Woman Stops Tidying Up After Boyfriend and Shares Result: 'Small Victories'

The internet has praised a woman who is documenting what happened when she stopped picking up after her boyfriend.

According to research published in Sociological Methods and Research, on average men tidy up for 10 minutes every day, but cleaning equates to a third of a woman's one hour and 20 minutes of household chores daily.

TikTok user andrinedarling was fed up with the mismatch in work at home and took matters into her own hands. Admitting that "I am very much a neat freak. He is not," she shared a video on Wednesday that has now been viewed over 8 million times. It can be watched here.

"I stopped picking up after my boyfriend," she explained. "Let's see how long it takes."

​​For decades, there has been a widely held belief that boys and men are inherently messier than women. Despite arguments and research that proves this is simply a stereotype, it seems to be an ingrained one. In fact, one study found that the gender-based gap in who does more chores appeared in children as young as 8 years old.

In the viral video, andrinedarling films around the home showing things left out of place by her partner—drinking glasses, shoes, a mess from cooking, and unsorted laundry.

"How do they not understand we are partners and not their maid," said one woman in the comments. Another viewer wrote: "Feels good I'm not the only one but I'm so sorry you have to deal with this."

When it comes to the differences between how men and women expect their homes to be kept, there is also evidence that the gender gap is rooted in gendered expectations. The idea of women as housekeepers in charge of domestic duties does not align well with 21st century living where the majority of women are working full-time jobs, but the idea that women are judged for the cleanliness of their home more than men is still apparent.

Research shows that women are still subconsciously judged negatively for having a messy home or uncompleted housework, and as a result will often do more of the work to avoid the unspoken social stigma.

The 2019 report "Good Housekeeping, Great Expectations: Gender and Housework Norms" said: "Men and women might do different amounts of housework because they perceive mess (or lack thereof) differently, consider household work a part of their (gendered) identity, have an awareness of others' expectations or are concerned about social consequences."

"Ladies," said another commenter on the video. "As a 38-year-old about to divorce a man baby—run."

"Mine just says he doesn't care if it's messy. Not sure how you can change someone's mindset if they genuinely don't care about mess," said another frustrated reply.

But others felt that the reaction may be a little unreasonable. One commenter said: "Okay but can we normalize not having everything 100 percent perfect 100 percent of the time."

Another reply said: "This is what my apartment looks like one hour after I clean. I live by myself."

In a third video shared on Thursday, the girlfriend posted the day three results of no longer picking up after her boyfriend, showing that while things were not perfect, some improvements had been made from the first day.

Shoes had been put away and clothes were no longer draped around the bedroom. Alongside the video, the woman wrote: "Celebrate small victories."

Newsweek has reached out to andrinedarling for comment.