The third episode of the podcast continues the topic of unpaid household chores: how much is it really worth and how do you share it with your partner?
One of the pitfalls of patriarchy for women is to first convince us that household chores are our direct responsibility, that we should be able to handle them on our own. And if we can’t do it, we should ask for help. And if we don’t get help, it’s our fault — we didn’t ask well enough.
If you feel that your couple’s household chores are divided equally, check to see if that’s the case.
I’ll leave you with a checklist of household chores once compiled by feminist and educator Tatiana Nikonova to check off.
Here is the link to download the checklist: in xlsx format and in pdf format (if you need to print without numbers). If you do not have the software to open these files, click here (the checklist will open in your browser).
If you have children, add other responsibilities that arise in a family with children. Complete this checklist first, and then have your partner complete it. I suggest that you do it separately, without seeing the results, and then compare. Alternatively, each of you can complete the checklist for yourself and your partner, and then compare the results.
There are times when you seem to have done nothing, but for some reason you are very tired. You’ve been on the phone, talking to people, planning something. It’s not scrubbing floors, it’s not doing laundry in the river, it’s not doing anything tangible that you can touch, and yet you’ve spent a couple of hours and you feel squeezed like a lemon. It’s called management.
Notice that this is all I’m talking about right now, it’s also work. Taking care of the division of responsibilities, learning them, making a list, discussing them — this is all management, this is the intellectual and, actually, highly paid work that women do on a daily basis in their projects called “family”, completely free of charge.
In the second episode of the podcast, I left you with a question to think about: how do you know that the childcare responsibilities are shared equally?
To find out if your childcare responsibilities are shared equally, answer two questions:
- First question: Do you leave instructions about what to do with the children if you leave the house for a few days and your partner stays with them?
- Second question: If the children’s father goes away for a few days and you stay with the children, does he leave you instructions on what to do with them?
*Well, and a note in the fine print: If you can’t leave home because the children’s father can’t handle it, you don’t need to answer these questions, you already know the answer.
According to 2014 statistics in Belarus, women spend 3 hours and 35 minutes a day on household chores. And men (drum roll) – 54 minutes! Almost exactly 4 times less, 4 times less!!!
In 2021, a court in China ordered a man to pay his ex-wife $7,700 for household chores. That’s only $128 a month.
In 2023, a woman from Spain was able to claim 204,624 euros from her ex-husband after a divorce for 25 years of domestic service in the marriage and the care and education of their two daughters.
In March 2024, news broke that a woman had sued her ex-husband for 88,025 euros for household chores during their 26 years together.
These cases are indicative and good in that they set a precedent and create an understanding in the minds of women, first of all, that household chores is huge, hard, varied, and has a monetary equivalent.
Women are starting to realize that they don’t have to do it for free, they don’t have to do it completely on their own, because it’s just as much work as any other paid job.
It is very important to consider the fairness of the division of household chores, focusing on the amount of time spent. As a simple example, preparing food for dinner may take an hour of pure time, and then washing the dishes may take 15 minutes. So if you’re used to dividing chores in this way, such as me cooking and you doing the dishes, pay attention to this simple calculation. If it takes you an hour to cook a meal every day, you will spend 7 hours of your time for a week, and your partner, who washes the dishes for 15 minutes every day after that meal, will spend 1 hour and 45 minutes for a week.
There are three pillars to the equal sharing strategy.
- Pillar 1 — We don’t use the word “help”. I do my part, you do yours. It’s not helping me, it’s our shared responsibility.
- Pillar 2 — Work on the attitudes in your head, considering the influence of socialization.
- Pillar 3 is about how responsibility is shared. I identify four areas here: personal preferences, employment, individual tasks, and management.
If a partner categorically refuses to share household chores and insists that it is your (wife’s) work, think about whether you need such a partner. Of course, situations vary, it is not always possible to break up quickly, but if you are suddenly rethinking, reevaluating your life in partnership, then the refusal to share household chores is a big red flag.
If you want to contact us but are afraid to use comments, you can send us an e-mail. After that it will be enough to delete your letter from the “Sent” folder.
Our e-mail address is: help@belarus.fm
