Women of the World

While glancing through the "Penguin Atlas" book I found it interesting that the author used a lot of color and pictures to clearly illustrate some of the inequalities between countries. For a visual learner, this book paints a perfect picture of differences between duties and rights of men and women around the world. While reading through the Unpaid Work section of the book, it was not a shock to me that women and girls work more hours each day doing unpaid work in the household then men and boys. This unequal work is usually done in the home and a personal and political struggle over gender roles. The charts illustrated minutes spent per day washing dishes, hours spent doing housework, and childcare are drastically different for women than men. The average hours spent per week fetching water was performed more by women, and girls under the age of 14yrs old than by men, and boys of the same age. I ask what are the roles of the men? According to the retirement time, men spend more time watching tv! In my own experience, while visiting Haiti during summer vacations I would notice more women and young girls collecting water, and men and boys either playing domino's, playing a sport or partially working. For all the tasks completed in the home by women it is fair to say women should make the decisions in the household. But unfortunately, machismo prohibits such a thing from existing.

The household decision-makers, according to a percentage of women who say their husband alone makes decisions on household spending are mostly done by men in different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa; beginning with 6% in Madagascar to 66% in Malawi. Lower percentages were seen from East Asia/Pacific through the Caribbean and North Africa. I was not shocked by this, I can now trace the origination of gender roles in my culture to the African Diaspora. This books clearly states why feminism is still important today and the drastic changes needed to be made in gender roles