How to get your husband to use the vacuum cleaner

This column nearly didn’t happen. Just as I sat down to write: disaster! My dishwasher lost its connection to the internet. This meant I could no longer view real-time feedback about its water consumption on the app. Nor could I start my dishwasher remotely from my office, timing it perfectly so it would be ending its drying cycle when I got home. This facility is almost entirely pointless. I use it all the time.

Thus I was nearly resigned to canceling this column in order to spend the next six hours fixing the problem. Fortunately, resetting the router fixed the glitch straight away, which is why you are reading this now.

I am obsessed with this nonsense. I recently spent half an hour “upgrading the firmware” for my toilet. Yet this world of connected devices (aka “the internet of things”) exposes us to many vulnerabilities. It’s not just the firmware or software, however: the component most vulnerable to exploitation is the Y chromosome. Men need to be on their guard against an irrational yet persistent belief that our manhood is enhanced by displays of technological prowess. Why?

The Acheulean period of human development lasted from 1.5 million to 110,000 years ago, encompassing both Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens. The most distinctive archaeological feature of this era is the profusion of hand axes, the stone heads of which have a symmetry and elegance which far surpass any practical function.

This finding has given rise to the “sexy hand ax” theory in evolutionary psychology (Kohn and Mithen, 1999), proposing that elegant hand axes, worn on the male waist, had become a status-signaling device in sexual selection. In the Paleolithic era, being able to say “My father was a toolmaker” (as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is wont to do) wasn’t a political statement – it was a pick-up line.

Given how long the Acheulean period lasted, it should not surprise us if some vestiges of this belief were ingrained in our psychology (apparently male strippers frequently wear toolbelts). If so, it may have significant implications for the division of labor in modern households since, whether they like it or not, men may be hardwired to use displays of technical aptitude as a status signal.

It is common to read analyses of gender imbalance in the home which claim women work twice as hard at domestic chores as men. In truth, these studies are a little skewed as they tend to omit from the definition of housework those tasks performed mostly by men: driving home from a vacation at 1 a.m., putting up shelves or – that most male-dominated of all activities – killing wasps. There was even a 1980s feminist joke: “Why did God invent men? Because a vibrator can’t mow the lawn.”

But all of this is set to change. And the reason is simple. Because of the sexy hand-ax instinct, it is possible for women to get men to perform any domestic task provided it involves complex technology or fancy equipment. Here’s a simple tip. If you want your husband to do all the cooking, do not under any circumstances buy him a recipe book: instead, get him into Japanese knives. After his 48 hours spent on YouTube exploring Damascus steel and the Wootz forging process, you’ll have your own pet Jamie Oliver. Likewise if you want him to do the vacuuming, do not explain how it’s done. Buy a robot vacuum cleaner instead.

We are, I predict, a decade away from an unplanned gender revolution where women go out to run the fixed-income trading desk at Goldman Sachs, while men stay home trying to get Alexa to talk to the refrigerator.

It won’t be perfect. Women won’t return home to a newly laid dinner table or the welcoming smell of a freshly baked cake. But the hallway lights will come on automatically as soon as they open the door.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2025 World edition.