Why the pandemic is forcing us to rethink the power balance within the household | View
Every living environment features different power hierarchies.
It may be something unpleasant to remember, but very rarely in human societies do places function without hierarchies. Even our home is a place of power, and traditionally it is managed by a female figure. Women are entrusted with the task of care, and men instead are tasked with maintaining and protecting that place.
The pandemic emergency has put a great deal of stress upon this norm, and the situation has become indeed extremely complicated.
When we cannot go out anymore to carry out our daily activities elsewhere, it is necessary to achieve a careful redistribution of time, space and power.
Dramatic changes in the household
Home was necessarily being transformed by the pandemic into a workplace, but also in a place of relaxation and disengagement (when possible). Those domestic spaces - usually shared only for a few moments a day - are becoming the places where we live together for the whole day.
The role of the breadwinner is strongly undermined by the obligation to work at home, because when at home it is much more complicated to demonstrate one's role to colleagues and co-workers. There is no office, no common space divided by areas and sectors, no uniform, no codified symbology to remind us of a hierarchy.
This hierarchy has dematerialized into a digital world that is much more complex to manage, based in part on the memory of previous experiences but now placed in more abstract languages, and in more complex and structured types of communication.
For those accustomed to a more gestural, direct, vocal, and physical kind of communication, this new normality could be a real source of frustration.
In the context of family relationships, dominant positions are getting more complicated too.
The worker used to perform grand gestures such as "leaving the house", but now has to remain within the domestic walls, in front of a screen - something that resembles a playful activity, a pastime, but surely not a job.
This symbolism strikes everyone else living in the same house, too.
They get a different perspective on an activity that used to be carried outside, wrapped in that mysterious but reassuring phrase: "How was work today?".
The role of the breadwinner gets somehow diminished. That conversation (“How was work today?”) that triggers human contact, becomes now difficult to have - especially when you get to see the partner “working” in front of you for the whole day.
And what if the breadwinner loses the job?
The inertia of gender roles creates conflict
Despite these dramatic changes imposed on our lives by the pandemic, the inertia of traditional gender roles tends to keep the management of them in the hands of the same person, especially for less pleasant tasks like cleaning or feeding.
As last year taught us, on average men are less prepared for this change, while women - unfortunately for them - are far more trained in the mental load required to move between different tasks and responsibilities.
Neither of the two is used to managing the power conflict that inevitably arises.
Disturbing statistics tell us that, almost certainly, it has been the woman who has lost her job - if she had one -, or has seen it greatly reduced. On top of this, she now has to take on the management of a more inhabited house - therefore dirtier, more used, hungrier -, while everyone else in the house would accumulate their difficulties in the same domestic place.
The general stress rate quickly rises to very high levels because of a closed school (sometimes considered a nice "parking lot" for children), or caretaking tasks suddenly increasing exponentially, while our freedom and emotional relationships are being compromised.
