Housework: waking up early in the morning, making the breakfast, waking everyone else up, doing the dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, shopping for food, washing the laundry, hanging it up, folding and ironing the clothes, making sure the socks match, cooking lunch, then dinner, more dishes, tidying the house where small thoughtless things like leaving mugs on the table build up to a big mess, scrubbing the sink and toilet…it goes on. Isn't it the worse job in the world? It's dirty, smelly, labour-intensive work and most people who don't do it take for granted and unacknowledged (except maybe for once a year during Mother's Day). Not only that, it's unpaid, boringly repetitious and there's no clock out period or overtime compensation. So shouldn't we wonder at least ever so slightly, why most of it falls onto the hands of women?

According to national statistics, women in the United Kingdom spend on average 3 hours a day on housework while men spend about 40 minutes doing the same. That's 4.5 times more. This is in a country termed as developed with almost as many women having paid work outside of the homes as men. Unfortunately, local national statistics were unavailable, but it isn't hard to come to a similar conclusion. Look around us, in our homes. How many male members of the household actually help out in a consistent and automatic manner. Even if they did, it would be perceived as "special" - that these particular men are different, and "Oh, aren't I lucky to be living with an Enlightened Man who would do the dishes and a bit of ironing".

Drollness aside, this has serious consequences. Girls are practically trained from a young age to be adept at housework, the ability to cook becomes a critical indicator of feminine worth and the weight of responsibility in making a house habitable is presumed to "naturally" rest on the shoulders of women. This is even when increasingly women are entering the public employment market to bring home an income because it is becoming more unsustainable to live with just one. As economic structures change and we gain deeper understanding of the value gender-equal access and participation in the public sphere, the belief that "housework is women's work" is still fundamentally unaffected. Not only that, housework is also not work. It is not seen as actual labour that deserves off-days, pension funds or recognition as a significant economic resource.

This is one of the reasons why men shy away from such tasks. Work done in the homes is perceived as menial and will not attain any form of credit in the public sphere. Men's time and erroneously presumed as "superior", capabilities are seen to be better spent elsewhere - making computers, running the country etc. This impacts significantly on women's ability to participate fully not only in society, but also in the autonomy over their lives.

Having the destiny of housework - probably as someone's daughter, wife or mother - means for many a neglect in support for their interests or skills outside of that arena. Even if a woman is equipped with a Masters Degree, she has to maximise her waking hours juggling work at the office and work at home. When a couple has children, the female partner has the greater burden of duty in sacrificing her career (which probably pays less because she has to do part-time/flexi-time work since she is also expected to do housework, you can see the cycle) to raise them. If she decides not to do so, she will have to battle out the social labeling of being a "bad mother" - as though the father had no role in caring for his offspring beyond a healthy sperm count.

The "good mother and wife" meanwhile, has her abilities constricted by the requirements of a 24-hour-a-day job in the home; engaging in the more public structures of society such as government policies or formulation of legislations that will impact directly upon her life becomes an irrelevant luxury when her world is limited to the four walls of the home. Should her union with her husband dissolve, either by law, desertion or death, she is left in a grave predicament. Unless she is fortunate enough to have a good personal support network such as filial financially secure adult children or compassionate relatives and friends, she basically cannot survive in a world that operates on monetary exchange for goods.

All of this for half of the world's population because the other half do not want to share out the work needed to maintain their house and/or family. By that, sharing does not mean bringing home the paycheck.

The point is, it should not be presumed that men will go out and make the money while women stay and do the work at home. This presumption should not be naturalised into how we prepare our boys and girls into their roles in life (consciously or through deliberate ignorance), as well as how we structure and value work (either done in the office or at home). So come on men, what are you waiting for; participate in justice in a very real manner by breaking the myth surrounding housework - pick up your daily broom.

[As part of this year's International Women's Day Celebration, WAO will be presenting a centre-stage special called "Men at Work". Join us on Saturday, March 13th & 14th at Mid Valley Megamall's Exhibition Centre, from 10 am onwards for a fun way in addressing a serious issue].

Jaclyn Kee
22nd February 2004

Fortnightly Column by WAO on Sunday Mail