The persistence of intra-household inequality is widely regarded as a ‘stubborn
stain’ on development achievements and aspirations. As a key hindrance, this
paper considers gendered meanings of housework undertaken in male-headed
households of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Encompassing cooking, cleaning and
child-care as forms of unpaid labour performed in the home, the paper uses indepth
interviews to reveal the differential discourses that men and women draw
upon to explain current variances in the (non)-sharing of this work. The paper
thereby brings to the fore the diversity, and divergence, of meanings
surrounding this everyday practice, discursive domains of domestic inequality
which must inform future development interventions and programmes. Until
such time that these underlying discourses are taken seriously in the
development arena, the paper argues that women’s housework will remain
largely tied to appeals to cultures, traditions and customs that guard against the
‘cleaning up’ of housework injustice.