Progress in gender equality is noticeable in homes. There is greater participation of men in domestic work and in the majority of couples in which both work there is a distribution of tasks. Now, this distribution is far from being equitable, gender differences persist in the assumption of tasks so that women carry out the most routine ones and men choose the most flexible ones and, in addition, they maintain a greater total load. Co-responsibility still does not come, and this has to do with the fact that, at home, men feel comfortable in the role of eternal apprentices, without questioning feminine power, letting domestic work continue to be a woman’s responsibility.
These are some of the conclusions drawn by UAB Sociology researchers and professors Sara Moreno and Vicent Borràs after listening to and analyzing the stories about domestic and care tasks from four discussion groups of men and another four of women to discuss to identify where the changes, resistances and conflicts are in the uses of time dedicated to these jobs at home. Moreno and Borràs revealed part of this qualitative study, which is part of the Genera project (Gender Equality in the Uses of Time: Changes, Resistance and Continuities), during a seminar organized by the Center d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED) last week pass.
They explained that the objective of this first study had been to detect those ideas and experiences about domestic work in which, on the one hand, men and women mostly agree, regardless of their personal circumstances, age, economic situation, schedules. work…
And the first socially shared discourse that they found among women is that domestic tasks continue to be their responsibility, that to the burden of “doing” they add those of “thinking and organizing,” and that they do not have that mental burden. “Women show that they execute, without taking initiative, without deciding how to do it; “If you tell them to iron a shirt, they iron it, but if you don’t tell them anything, they don’t do it, and they have to set the tone,” explains Moreno in conversation with La Vanguardia.
In the case of men, instead of talking about mental load, they saw that they talk about the assumption of domestic responsibilities in hedonistic terms, that they have a privilege of choice and choose the tasks that are most satisfactory to them, while others they do not do if they do not. They do not ask them because they perceive that they are always controlling what they do and how they do it.
“There is a socially shared discourse among men that women are demanding and are always supervising what they do and even telling them that they do not do it well,” notes the researcher.
And he emphasizes that, as a consequence of these two opposite perceptions – theirs, who have to control everything because they do not assume responsibility; and theirs, who feel watched because they do not reach the level of perfection that they demand -, a relationship of supervisor and assistant is established in the couples that maintains a latent conflict.
“They act as resigned supervisors because they distrust and they adapt to the role of eternal apprentice without assuming co-responsibility for domestic work, so they distribute tasks but without questioning feminine power in household matters, for which they maintain responsibility. ”, summarizes Moreno.
And he emphasizes that the standards on how chores should be done, how or how often the bathroom should be cleaned, how clothes should be hung or folded have a lot to do with this… “Men complain that they “They supervise and criticize or correct how they do certain tasks, but they do not discuss their standards or reach a consensus on others because then they would have to assume responsibility, and they prefer to continue as an apprentice,” says the researcher.
Despite this, the greater participation of men in domestic work, combined with the fact that women have less time to dedicate to these tasks, is modifying these standards.
Previous research by Moreno and Borràs on the masculinization of time dedicated to routine domestic work confirms that the gender gap is reduced not so much because they invest more hours in these tasks but because they do less.
“There is a lowering of standards; Previous generations of women scrubbed the floor or swept the broom daily, and now that is no longer a routine habit in the home; and it is also cooked much less; In fact, according to the latest available time use data, women up to 35 years of age spend 70 minutes less than those over 45 on cleaning and cooking, and men’s dedication to these tasks has only increased by 7. minutes, so what happens is that less is done,” Moreno exemplifies.
Along the same lines, Borràs adds that “there are tasks that are stopped being done because the standard of demands regarding domestic work has lowered: in young homes the iron has been abandoned and we have become Europeanized in terms of having less clean and opt more for prepared foods.”
