Throughout the whole installations series (Encantamiento Inutil/Useless Infatuation), Ayala and Waller express their attitudes toward the figure of the housewife. Although theirs were formed in very different environments—northern Mexico and the Midwestern U.S. respectively—they are both drawn to the cynicism and sympathy with which she is treated.
In "Chromosome XX", a wall of framed upholstery fabric becomes a setting of their own domestic tableaux. Here, they engage with the housekeeper’s gratification in putting things in order, her despair at the unceasing and often mindless labor required, and the possibilities she has for taking control of her environment in order to fashion it into an illogical, dissenting, and arresting vision.

‘One day I was walking,
I heard a complaining
And saw an old woman the picture of gloom
She gazed at the mud on her doorstep
('twas raining)
And this was her song as she wielded her broom:
Oh, life is a toil and love is a trouble
Beauty will fade and riches will flee
Pleasures they dwindle and prices they double
And nothing is as I would wish it to be.’

(from “The Housewife’s Lament,” a traditional song)