Equality will dawn when galloping gourmets also do the washing-up

‘If things go on like this, my chances of staying healthy beyond 65 will be cut by 25 per cent,” I told my husband in no uncertain terms. Actually, I didn’t, because what does that even mean? Will I – according to the latest study on the gender distribution of household chores – die 25 per cent earlier than I might have done, if only he had been more assiduous about wiping down the kitchen counter? Or will I live just as long, but with gammier legs, because of his infuriating habit of leaving wet towels on MY side of the bed?

In a long-running marital argument, however, you have to take whatever scientific evidence you can get. And this was a bumper week for the dossier. First, newly released figures from the Office of National Statistics showed that British women have five hours less leisure time every week than men, because we do so much more housework. (Depressingly, this gap has widened since 2015. Men may be getting better at feminist virtuesignalling, but they prefer to do it with their feet up.)

And now here’s this German study, which shows – so far as I can deduce – that it isn’t just the volume of housework that matters, but the nature of the chores. While the women in the study who did more than three hours of housework a week were 25 per cent less likely to be in “good health”, men who put in the same hours were found to be hale and hearty. This, say the scientists, is because women tend to do the boring, repetitive, indoor work such as cleaning and laundry, while men do enjoyable projects – gardening or DIY – that get them outside and require more physical and mental exertion.

The one traditionally female chore that men seem to be gradually taking on is cooking. My husband now cooks almost all our meals, as do the men in one third of British households. I am grateful for this, especially as his food is always delicious. But I can’t help noting, as I scratch the latest entries into the ledger of Marital Credit, that cooking is one of those chores that contains suspicious elements of fun.

Creative and mentally absorbing, it involves sharp knifes, flames and lots of gadgety toys. Done well, it elicits gasps of admiration or at least a reliable round of thanks. Nobody ever congratulates the person doing the washing-up (“Wow – you really scrubbed off those crusty bits”).

It isn’t just the work itself that needs to be more fairly distributed; it’s the boringness of the work. When men do as much as women about the house, and receive as little thanks, that will be the dawn of real equality.

One pleasing sideeffect of having opera-mad parents was that I grew up watching fat people playing the romantic lead. Mythological queens, femme fatales, even dying consumptives – all were as stout and bosomy as Donald Mcgill’s postcard matrons. Their paramours, meanwhile, were middleaged Welshmen with homely paunches squeezed into their breeches. And why not? Passion has never been the preserve of the thin and beautiful.

What sorrow, then, to hear that the soprano Lisette Oropesa felt obliged to lose weight to save her career. Modern casting directors and audiences, she says, “listen with their eyes”, and increasingly expect to see Hollywood looks on stage. The tyranny of beauty is complete: fat ladies are no longer even allowed to sing. FOLLOW Jemima Lewis on Twitter @gemimsy;

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