Women and their ‘double burden’

The “double burden” was a term that came into fashion in the early years of the modern feminist movement. It referred to the challenges that confronted women who sought to thrive in both the private and public spheres of life.

Sometimes also called the “productive/reproductive divide,” it referred to the onus borne by women who sought to participate in and contribute to social endeavors — such as engaging in productive work like farming, employment, and civic and political engagement — even as they still largely faced the responsibilities of “reproductive” work, such as birthing and being responsible for the raising of children, looking after domestic concerns, and caring for one’s life partner.

While the term “double burden” came into vogue in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, it seems its realities continue to haunt women to this day.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been tracking the progress made in rectifying gender inequality and the latest findings can only be a cause of dismay for women — and some men — worldwide. Findings of a research by the UNDP released on Monday reveal that progress against gender inequality has remained stagnant for the last decade. “Cultural biases and pressures,” a Reuters report states, “continue to hinder women’s empowerment and leave the world unlikely to meet the UN’s (United Nations) goal of gender parity by 2030.”Although global conversations about women’s rights and the need to address gender disparity and violence against women have lately dominated media content, and “despite a surge in women’s rights groups and social movements like ‘Times Up’ and ‘MeToo,’ … biased social norms and a broader human development crisis heightened by COVID-19, when many women lost their income, have stalled progress on inequality,” the report said.

Using data from the international research program World Values Survey, the study found that “almost nine out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women and that the share of people with at least one bias has barely changed over the decade.”

Heriberto Tapia, research and strategic partnership adviser at UNDP and coauthor of the report, said the degree of improvement over time was “disappointing’’, with the share of people with at least one degree of bias decreasing minimally, to 84.6 percent from 86.9 percent, in 30 of the surveyed countries.

Moreover, the report said that nearly half of the world’s people think that men make better political leaders, while 43 percent think men are better business executives.“We need to change the gender biases, the social norms, but the ultimate goal is to change the power relations between women and men, between people,” said Aroa Santiago, gender specialist in inclusive economies at UNDP. Neither do oft-held solutions, such as access to education, offer the “silver bullet” to bring gender inequality to an end. There is still an “education gap” between education and income, with the average income gap at 39 percent even in the 59 countries where adult women are more educated than men.

Even more alarming is that people’s views on violence against women remain mired in age-old attitudes. More than one out of every four people believe that it is justified for a man to beat his wife or partner.

This litany of women’s woes continues. A MindNation survey participated in by 15,000 employees revealed that about seven in 10 women face more difficulties in achieving a balance between work and personal life compared to their male counterparts. Exactly 45 percent of female employees reported struggling with depression, anxiety, and emptiness, while 77 percent experience significantly more difficulties to achieve work-life balance compared to their male counterparts. Thirty-eight percent said that mental health challenges, particularly stress, affect their productivity at work. They reported losing an average of 15.5 hours a week due to mental health concerns.

Clearly, the nation, particularly policymakers and employers, can no longer ignore the mental and physical difficulties, not to mention the income disparities and attitudinal biases, confronting women workers. The government, saddled as it is by the pressing economic and social needs, must review its progress, or lack of it, on the implementation of the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment 2019-2025 which outlines actions needed to achieve the goal of improving the lives and status of Filipino women. The Philippine Commission on Women should prod policymakers not to neglect this important commitment. Women, after all, are the nation’s caregivers, eking out time even after a long day’s work, to look after their families and care for the ailing and aged. We let women bear the onus of the “double burden” at the expense of their individual welfare, the health of the family, and the wellness of the nation at large.