#IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob: What is a ‘Woman’s Job’?

Woman has always been assigned (or burdened) with a number of responsibilities and these responsibilities have always been given the name of ‘duties’. From homemaking to cooking, the whole drudgery is supposed to be suffered by the women and only the women. Men are always way far from the scene. Raising the children, doing the dusting and moping, cooking and doing the laundry these are certain things that has been marked as ‘womanly work’, really? Can something really be called a ‘womanly job’? I don’t think so and I am sure a lot of people would agree with me, even some men would agree.

Courtesy: Blogadda.com

Doing the laundry is considered as a ‘womanly work’. It has to be done by the women in the house. No matter how many people live in the house and how many of them are adults (Adults are the people who are able to do their own work all by themselves). 76% of Indian male think that laundry is a women’s job.  77% of Indian men depends on women for doing the laundry.The men do not even give a second thought about the dirty underwear they had wished to be clean before they want them clean the next time. Their opinion: ‘What’s the big deal? Somebody has to do it!”. Yes, most certainly, but aren't we blessed with our own organs? Then why won’t ‘you’ do ‘your’ job?

Even the learned crowd has the same problem. They would talk about women empowerment, discuss how a woman has to suffer because of the ‘social norms’, how women are equal to the men but sadly they are also the persons who would go to their homes and order their respective wives or mothers to do the cleaning for them. In the educated circle, the women are most suffered. The working women are assigned with the ‘responsibilities’ at the home and ‘work’ at the job. The husbands and in-laws who claimed about an equality between the married couples, failed. They gave the woman the freedom to work and live a life of her own choice but then at the same time they forgot that the household chores are not only a woman’s job, it’s the job of every individual living in that house. 85% of the working women feel that they have two jobs- one at home and the other at work. Despite the marches and speeches, inequality prevails and that too with all its might. 2/3rd of Indian women feel that there exits an inequality between the male and the female.

If we consider a holiday, in this context, a man will choose his own recreational activities like watching TV or just simply relaxing, but in the same situation a woman is always supposed to do the usual chores. Usually, the men would never offer a help in the kitchen. 73% of married Indian women feel that a man prefers relaxing to helping with household chores.

It’s the bitter truth of Indian household that by the form of ‘social norms’ and the typical way of thinking about a woman’s job , the inequality still prevails. No matter how we lecture or preach about woman empowerment, it won’t affect on the wall that we ourselves have built around us, the wall of social taboos and conventional thinking. Though we claim to be the atypical but in some corner we are still that what we don’t want us to call- the stereotype. It would take a lot of time to eradicate the mental stagnancy but it is surely possible. This can be done by changing our idea about the usual things like a man doing his laundry is absolutely normal, a woman coming home late from work is as natural as a man doing the same, etc. Then will come the day when we can say that male and female are equal in every way. 

#IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob? What do you think?

Results are based on surveys that were conducted by AC Nielsen in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad & Bangalore, in November 2014.

I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.