comment on “removing the creases in housework valuation" by faizan Mustafa in The Hindu

The author of the article, “removing the creases in housework valuation” (21.01.21  The Hindu)  Faizan Mustafa is right is stating that, payment of monthly salary to wives for their house works by husbands would result in employee and employer relationship with its consequences. In the past centuries even teacher’s services were considered as noble service rendered with dedication in the interest of improving their student’s knowledge level on many matters of importance. They were not paid salaries in money terms. But in recognition of their vital service to the student community, they were   paid honorariums in kind such as food grains or gold or land with which they could manage their lives. But ever since modern economies emerged even the teacher’s monthly salary was fixed after classifying them as primary secondary, college and research institutes teachers. Similarly even the economic or money value of the onerous of women in the home fronts can be fixed through some acceptable method. But, it can be given in the name as gift money or honorarium but, not as a fixed monthly salary, if we care about the feelings of women and at the same time care about giving  recognition to their hard work instead of calling them as non workers because of our failure to fix the money value of their home tasks.    

 

My article , "Onerous home work " Published in The Hindu on 29th november 2020

                              

                                             "Onerous  home work  "

“I am just a house wife” . These words you would have heard many times from women who do not have income earning activities. Such status is understood as unemployment status. When they utter these words they look as though they have an inner feeling that, they are not as powerful or as productive as the working women.  Is it true?  Let us analyse the truth behind it.

 Generally mothers perform seven responsibilities for the welfare of their families. These tasks are performed by Indian mothers without active cooperation of the male members of the family since; it is an accepted norm in the Indian culture. Hence, they are over burdened with these services without any rest, or holidays or retirement. Nevertheless, they render them with love, devotion and total dedication for the sake of welfare and happiness of their family members.

We may split those responsibilities   into, bearing and rearing of children , management of food preparation for the family all through the day, house hold work , health  issues, elder’s   and  guest’s requirements and festivals  preparations .   All these duties performed throughout their productive years are performed with perfection or near perfection depending on the mother’s efficiency, their own health status, the cooperation of the family members and the assistance of service providers. But they are the CEO of all these home management tasks involving meticulous planning of time, resources and manpower and hence, are described as home makers. It is not easy to manage these seven responsibilities as they look. Take for example, the food management skill, which has to be executed all through their life time perfectly.  The right quality, quantity, taste and serving food in the right time are to be taken care in the interest of the family member’s health. It is a lifelong duty of mothers without any holiday or retirement. How many mother’ service in this matter is recognised or appreciated   is a big question because, mothers are generally taken for granted. Imagine the chaos in a family if a mother is bedridden for a week. Only then, the family will learn not to take mothers for granted and under estimate the magnitude of the food management task.  Mothers can be called “super managers for this task alone.

 Same is the task of health and elder’s management since various sub tasks come under it. There are additional duties too if, a mother opts to teach her children without tuitions, opts to drive her car without driver and undertake financial management also. What about festival managements and guests management? Each responsibility related to home management  are to be executed with perfection .Single mothers have  to compensate for the absence of father figure  and have to be in charge of crises management too.   Working mothers have to struggle a lot in balancing the professional and home front tasks since, one can not suffer at the expense of the other.  They need extra ordinary time management skill.

 

All these responsibilities take a toll on women’s health due to various reasons.   Early rising and late to bed resulting in inadequate sleep, late food or hurried food resulting in their digestive disorders and lack of resting time resulting in their extreme tiredness and low productivity.    They are in the habit of trying home remedies first when they fall sick and report late to the doctors resulting in medical complications. Indian mothers generally are reluctant to involve men in household work and voluntarily bear all the responsibilities. Majority of mothers, do not even measure the amount of work they do for the welfare of the family. That is the reason the unemployed mothers say that, “we are just house wives” because their services are not measured in terms of money.  

The position of mothers during the current pandemic situation is indescribable. In a situation when all the members of the family stay in for the whole day, the work burden for the  mothers have doubled due to the constant need to full fill the demand of the family members regarding food all through the day and that when domestic assistants are stopped due to fear of   spread  of Corona virus. That means additional labor work for mothers. Division of work by family members does not prevail in many families. Hence the mothers are robbed of their one or two hours of leisure time or “I time enjoyed hitherto by them.   

Hence, all the mothers working or non working are all “super CEOs” of home front.  Most of the mothers consider the love, concern and care their children bestow on them is more valuable than awards given in the name of “women achievers” awards

  Hence, let them not say again that they are” just a house wives” but say with self confidence and pride that, they are “home management executives.”

Money value of housework

The article, “A nod to recognizing the value of housework”  by Kalpana Karunakaran (5.1.21 )has raised various issues connected with monetising house work. Giving respect the demands of  women activists at the global level ,from time to time , several attempts were made by the economists to measure house work’s money value. But those theories  propounded  were out rightly rejected due to practical difficulties and complications  involved in measuring house work. Women do not consider house work as “onerous of women”   and render them with love and devotion in the interest of their families welfare . Mutiple tasks  they render through out their life time without fixed time hours of work,  intervals , holidays,  retirement and bonus like factory workers . Yet,  they do it tirelessly for love and welfare of their families  which can never be measured monetarily.  They are proud of their ability to “manage” them ( 8 tasks) as far as possible. What they expect in  return  for their life long duties is recognition and appreciation of the family members and division of  labour  among the family members to reduce their burden. What nations can do to honour home makers is fixing yearly or monthly bonus or money gift as per the income level of  partners in life   through suitable laws . This would give them some sort of recognition to their selfless work  and financial  independence over such amounts paid on regular basis.

 

women farmers position aggervating feminisation of poverty

Thamizhachi  Thangapandiann the author of the article,  “don’t ignore women farmers,”(4.1.21 published in The Hindu )  has highlighted the effects of the three farm laws on agriculture sector  .  It is a fact that, most of the rural women in India are engaged in the agricultural sector as a laboures or owners. But Gender injustice prevails in the agricultural sector due to less number of women land owners i.e., (12. 8%) and hence, majority of them are not entitled for institutional support given by the government to the farm sector as the author says.   More over, women laborers are categorized as “marginal workers” and paid lesser than their male counterparts due to the availability only 187 days of work in a year to them and thus affected by wage discrimination too. It is also expected that even the existing women marginal land owners would be forced to sell their lands unable to face the pressures of new situation expected after the corporitation of the agricultural sector that would be the outcome of the new laws. All these factors would aggravate “feminization” of poverty in the rural areas and force them o to migrate to nearby cities.  Hence, we understand their fears about future which drives them to participate in the farmer’s protests. It is to be noticed that India figures among 20 countries in the world where the gender gap is the widest. According to the report of the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index 2019-2020 India holds 112^th rank index in the gender inequality index. These new farm laws would further worsen the gender equity position of India  

Farmers protest

Dipankar Gupta’s article ,” The farmer’s protest, truths  and half truths,”(25. 12.20) in The Hindu gives a clear picture on the justification and the unfairness of the approach of the government and the farmers respectively  to the news observers . But ,to what extent the small farmers would be willing to migrate to cities and towns by making use of contract farming is doubtful . Moreover, when majority of the farmers are poor , there is every justification for continuing subsidies , though the total subsidy in India  is higher .  Is not  the corporate sector   pampered with higher fiscal concessions and monetary support?  But how long the farmers are going to stay in Delhi against all odds and the Government   going to test their holding power? Mutual distrust between them would prevent any amicable and early solution to this problem .