Channel 10’s game show Family Feud attracted some criticism this week for the way it answered the question: name a woman’s job.
Rather than listing the inspiring and diverse jobs women can do, we were instead shown a list of the dull and mundane jobs women have long been expected to do. Washing clothes. Cooking. Cleaning. Domestic duties. Dishes.
To the modern woman the list seems positively archaic and warped. We know what individual women are capable of – they can successfully run banks, countries and companies – so why not focus on that? Why limit them to the dishes rather than the brilliant things they’re capable of?
Because this is straw poll of regular Australians and it reflects that; whether we like it or not.
Last night as I put my head on the pillow it dawned on , not for the first time, that what is most jarring about this list is not that it’s an inaccurate depiction of women in Australia but that it’s accurate.
At least half of that list is true; it is indisputable that Australian women still do far more housework than their male partners. Of course there are exceptions in every home but on the whole women do cook, clean, wash the dishes, do the laundry and the domestic duties more than men do. And as long as that’s the case, this list will ring true. (It also neatly perpetuates the status quo because as I have said many times, the more unpaid work women do, the less paid work they’re available to do.)
To me Wednesday night’s episode of Family Feud is eye opening because it clearly illustrates the way ordinary men and women perceive men and women. It is not difficult to establish why, against that backdrop, gender equality remains the elusive objective it is.
As disappointing and disheartening it is to see women’s work reduced in these terms it’s a reminder. That this is the way some – possibly many – Australians still view women’s work both in and out of the home. Those stereotypes and quiet assumptions are responsible in no small part for the broad gender gap which persists in Australian workplaces.
In this regard we all have the ability to create change. We can each ensure we split the domestic roles in our homes fairly and according to necessity instead of outdated gender roles. It seems small but the effect of these changes is substantial. Because the only way we will ever get cooking and cleaning and the dishes off the “woman’s list” is if the next generations of Australians see the men in their lives doing these things as much and as often as the women.
We have to be the change we want to see.
One of my proudest parenting moments came about when my-then 3 year old saw me getting out the vacuum cleaner. “Why are you using Daddy’s toy, she asked? It was the first time she’d ever seen me use it (and it very well might be the last.)