Marcotte, Housework, and "Gender Essentialism"

   One last thing about that characteristically crappy Marcotte piece about housework...
   Marcotte accuses advocates of a Chait-style different standards explanation of "gender essentialism" (a term that's frequently used in a disastrously confused way on the left). She writes:

Eventually a man pops in and says that it’s women’s fault for having too-high standards, an argument that starts with the gender essentialist assumption that all women’s standards are high and all men’s are low.

   But that's bullshit, of course. Chait doesn't ever say nor suggest that all women have higher standards of cleanliness than any man. That would be stupid. And it's a straw man. What he suggests is that men typically have lower standards than women. I mean...since it isn't true that all men do more housework than their gfs/wives, there's no reason to even consider postulating that all men have lower standards than any woman... Essentialism just doesn't enter into this discussion in any way.

   Jeez, Marcotte is just really bad...