> It's coming from an expectation of femininity that she's internalized.
This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman individual agency. One person in a relationship having a higher standard for cleanliness than the other isn’t necessarily the result of some society-wide conditioning. There are plenty of very tidy men and more relaxed women out there in the wide world. And plenty of relationships where both partners are very neat or very messy.
When people have different standards, they need to communicate and work together to solve problems in a mutually acceptable way. Both “I don’t care if we live in a pigsty so it’s all your fault for caring about it” and “everything needs to be perfectly spotless and you need to contribute equal time to maintaining the space to my exacting specification” are one-sided cop outs.
This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman individual agency. One person in a relationship having a higher standard for cleanliness than the other isn’t necessarily the result of some society-wide conditioning. There are plenty of very tidy men and more relaxed women out there in the wide world. And plenty of relationships where both partners are very neat or very messy.
When people have different standards, they need to communicate and work together to solve problems in a mutually acceptable way. Both “I don’t care if we live in a pigsty so it’s all your fault for caring about it” and “everything needs to be perfectly spotless and you need to contribute equal time to maintaining the space to my exacting specification” are one-sided cop outs.