Burden now heavier
FROM PAGE 1
snacks for the family. Her evening routine involves yet more cooking, cleaning and feeding of little humans, and as she wrote, “If I get a chance, I flop down on the bed and fiddle with my phone.”
That is what she does with her only personal time of the day, when she is supposed to finish work and pursue her career.
In a funny disclaimer, Nadia added, “Entry does not include the many times the baby goes to the toilet and needs her clothes changed and potty cleaned.”
She contrasted her day with her husband’s. An engineer, her husband does no cooking, cleaning, and the only assistance he offers his wife is “waking up at night if the baby cries, and staying up long enough for the baby’s mother to wake up”.
“When I showed him this list, he told me to quit complaining and tell him the solution. I told him the solution -- equal distribution of labour -- and he listened. But it never got translated into action,” lamented Nadia.
This is the norm among males in the family, she said. “My father-in-law does not lift a finger to get a glass of water, and his son does not help with chores. They also don’t believe their son should work -- if my husband even volunteers to do something, his mother comes running to relieve him.”
Hridi (name changed) is on her maternity leave from office. While it is true that she does not have to do regular office work from home, having a baby that is learning how to roll over and fall off the bed keeps her hands full.
“I had a domestic staff come in for a few hours each day to help me clean the house but we have had to put her on leave for the lockdown. My husband is an instructor at a university. He keeps himself locked in a room the whole day to take online classes, so all the chores fall on me,” said Hridi.
But just like Nadia, this lockdown has made her realise that her husband was raised with the belief that men should not do household chores.
“During the first days, he tried to share the chores, but then his mother scolded us both. She told him that even though I have a masters’ degree from abroad, what kind of a woman am I if I cannot take care of my family?” lamented Hridi.
And even though Hridi and her husband do not live with his mother, it seems that he had really taken her words to heart, leaving Hridi to tackle the chores alone. She was speaking to this correspondent at 1:00am in the morning. “I just finished putting the baby to sleep and cleaning the kitchen after a day of cooking,” she said.
“I’m yet to find a balance between work-from-home and chores,” said Tasnia (not her real name), a newly-married NGO worker. “When I ask for help from my husband, he ends up doing the tiny part I specifically pointed out. But men are almost never proactive in identifying what needs to be done, and completing household tasks that might be adjacent/related to each other.”
As a feminist, being a part of an unequal relationship is a mental quandary for her. “I felt disappointed in myself for a while for being here. It was sad to realise that I have to actively coach my partner every time I spot unequal labour distribution,” she said.
“Meanwhile, my male boss expects the women to be equally productive as men, even though we have so much more housework to do,” complained Tasnia.
Another NGO worker Shahida laughingly told the story of how her husband yelled out in pain when a bit of hot oil spilled on his hand.
“I was working, and had asked him to fry the piyajus for iftar. This was the first time in his 35 years that he was trying to do this, and a drop of hot oil spilt on his hand. I pointed out to him the countless times this had happened to me and that it was just his first,” she said.
The struggle is acknowledged by a United Nations situation report prepared by its Regional Bureau of Asia Pacific Economist Network.
“Measures are needed to alleviate the crisis of care that has disproportionately fallen on women’s shoulders and to make policy responses gender-sensitive,” recommended the report, titled The Social and Economic Impact of Covid-19 in the Asia-Pacific Region, published last month.
Meanwhile, Manusher Jonno Foundation recently surveyed 16,203 women and children through the month of April, and found 4,249 women reporting domestic violence. Approximately half said that the abuse was mental (or verbal), and 1672 said they had never been abused before this lockdown.
While Nadia, Shahida, Tasnia and Hridi are not alleging domestic violence, their troubles are rooted in the same cause -- inequality in marriage, and patriarchal mindsets that believe women and men have different gender roles. As the lockdown stretches on, so does their dilemma.
All the women mentioned above requested anonymity for protection and privacy