Bitterness

It’s a bog standard Tuesday evening, around 9 pm, and I’m standing in the kitchen, rubber gloves on, washing the dishes. Usually, I try to be zen about doing the chores. When you’re washing the dishes, just wash the dishes and all that. But this Tuesday I’m having trouble keeping my mind on the task. This Tuesday, I’m cursing Michael Winkler.

‘Who?’ you may ask. Who indeed. Winkler is one of my favourite Australian writers, someone I’ve admired for some time. He wrote a book called Grimmish that I reviewed here a few years ago and that remains one of my favourite books.

So why am I mad at him? Let me explain.

Recently, Winkler published a book called Griefdogg. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to do so. If you have read it, yay, you’re more likely to know what I’m on about.

Griefdogg is about a guy called Jeffrey who decides to turn his life around by becoming the family pet. The premise is solid. I mean, who hasn’t paused in the middle of yet another frantic day, looked at their pet sleeping in a patch of sunlight and thought ‘Yeah, that’d be the life, wouldn’t it?’

In becoming a pet, Jeffrey gives up both rights and responsibilities. And guess who needs to pick up the responsibilities? Yep, his wife.

I heard Winkler talking about the book on the ABC Book Show with Claire Nichols. In it, Winkler says that someone told him that Griefdogg is like a male version of Miranda July’s book, All Fours. Both books are about reaching midlife, then turning your life upside-down. But for me, there is key difference between the two – and it’s statistical.

This article in The Conversation says that according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Time Use Survey, women contribute 61.5% of the total time spent on unpaid work and care.

It goes on to say that, on average, in Australia, women do four hours of unpaid labour a day while men do two and a half.

I know where that one-and-a-half hours goes in my household. The fucking dishes. OMG I can’t stand that so much of my life is taken up by cooking and then washing up. Here’s a gorgeous comic from Rosie Made a Thing to support my point:

I’d like the record to show that, in addition to completing my usual hours of paid work today, I renewed a passport, claimed a Medicare thingy, managed the household calendar, cooked a meal, did some laundry, washed the dishes (as you may have guessed) and picked up after the actual pets.

Like I said, a bog standard Tuesday.

My husband, bless, did put the bins out tonight. This happened after I yelled ‘Get orf!’ as he tried to hit on me while I was splashing about provocatively in the dishwater, still wearing the rubber gloves. I had to remind him that Tuesday night is bin night because, like most women the world over, I do the remembering, aka the mental load. In our household, this is complicated by neurodiversity, which means that carrying the mental load makes extra demands on my already taxed executive functions while he has a get out of jail free card labelled ADHD.

Ableism is a complex topic that I’ll save for another blog but, for now, let me just say that it is something I struggle with a lot. In my relationship, we both have our challenges, but my ability to push through seems to be the only reason that the bins ever make it to the curb.

Let’s face it, we’re all exhausted. The world we live in demands enormous amounts of energy and attention from all of us, all of the time. I reckon we all need a break. Perhaps not so much as to give up all our agency and become a family pet. But a dialling back on the constant life admin and technological insults to the senses (two-factor authentication, anyone?) wouldn’t go astray.

So when Jeffrey decides to become a pet, it’s easy to relate. I won’t spoil anything but I will say that things don’t go so well for Jeffrey. Or Martine.

I can imagine Winkler defending the narrative. Before he made this crucial decision to abandon his rights and responsibilities, Jeffrey was the quintessential great guy - he did all this stuff for his family, the community. And I get it, all these responsibilities exhausted him. But who, I want to know, cleaned the loo?

I’m pretty sure that the intentionally nameless female main character in All Fours did a lot more loo cleaning behind the imaginary scenes than Winkler’s main character ever did.

And I think that makes her more deserving of a midlife, turn-your-life-upside-down escape narrative.

Please don’t get me wrong. Griefdogg is a wonderful book. It’s funny, poignant and perfectly crafted. It’s Australian to its core and it absolutely matters as a piece of contemporary Australian literature. I hope it sweeps up all the prizes.

It’s quite possible that I’m jealous. I do remain a wannabe author after all. But perhaps what I’m really jealous of is the 14,235 more hours of leisure time my other half has enjoyed - on average - since we met 26 years ago. I’m reckoning Winkler might have wangled about the same amount of time despite, I’m sure, calling himself a feminist, just like my hubby does.

14,235 hours. That’s a hell of a lot of writing time.

So yeah, I’m jealous. And bitter.

But them dishes don’t wash themselves.