Decent Work Campaign 2022: A Brief History of Gendered and Domestic Work

7 March 2022

Around the world, domestic chores like cooking, cleaning, and childcare have always been designated as tasks for women. The ability to perform such tasks is seen as innate to women, and domestic work is therefore not considered deserving of strong labour protections. This means that migrant domestic workers (MDWs), who perform such work, are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. There is a pressing need to dismantle the dominant gendered ideas surrounding such work. In this two-part article, we aim to discuss the gendered nature of domestic work, and how it impacts labour protections for domestic workers. We also offer potential strategies, such as greater inclusion of, and protection for, MDWs in Singapore’s labour laws, to counter the lack of protections they currently face. 

A study carried out by Ipsos and United Women Singapore in November 2020 of 500 married Singaporeans, found that women bear most of the burden of housework and childcare/eldercare. Moreover, 43% of women surveyed said that they were the ones in their family who carried out most of the housework and childcare in their homes, whereas only 24% of men surveyed believed that women did the majority of housework and childcare. In the United States, a January 2020 Gallup poll found that women carry out a majority of the domestic duties within a family. According to the BBC, as of March 2020, 79% of women do housework for at least one hour a day compared to 34% of men. A 2021 government advertisement advising the UK public to stay at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, created a public outcry for its depictions of domestic work. In the advertisement, only female figures were depicted as mopping, homeschooling and ironing, while the sole male figure in the ad lounges on a sofa. The advertisement was retracted soon after being published, but it is telling of the dominant perceptions of domestic work. These surveys, figures and advertisements show that women appear to be expected to do domestic work, and that it has been traditionally and continues to be seen as women’s work. 

Why do societies all over the world assume that housework is women’s work? To answer that question, we need to look to the past, to the time of the Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution, both productive labour (work that generates income) and reproductive labour (work that supports and socially reproduces the current and future workforce), were carried out in the private sphere, or the home. An example of productive labour is farming because it yields an income, whereas cleaning, feeding and caring for all members of the family was considered reproductive labour. This changed as the Industrial Revolution took place. Productive/wage-earning work moved outside the house to places like factories, large-scale farms and mills. Family production, like the work which took place on family-run farms, was replaced by market production. For example, industrialists paid workers a wage to work in factories or mines and produce products for them rather than families producing their own goods. As this process unfolded, new distinctions were made between women’s and men’s work. Men were to engage in paid work and women were to carry out the unpaid work of maintaining the house and the family. 

As the roles of women and men became divided into inside the house and outside the house, generations that followed were taught to follow such a division. Over time, this division came to be seen as innate human behaviour. How exactly did that happen? To understand why housework came to be seen as natural for women, we need to first understand the role that gender socialisation plays in creating the appearance of naturalness. According to sociologists Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman, all behaviours that we consider a natural byproduct of gender are in fact caused by socialisation. That is, gendered behaviours are created and reinforced through social interactions where people police each other to make sure they fit into socially accepted gendered behaviours. This means that gendered behaviours are learnt, and not natural or inherent. For example, a girl learns that domestic work will be her responsibility by watching and mirroring what she sees at home. If we apply this theory to housework, we can see that the Industrial Revolution created a division of labour between men and women, and once housework became established as women’s work it was reinforced by people’s actions and over time and many generations housework came to be seen as feminine work and waged work came to be seen as masculine. 

It is important to note that associating domestic labour with “feminine” traits detracts from the fact that domestic work is labour that is fundamental for a functioning society. Cleaning, feeding and caring for both children and the elderly are crucial tasks that must be done over and over again, but their financial value is often not quantified in our economic institutions. For many women, performing domestic work is part and parcel of motherhood. Because the two go hand in hand, it is assumed that women perform domestic work voluntarily without needing any financial compensation for it. The assumption that domestic work is a natural skill possessed by women, results in its devaluation, and removes the need to accord it the same labour protections given to other forms of work.  

In the next part of this article, we look at how perceptions of domestic work have affected labour policies and protections as regards MDWs in Singapore, and the ways in which we can de-gender domestic work in Singapore, and strengthen labour protections for them. 

This is part one of a two-part article on gender and domestic work. For part two of the article, click here.

Photo: The Pride

Resources:
Ipsos. 2021. Singapore Women Are Doing More Unpaid Domestic & Care Work Than the Men Think They Are. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/en-sg/singapore-women-are-doing-more-unpaid-domestic-care-work-men-think-they-are. Accessed 05 February 2022.

Brennan, M. 2020. Women Still Handle Main Household Tasks in U.S. Available at: https://news.gallup.com/poll/283979/women-handle-main-household-tasks.aspx. Accessed 04 February 2022.

Savage, M. 2020. Beyond the 9-to-5: How Sweden is Fixing the Housework Gender Gap. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200303-how-sweden-is-fixing-the-housework-gender-gap. Accessed 05 February 2022.

Topping, A. 2021. No 10 Pulls ‘Sexist’ Covid Ad Showing All Chores Done by Women. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/28/no-10-pulls-sexist-covid-ad-showing-all-chores-done-by-women. Accessed 05 February 2022.

Padavic, I. & Reskin, B. 2002. Women and Men at Work. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Kane, E. 2012. The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls. New York, NY: New York University Press.

West, C. & Zimmerman, D.H. 1987. Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1(2), pp. 125–151.

Kisner, J. 2021. The Future of Work: The Lockdown Showed How the Economy Exploits Women. She Already Knew. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/magazine/waged-housework.html. Accessed 05 February 2022.