[a_puppy]

> when you pick up a dirty plate to reveal mold or wiggling pantry fly eggs

You're describing a hypothetical man who thinks dishes should be left in the sink until they grow mold and attract pests. Obviously mold and pests are bad, so this hypothetical man would be in the wrong.

But, most real relationship conflicts don't fit that hypothetical description! For example, last year there was a discussion on HN about leaving a dirty dish by the sink: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31000658 There was no mold or pantry fly eggs in that situation; the wife was upset about any dirty dishes being left by the sink at all, even a once-used glass of water.

And that's a much more complicated situation. It's common for different people to have different expectations for cleanliness: a husband might think it's OK for an empty glass of water to be left on the counter if he might drink from it later, but the wife might think that's "dirty". These are different points of view, and neither one is necessarily wrong.

Sometimes people try to frame this as "the husband is sexist and trying to make his wife do the chores" (or "he's inflicting executing function theft on her") but I don't think that's a correct or helpful framing. Like writeslowly and AceJohnny2 wrote above, this is a case of different people having different standards. That doesn't necessarily mean the one with lower standards is committing "executive function theft" on the one with higher standards.