No matter how many times you mop the kitchen floor, or throw bleach down the toilet, it seems the list of household chores never ends. But one young woman has decided to separate tasks around her house into ‘girl jobs’ and ‘boy jobs’.
Sarah Berlingieri, 26, recently moved into a London flat with her boyfriend and took to TikTok to explain how she and her boyfriend manage to avoid arguing about chores. ‘We have girl jobs and boy jobs,’ the social media manager explained.
‘Something leaked from the bin and it was like a big pool of liquid in the bottom of the bin the other day. That was a boy job. Food shopping? Girl job.’ Sarah Berlingieri shares the list of boy jobs and girl jobs that she and her boyfriend abide by at their home in home in London
Others, like Abbie-Mae, use a similar approach to chores, dividing tasks into ‘pink jobs’ and ‘blue jobs’ based on traditional gender roles
Sarah’s list of chores includes cleaning, dusting and loading the dishwasher while her boyfriend Laurie takes the bins out and hoovers. But it is not just Sarah who is choosing to separate household tasks by gender, otherwise known as ‘pink jobs and blue jobs’.
Abbie-Mae, who lives in London with her boyfriend, said: ‘Something controversial that we have in our house is pink jobs and blue jobs. ‘Pink jobs I do because I’m a girl and blue jobs my boyfriend does because he is a boy.
‘Laundry is a pink job but bins is a blue job. Making the bed is a pink job. If I don’t make the bed in the morning, it does not get made. ‘Putting things back in high places is a blue job. Even though I’m tall, I’m 5’9 and I could probably reach it, I shouldn’t have to. That’s a blue job.
‘Answering the door? Blue job.
‘Buying cards for someone’s birthday or thoughtful gifts is a pink job but paying for the thoughtful gifts is a blue job. ‘Carrying things like bags, groceries, keys, sunglasses or anything is a blue job.’
Abbie-Mae had even expanded the colour code to include purple for ‘crossover jobs’. ‘Some purple jobs or crossover jobs include unloading and loading the dishwasher and cooking breakfast.’
Some social media users expressed their discomfort at the division of chores in the comments, saying: ‘We are in the 21st century. Blue and pink jobs, seriously?’
Another said: ‘Why can’t they just be jobs and whoever prefers to do something does it, as long as it’s equal?’
‘That’s really strange,’ someone else said. ‘As a lesbian in a relationship with another woman, we just do things that need to be done. This is kind of misogynistic.’
But others supported the move and said: ‘Yes to blue and pink jobs in my house! Nothing misogynistic or sexist about it. I just don’t want to take the bins out.’ One understanding user said: ‘People in the comments need to lighten up. No WAY am I taking the bins out.’
Ring doorbell footage from one British mother showed her husband taking the nappy bags she had thrown outside and putting them into the bin, a chore she labelled as a ‘blue job’.
Scraping the ice off the car has also been determined by social media users to be a blue job.
Ring doorbell footage shows a man picking the nappy bags up from the ground and throwing them in the bin, a chore his wife describes on TikTok as a ‘blue job’
‘The division of different chores follows entrenched gender stereotypes,’ Starling Bank said. ‘The traditional “home making” task of cleaning, for example, is five times more likely to fall on women’s shoulders than men’s, in addition to tidying.
‘Women are also six times more likely to do the laundry and twice as likely to look after shared pets.’
In another video, Lyndsay Butler who lives in Belfast with her husband Kevin said: ‘A blue job is anything to do with the garden or anything to do with the shed because I hate the shed. I can’t even look at the shed.’
Gender stereotypes work both ways.
Starling Bank found that men are more likely to take responsibility for tasks that take place outdoors, and are 12 times more likely to look after car maintenance, and more than twice as likely to be responsible for gardening.
Lyndsay continued: ‘Kevin does all the cooking so the cooking in our house is definitely a blue job. He wouldn’t eat my cooking anyway.’ Some creators had a far more exhaustive list of pink and blue jobs – and expanded the colour code to include purple for ‘crossover jobs’.
