What do students think about the gender division of labour?

 

In the recent years, since the Government’s issuance of the “Grassroots Democracy” policy, some “Speak out” programmes on the mass media have been broadcasted now and then to encourage the vulnerable groups such as children, elderly people, people with disabilities (PWDs), poor people, etc… to raise their voice. For myself, being a lecturer of Gender and Development course at Hoa Sen University, I desire to listen to my students, both male and female, in order to understand their roles and positions at home, at school and in the society at large. Then, such opportunity was coming to me. On the mid-term exam of May 9, 2011, I posed one of the questions as follows: 

“Based upon the exercise on gender division of labour that you have done in class during a group discussion, please present your own time table marking your usual activities during a certain day.

Please give comments to this analyzing table, specifying your advantages and constraints. Please describe the reasons of such advantages and constraints”.

When correcting and giving marks to the students’ assignment, I felt so moved for reading their confidential lines. So, my dear students, I ask your permission to extract some of your lines to share with the Gender and Society Newsletter’s readers.

 

A female student living in HCMC with her family noted the time in one of her usual days as follows:    

 

Time	Tasks
6:00-6:30 am	Get up, take care of personal hygiene
6:30-7:30	Sweep the house, do the cleaning and washing
7:30-8:30	Go to market to buy breakfast meals for whole family (or buy raw materials to cook breakfast at home), have breakfast
8:30-10:30	Cook and prepare lunch for the whole family
11:00-12:00	Set the table for lunch, have lunch, wash the dishes
12:00 -1:30 pm	Take a rest
1:30-4:00 pm	Study, do the homework exercises
4:30-5:00 pm	Go to University
5:00-9:30 pm	Study at University
9:30-10:00 pm	Return home
10:00-11:00 pm	Have dinner
11:00 pm	Sleep

 

And she gave her comments: “As I am still student, without any employment yet, thus in the morning, I help my family by doing house chores. Doing house chores making me to become more alert and know how to manage my daily schedule. However, there are also some disadvantages such as my studying time at home is so short, so that I have to prepare everything in advance, just to have time for studying. Besides, there is also another disadvantage, as I have not got an employment yet, so I do not have any income, while the house chores do not create income for me. Thus every time I need money, I have to ask my parents. I have often been scolded by my parents as I always stay home what do I need money for. This makes me so sad because people forget the value of house chores that I have done for the family”.

 

Another female student also marked in her analyzing timetable with doing of some house chores. However, for this student, she is not the main responsible person for cooking and doing house chores, she only helps her mother. In the morning, when his father and younger brother are going to do some physical exercises, she stays home with her mother to prepare breakfast, so that when the men return home, the whole family will have breakfast together. Then, she goes to work at an office and she also has lunch there, thus she does not need to cook for lunch at home. However, in the evening, when returning home, if she does not have evening class, she helps her mother to cook dinner for the whole family, and then she washes the dishes and cleans the house. In late evening, after helping her younger brother to do his homework, it will be her turn to study. She commented: “As being a girl, I have very limited time for relaxing and recreation, this affects the quality of my performance the next day at my office and university. At my office, I have not been as highly appreciated as my male colleagues. I wish that I will get help from my father and younger brother in the house chores such as cleaning the house and washing…”   

 

Above mentioned are the female students’ opinions, now let’s read what male students have commented. A male student wrote: “I have an advantage of not to do house chores, so that I can have more time for studying and relaxing, this helps me to concentrate into my study. However, as I do not help my mother to do house chores, so that I do not get the skills to take care of myself, I am always dependent to my mother, I can’t live independently yet”.

 

Another male student wrote: “My mother goes to work to earn a livelihood and does the house chores for the family. My mother has to fulfill all three kinds of activities: production, reproduction and community activities, while my father only works to earn a livelihood. My mother is a strong women, thus I love her so much. Although sometimes my father and I help her to do house chores, I still think that the division of labour in my family is not appropriate yet”.     

 

With such reflections from the students of the “Gender and Development” class, I am strongly confident that changes will gradually happen in the gender division of labour in every family and will gradually expand to the whole society.

 

Le Thi Hanh-HSU