Lazy (?) women

Sonali Kulkarni's comments on women being lazy have taken the internet by storm and rightfully so. For those who are still unaware of what the comments were, she stated that modern Indian women wish for a well-earning, settled husband while giving no input in the household's finances. She even went on to call women ‘lazy’.

In this week's newsletter, I am going to give you my two cents on this issue. But I am not going to give you my opinions or take on the issue. All that I am going to do is list some facts and figures.

Let me first decode what social reproduction is. Social reproduction in simple terms is basically the reproduction and sustenance of society. It is based mainly on care work and unpaid household labour so that those engaged in paid labour can continue contributing to the economy.

With the beginning of capitalism, social reproduction activities were separated from economic production activities.?Women are relegated to being the second sex- the one responsible for social reproduction and limited only within the boundaries of the households and men become the main breadwinners- the head of the family who dominates the economy as well as domestic life. The reproductive activities and household work performed by women become unacknowledged and taken-for-granted activities as a part of their “duty” or “responsibility.”

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And most often, when people forget all the unpaid work that women put in, they come up with comments like "women are lazy."

Let us look at the abysmal female labour force participation that has nothing to do with women being lazy but patriarchal preconditioning and inequitable workplaces.

Currently, Female LFPR stands at 25%.

Studies have shown that Indian women’s employment-related decisions are shaped by considerations of providing caregiving to their children and balancing their preferences with familial expectations.

In a recent study, FSG interviewed 6,600 working-age women from low-income groups in 16 Indian cities. It discovered that women's ability to work outside the home is dictated by their family members, who prefer women working from home or starting a small business to devote more time to household tasks.

Women in the working age category of 15 to 60 years spend?7.2 hours?on unpaid domestic work compared to 2.8 hours spent by men, as per a recent IIM Ahmedabad study.

Wage-earning women spend twice the amount of time on unpaid domestic work in comparison to wage-earning men in fulfilling basic needs of the household such as cleaning, preparing meals and caregiving, as per the Time Use survey by NSSO.

In fact, the impacts of climate change are also compounded for women. They suffer more than their male counterparts. According to the?IPCC report, climate-related risks worsen gender inequalities, increasing the workload for women. In rural areas, women have to walk for longer distances and work for longer hours to collect water in the face of increasing water shortage and drought-related risks.

Are we still calling Indian women lazy? Or are we being ignorant of the needs of women and labelling them unnecessarily only because it fits our own agenda?

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