Men should Share The Load

sharetheload - When I said I do, I didn't mean laundry.
2016! When even a toddler knows that using his little finger he can toggle the digital gadgets, but the lady of the house still bears the onus of the dirty laundry in the home. The bigger the pile, the more frequent the laundry has to be.

Belonging to a typical Indian middle class family, I have never seen anyone but mom bearing the brunt of dad's still-stained collar of shirts, brother's complaints about his favourite pair of jeans scrubbed again and our school uniforms given a little imperfect blend of fabric whitener.

That nice and proud feeling when our school uniform looks brighter than the classmates in the morning assembly never made us think that how much effort our moms would have to put in making it stainless. Despite of having the best washing machine available, she would take out the shirts and scrub their collars manually so that it is spotless clean. I can't thank all the mothers enough for their unconditional love and working for us 24X7 irrespective of the fact if their household chores get appreciated or not.

Being independent for almost a decade and married for 2 years, I feel how unjustified this stereotypical thinking is. The lady of the house has to go through all these tantrums when she is doing laundry for us out of courtesy. She is not obliged to do it. It has been fed to our minds that laundry has to be done by the women only.

Married to a man who is so helpful in sharing household work like cooking, doing laundry, cleaning and doing dishes, made me feel blessed and also grieved for my friends when I hear their agonies of working full time in office and homes when their husbands are busy in watching TV after work.

Practically, women are considered cleaner than men (source). They also have lesser tolerance to mess and dirt but their intolerance towards the dirty pile of clothes should not be taken for granted. Traditionally, most of the women didn't go for work and stay-at-home wives which would ultimately be considered taking responsibility of the household chores like laundry.


ShareTheLoad
Right from the beginning of our upbringing, we observe (not necessarily told) that mothers perform household chores like cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes and laundry while fathers are responsible for chores which need heavy-weight mechanical work. If somehow, they try to swap their duties, for example, a father starts doing dishes because mother is sick, the daughter is asked to do it instead because a father does not technically seem justified to do household chores. Have you ever seen any commercial for any product used in housework with a male model in it?

Ariel - Is Laundry Only A Woman's Job


The above statistics clearly demonstrate that our society holds irrational prejudice against women that laundry is only their responsibility and men need not help them.

It is the high time to comprehend the genesis of such a stereotypical mindset. Where could we go wrong?

Women work outside the homes and share the responsibility of finances for household. Similarly, men should be equally liable for household chores. Helping each other in housework makes them spend quality time together. They tend to finish work quickly and they will have more time to relax after work rather than just exhausting wife. There should be no women designated work at home. After all, their home belongs to both of them.
Children are great imitators so give them something great to imitate.
Children tend to learn more from what we do than what we teach them. Seeing father doing laundry would inculcate the rational in them that no household chore is gender specific. Also, try to put some responsibility of little chores on their shoulders as well so that they keep their feet on ground and they grow up as a perfect exemplification of balanced household. Children can help their parents in laundry as well by separating clothes of different colours or folding their own little clothes.


Ariel came up with the following commercial which is an eye-opener and breaks the stereotypical convention that laundry is just mother's job and men should #sharetheload.



It is not too late for men to practice equality at home. Let's start with:

SORT - WASH - DRY - FOLD - IRON


I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.

6 comments

  1. Article is nice, i think i must share that from class VIII i do my jobs myself,washing clothes and bed covers of my room,though my Mom and Sis dont allow me to wash the dishes and clean the rooms when our maid is absent,but you know, i m much better than her in washing the dishes and cleaning the rooms.

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    1. That's really good of you Jyotirmoy! I wish more people like you can be helping hands at home to balance the household chore structure.

      Thank you for sharing and stopping by!

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  2. Loved the way you presented it Vishakha. You made it simple:SORT - WASH - DRY - FOLD - IRON

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    1. Thank you Upasna.Just trying to convince men that it is really simple, isn't it?

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  3. This is very true in our society! Moms are actually supermoms.
    Thanks for making more informative.

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