold T-shirts so that they are space-efficient, not so they're worthy of display at Macy's. My way is wrong, I'm told, so I lose out on the opportunity to handle the chore. Darn. I do get to mow the lawn as a consolation prize. My wife misses out on that.
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These responses are from ALL of the 1,042 people surveyed, not just men. |
Of course, this battle of the sexes thing just plays into GE's hands. The company tries to spin these surveys into a "Men do the Laundry Month" campaign, in an effort to sell more washing machines.
Ironically, the company calls the fancy-schmancy washer-dryer combo it pushes with this promotion "Harmony." Ironic since most men probably agree to buy the thing after some huge fight brought on by "Do the Laundry Month."
The company wouldn't give me exact numbers, but it did indicate sales of the Harmony system went up last year. I guess stirring up the laundry fight is working for them.
Next year, I expect to see yet another "Men Do the Laundry Month" survey making yet another argument-inspiring claim, such as that men actually do the laundry better and with more efficiency than women.
It's too bad GE can't come up with a machine that avoids the Battle of the Sexes altogether. My choice: a washer-dryer that folds T-shirts. The "right" way of course.
Allen Wastler, who apologizes to his wife if she happens to read this column, is Managing Editor of CNN/Money and a commentator on CNNfn and CNN. He can be emailed at allen.wastler@turner.com.
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