Of boys and hand-washing

One of my many early morning rituals is to log on to BBC News. And this was the first story I saw today: Millions Mark UN Hand-Washing Day. 2008 is, I learned, the International Year of Sanitation. I’m delighted to see this simple education campaign underway, and eager to see more governments and donor agencies get involved in improving sanitary conditions in poor countries. Since I no longer support Heifer Project and other aid programs that involve the mistreatment of animals, I’ve gotten very interested in Oxfam’s Build a Bog program. (I’m a fan of clean toilets; if anyone is wondering what to give me for Christmas or my birthday, trust that I already have more than I need. But buying someone a nice place to poop in my name would make me deliriously happy.)

Reading about “world hand-washing day” made me think about men, cleanliness, and self-care. I’ve become, in my old age, a very good and loyal hand-washer. It was not always so, and I confess it was a former girlfriend, Ali, who turned things around for me many years ago. We had just moved in together, and on one lazy afternoon, I got up to use the bathroom while my gal stayed on the couch. When I returned, Ali looked at me suspiciously: “I didn’t hear the sink”, she said. I must have flushed red, saying nothing. “Did you wash your hands?” I sheepishly admitted that I had not. This woman had a drug and alcohol addiction at least as well advanced as my own, but when sober, she had a tremendous commitment to good hygiene. “Well, Hugo, if you ever want to touch me again, you damn well better wash your hands with soap and hot water every time you ‘go’.” Indeed, even when we were both under the influence, headed for bed, Ali would drunkenly push me towards the bathroom, insisting that whatever else I did, I had to make sure my hands were scrubbed clean. The relationship came to a messy hand, but my post-toilet ablutions have remained relatively devoted ever since.

I use the faculty men’s restroom located right across the hall from my little office. My colleagues and I are often in there together. I’ve worked with most of these lads for many years, and I know well who the “good handwashers” are. Some use soap and hot water and rub their hands thoroughly. Others practice what I often did in my younger days, the “wetting the fingertips with cold water for a period of not more than five seconds” strategy. And some — I will name no names, no matter how hard I am pushed on the matter — emerge from stalls or step back from urinals and do not even glance at the sink before heading out to meet and mingle with their students. I never say anything. I already have a reputation for “policing” the sexist language of some of my male colleagues, and I’m not sure I’m ready to start parenting men in many cases considerably older than myself. (Sometimes, I do confess, I use a paper towel to open the restroom door on my way out.)

The larger problem, of course, is the cultural feminization of cleanliness. It’s axiomatic that we raise boys in our culture with expectations of dirt; it is equally axiomatic that most parents are much better at communicating lessons about cleanliness to their daughters. It’s not that many parents tell their sons not to wash their hands, of course — it’s that we have diminished expectations for what boys can remember. Popular theories, generally unanchored in anything approaching scientific research, suggest that girls “have a keener sense of smell, and thus are better about remembering to be clean” or that “boys are just naturally dirtier, and can’t be expected to wash all the time.” And of course, the old nursery rhyme about “sugar and spice” for girls and “snips and snails” for boys is rooted, not in immutable physiological truth, but in socially-constructed myths about childhood. Above all, we live in a culture that sees dirt on boys as evidence of healthy masculinity, and in which male fastidiousness is associated with queerness and effeminacy.

In many families, but by no means all, fathers outsource the teaching and enforcing of hygiene rules to mothers. The message to kids of both sexes thus becomes an obvious one: cleanliness is a fundamentally female concern. And as schoolboys go through the forced renunciation of all things feminine, a willingness to ignore dirt (or revel in it as a sign of rebellion against mama) becomes part of the admission price to homosocial culture. Clearly, as the behavior of my middle-aged colleagues in the restroom seems to make clear, this disdain for basic sanitation can survive for decades.

One stereotype one hears often from the lips of wives and girlfriends: “Men are such babies when they’re sick!” When colds and flu come, as they surely will (particularly to those who don’t do as the UN asks us to do), there is a cultural expectation of male helplessness in the face of even mild illness. Advertising for cold medicines reinforces this, with images of “Dr. Mom” caring for bed-ridden children and spouse. In these ads, the husband is always infantilized, as reliant upon his wife for comfort and care as his small sick children are upon their mother. The women in these ads are rarely more than mildly exasperated; they “know” that “men can’t take care of themselves” and that it’s “a woman’s job” to nurse a husband or a father or a brother or a boyfriend laid low by aches and pains. The fact that the adult man may well have gotten sick because of his own poor hygiene or self-care never comes up.

As an amateur athlete and outdoors enthusiast, I have no aversion to dirt and sweat. Indeed, I am no great fan of showering, and were it not for the need to avoid being malodorous in the presence of my wife, friends, chinchillas and students, I would bathe far less regularly. But hand-washing is a different story. I can happily go, left to my own devices, a couple of days without a shower. But to eat and drink and use the bathroom without washing my hands would be much more difficult for me. The scent that rises from my unwashed skin may be offensive, but it’s unlikely to carry disease. The germs left on my hands after using the toilet can bring illness — and in parts of the world, can bring death. I’m keenly aware of the difference between a socially-constructed aversion to normal human odors and the public health necessity of hand-washing. I wish that more people, particularly men, were taught the same distinction.

When I do retreats with the church or other organizations, and am put in charge of a group of boys, I try and strike a careful balance between honoring their youthful desire to break a few basic hygiene rules while away from home, and the importance of hand-washing. On the confirmation retreats with All Saints Church, we would often need to trudge a quarter mile to find sinks, toilets, and showers. We tended to make communal trips in mornings and evenings, and as many of the boys who went with me on those trips would confirm, Hugo was “Captain Handwashing.” Whether the boys wanted to shower or not was their call; whether they wanted to change their clothes or put on deodorant was up to them; whether they rinsed their hands with soap and hot water was non-negotiable.

I’d like to think Ali, wherever she is, would be proud. And though even in my case, it took a woman’s firm insistence to get me to wash every time, I’ve seen enough to know that some men can and do practice good hygiene without needing endless reminders from mothers and lovers. And just in case, I do my best to spread the good word.

Perhaps I’ll print out the BBC article about hand-washing day, and post it over the urinals in the faculty men’s room. Couldn’t hurt.