Who is going to cook ?

Prof E. Bijoykumar Singh *

One Billion Rising: Imphal - To stop violence against women (at Near BOC and City Convention Hall) on February 14 2013
Pix - Deepak Oinam

"I don't like cooking" was boldly written in a placard held up by a woman as part of the global campaign calling for an end to violence as well as for justice and gender inequality. There are hundreds of such activities which are beginning to be considered unjustly imposed on women. The list is also growing because woman has been condemned to a multiple shift life.

How they would have loved to be a part of the male folk endlessly gossiping in every local hotel in the morning! It is true that no where it is written that women only should cook and do all such unpaid activities.

Our eigyas cook in feasts and chefs in hotels also are males. The difference is the latter is paid handsomely for their service. The tragedy is that the services rendered by women in the households do not even enter the national income matrix.

There are some systemic inequalities and there are also inequalities perpetuated by vested interest. In the beginning there might have been some coercion and compulsion . Later it became a norm and we stopped questioning.

Division of labour used to be considered a big advancement in work. One no longer has to produce everything one needs like Robinson Crusoe. One specialises in where there is comparative advantage. Just as an invisible hand guides the selfish human beings to work towards the best for the society, each specialising in an activity results in a bigger cake to be shared.

But the question is – does woman have comparative advantage over man in managing the household? Is a male brain less wired to do such jobs ? Was there such an advantage from the beginning? Did this emerge over time when this division of labour became a social norm ?

When I visited Chakpikarong many years ago I found the women working from dawn to dusk and men loitering around gossiping in the market. When I asked them about this, they said that men were for fighting only. I do not know if they still have to fight to justify their indolent way of living. Is not domestic work in the hills a daily fight fought by the women? Something is definitely wrong if I say yours is not a fight any longer because you fight daily.

There is a need for a redivision of labour to see if we can grow faster with the division. It is like saying in the new world order the developing countries should have more say. One possibility is man starts doing what woman has been doing.

Given the fact that man does not consider woman's work as befitting a man's status not many men may be motivated to step in. Besides women themselves may be disoriented if they don't do the work they have been doing. A mother would hate to see her daughter-in-law's work being done by her son yet she may not mind, even may love to see her daughter's work being done by her son-in-law. There is nothing wrong here.

If man does not do so, someone has to do it. The poorer people may do it. Now that everyone is looking for a job, the forsaken work has to come to the labour market and will be readily swapped by the unemployed. Instead of man stepping in to fill up the space created by woman, it is woman again who does it for a payment.

Woman from poorer households step in and fill up this space at the cost of their normal domestic work. Of course she cannot hire another woman to do her work. In all likelihood her daughter will step in to look after her siblings and her childhood would be unquestioningly sacrificed as again part of the social norm.

Women migrants have traversed the globe to fill up the space created by the liberated women of developed countries. When such women join the male turf, less fortunate women are pushed into it. The loving care of women is missed by men and that is one reason behind the growth of the care industry all over the world.

There are various ways of looking at this. We should think of many possibilities. If anything changes, everything that can change also changes. The assumption of 'everything remaining the same' is also increasingly being challenged as unrealistic.

When educated women become liberated from their domestic chores, less fortunate sisters are stepping in and we need to accept it. The division of labour may no longer be based on gender but on economic status.Of course again I don't see any problem when two adults agree to enter into a contract voluntarily.

If I agree to work 18 hours a day and that is part of the contract that is fine. There was no coercion. If you don't like it, you have the option of not entering into the contract. Having entered into the contract and then to cry foul is not correct behaviour.

In fact, even the government does not have to step in every time such incidents come up. Every contract need not be coercion. It is important that contracts are honoured for the smooth functioning of the economy. Why we have so much of inequality is a different question. Some inequalities are necessary.