I myself am straight, young, and have aspergers. My penchant for washers, and appliances in general is sort of an aspie obsession of sorts that grows out of a larger obsession of the mid 20th century. It seems during this time Americans had a sort of optimism and enthuasim about the future that we just simply don't have anymore. The engineering and technology that came from American companies and factories was second to none in the world, be it washers, electronics, automobiles, and just about anything that could be purchased. America was doing amazing things in the 50's and 60's like putting men on the moon, building interstate highways among many others.
Being only 32 years old, I feel I've grown up outside of America's heyday, as foreign brands are commonplace in our homes now, and nothing is made here anymore. Today, instead of people being excited about technology, they are afraid and fearful of it. In the very least, people just refuse to learn about some of the interesting gadgets created lately. In the worst, people avoid technology like it is going to cause them great harm. On the industrial front, when an American creates a breakthrough product, they usually end up selling it to a foreign company to make a quick buck, or if they have made themselves a good name in an industry, they sell off their company in the name of making it big on wall street. Our space program is running a beat-up old fleet of 25 year old obsolete spacecraft, with no thoughts of future replacements. The American spirit for the space program has died out as the public is hardly interested in space exploration anymore, or for funding of any R&D for that matter.
When it comes to my own home, I enjoy decorating and keeping my place looking like id did when during the wonderful mid century times. Yes, we were rather sexist during this time, and washing, cleaning, cooking and other household chores were thought to be "women's work". We must remember however that it was women who assemble our planes, tanks, jeeps and other machinery that kept our troops moving during World War II.
It is also important to remember too that no mater what gender you are, your clothing will still need to be washed, you dwelling will still need to be cleaned up, and you will still need to eat. These are basic necessities of life, and I think we take the machines that make these life necessities easy for granted. I choose not to take the wonderful things we use everyday for granted. They have a long evolution of overcoming design challenges. I enjoy fraternizing and discussing with the other folks here about these wonderful devices who also feel the same way about our modern conveniences. Placing gender roles on who uses appliances is pretty silly in my opinion, especially in this day and age where people remain single, or choose different lifestyle patterns of all types...Just because I am a single male does that mean I should let my home fall turn into a sloppy dump because I don't have a woman around to clean it??? I don't think so!
Like I mentioned before too, I am 32 years old, and grew up outside of the fifties and sixties when it was typically expected to get married to a member of the opposite sex early in life. The thing about this however is that the parents of my generation that followed this social rule were the ones that were getting divorces all the time, so it's obvious that this artifical ideal didn't work too well. No matter what our sexual preference may be, marriage may not be the best thing for a happy life, and there are also many that also choose to wait longer to make sure their relationships can truly withstand the tests of time before they marry. ...And of course their are people like me that are comletely heterosexual, but have terrible social skills and basically have had little, if any luck in playing the dating/relationship games....so therefore we are single. Still, single or not, we still need to do laundry, clean our homes, cook our food, service our automobiles, and all sorts of life's necessities...there's not such thing as "women's work" or a "man's job" to me. We all do what we need to do to get by in this day and age!
Wear it proudly!!
