One of my favorite features in the NY Times is the Social Q&A column. Not because I want to learn about social etiquette, mind you, but I find fascinating the questions that the general public asks the columnist, Philip Galanes, whose answers seem obvious to me. The cynic in me assumes that a passive aggressive individual asks for “advice” in anticipation of a specific response, and they anonymously forward the column to the social offender. I imagine the recipient of the article, received by snail mail, innocently reading the Q&A surgically clipped from the print copy, and realizing in horror that they are the bad actor featured in the query. They then slink around at family functions and parties furtively seeking clues as to the person who publicly shamed them.

However, this past week an advice seeker asked Philip (since I’ve been reading his column for years, I feel that we should be on a first name basis) for “advice” on how to desegregate the cleaning duties after a party. The men retire to the drawing room for cigars and political/farming talk (channeling Jane Austen, but the imagery is much more civilized than picturing men gathering around a big screen television watching a ball game, drinking beer and farting with impunity), while the women report to the kitchen and clean up after dinner. Philip gave the predictable advice about recruiting an ally from within the men’s rank to break sexist stereotypes, with the result that the men and women achieve clean up in a mixed gender harmony.

Philip, I respectfully disagree.

When I was a young lass, I too resented being shuttled into the kitchen with the women while the men sat around talking, or more often grunting, while watching a sporting event. After all, the women slaved in the kitchen to prepare dinner, shouldn’t they be the ones relaxing after dinner in a fair division of labor? However, being in the kitchen with the women allowed me to obtain valuable information, specifically, insight into the minds of women.

Women communicate with each other using body language as much as the spoken word. Women judge each other based upon the target’s relationships with others: husbands, siblings, parents, in-laws, co-workers. (One of my favorite quotes, “She’d have a better marriage if she got her hair done more often.” I thought that she’d have a better marriage if she wasn’t such a bitch that emasculated her husband, but I learned to keep those thoughts to myself.) Women need to talk through issues and sometimes just need a shoulder to cry upon. I learned to listen, learned when to speak and when not to, and learned to provide a shoulder when needed. Life lessons a girl cultivates while doing dishes in the kitchen with the women.  Lessons that would not be taught if men were in the room.

I have met women who are boastful about refusing to join the women to cook or clean; they took a stance and defiantly sat with the men. I find that these women generally do not have female friends and have difficultly relating to women. Their friendships are fleeting.

So, Philip, we women do not need to mix the genders in the kitchen. How about we take turns? The women cook, the men clean or vice versa. We don’t end up doing all the work, but we females continue to learn through the generations important lessons that we carry for life.