Men from Mars and..?

I never felt compelled to read the book ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’.
Sure, men do things differently, but to make the gap that big was a bit too exaggerated for my taste. However…..

Coming back from our outdoorsy holiday John has a lot of salty, sandy and dirty life jackets, kayaks, shoes, coats, spray skirts, wet suits and groundsheets to wash. When we get home John dumps it all on the lawn and waits for a weekend when the weather allows enjoyable water play.
No rush, it will keep.

I also have a lot of washing to do. This all gets dumped into the laundry and dealt with as soon as possible.
So on Sunday evening the washing machine gets turned on and for days load after load gets processed in between cooking, answering emails and writing blogs. The washing gets dried, folded and put away so the laundry doesn’t get clogged up with stinking camping clothes waiting to be dealt with.

All this is no problem, as long as John leaves a path amongst all the stuff, so I can reach the washing line and I find places to dry the clothes.

Then during our usual Sunday morning talk we got onto our favorite subject ‘boats and women friendly features’.
We are both interested in making a live aboard boat that works as well for women as for men. But that means that women need to be encouraged to think about what they want and to speak up!

After my frantic washing spree and John’s stuff still spread out on the lawn the subject naturally steered to washing and washing machines on boats.
Most women we talked to – who have a water maker and a washing machine on board -stressed the point how happy they were with their washing machines, which were all placed inside.

We both agree that washing is an issue on a boat.
If done easily it definitely adds to the comfort on board.

And then John comes up with an idea.
Let’s have a wet area with a big sink at the back of the boat where all the washing could take place. In that area you could splash to your heart’s content, cleaning all the big things, have a shower after a swim and clean the fish we are planning to catch. And guess what, John suggested that the washing machine should go there too. Easy to have all the plumbing and drainage in one place.

But hang on a minute!
My washing method doesn’t come near his washing method.
I don’t splash when washing. I just put dry dirty things into the washing machine, soak stuff when necessary in the machine itself and at the end pull reasonably dry things out off the washing machine.
No splashing involved anywhere.
Also the frequency of his washing and my washing is vastly different.
He splashes about once in a blue moon weather permitting, I wash sheets and towels at least once a week, rain or shine.
I want that machine handy and sheltered, so when we are traveling in colder climates I can wash inside. I don’t want to trundle all the way to the ‘wet area’ at the back to do my ‘dry’ washing in the cold.

So back to the drawing board we go.

But it shows that men do do different things than women even if it concerns the same subject such as washing. And no wonder that our design thinking differs.

Hmmm, maybe I should give that book more credit…..