Post #3: Gender Roles

Imagine you have just moved in to your first house with your new spouse!  Let's think about how your new household will function... Who's responsibility will it be to cook dinner?  Do the laundry?  Clean the house?  Take care of the kids?  In more American families than not, the answer is "the wife". 

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), women spend on average 242 minutes (about 4 hours) per day doing unpaid work; men average about 148 minutes (about two and a half hours) per day.  Now let's compare these numbers to paid work.  Women spend about 241 minutes (about 4 hours again) doing paid work, and men spend about 322 minutes (about 5 and a half hours) per day.

So what is the big deal with all of these numbers?  On average worldwide, women spend twice the amount of time doing unpaid work; while men spend more time on paid work and leisure activities.  And the differences start at an early age.  According to a University of Michigan study, American girls ages 10-17 spend about 2 hours more than boys on chores each week; however, boys are 15% more likely to be paid for doing chores.  Melinda Gates, the wife of Microsoft's Bill Gates, says, bluntly, "we need to call work what it is--work--whether you do it at home or whether you do it out in the labor force, and then give men and women options to choose what they want to do."  Many agree that it is time to close the time gap, and sociologists, like Diane Elson, believe that "unpaid work must be recognized, reduced, and redistributed". There must be behavioral changes in the household and cultural changes across the US in order to reduce this gap.

What do you think about the unpaid time gap?  Who does the majority of the unpaid work in your family?  How do you envision your future household operating?  Do you think we can change this time gap to give women a more equal standing in the household and the work force? Explain your thoughts.

You can refer to the article, "How Society Pays When Women's Work is Unpaid" from the New York Times if you would like more information.

And for the record, as a teacher who leaves work earlier than his spouse, he often hears "Hey Honey!  What is for dinner?" as it is HIS responsibility to not only cook dinner each evening, but also pick up the kid(s) after school when they were younger.  

Every once in a while on the way home, my youngest daughter would ask me "What is for dinner tonight?" I sometimes would answer "I don't know.  I am tired of cooking so ask your mother when she gets home."  A big smile would brighten up the back seat as she responded to me..."So where are we eating out tonight?"   

Remember to respond in 20 complete sentences and use a video, picture, or article which is hyperlinked in your response.