When women have to choose between caregiving and a career, they are expected to choose the former, not just in our country but worldwide. This means that women are still not able to participate in the economy at the same rate as men. Research on gender parity has found that if women participated in the economy at the same rate as men, the global gross domestic product (GDP) could increase by $28 trillion by 2025.
And why are women not participating in the economy as much as they should? Because the caregiving expectations our society dumps on them don’t leave much time for personal growth.
We want women to be superwomen, to be supermoms and also career divas. Unfortunately, they are all mutually exclusive, which is why there is an urgent need to debunk four myths that have made women slaves to the superwoman syndrome. Hopefully, debunking these myths will help women explore their potential as equal human beings.
What are these myths?
1. Women are better at caring
No, sir. Caring is not a gift of the vagina. This is just another stereotype. A study published in the Journal of Applied Gerontology in 2018 found that there were no significant differences in the caregiving experiences of men and women and that both genders reported similar levels of satisfaction with their caregiving role.
When it comes to paid caregivers, there are more women than men in this field globally. According to the data from the International Labour Organisation, women account for 67% of health and care workers globally but earn, on average, 24% less than male workers.
Much of this gap is unexplained but possibly exists due to discrimination against women. For instance, the nursing agency from where we hired my father’s attendants paid their female attendants (who live with the family) Rs 10,000 per month while male attendants were paid Rs 12,000 for eight hours (a day per month). But here’s the thing: Both his male and female attendants were equally competent.
I thought about why the women were paid less than the men— possibly because when women work as caregivers, it’s looked upon as an extension of their role at home and not a skill, but when men work in caregiving, it is a skill.
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As we know, women are not born with special caregiving genes. If you socialise men from a young age about caregiving, they can be good caregivers too. They do a great job when they get paid for it, don’t they?
2. Women are better cooks
Cooking is a life skill like no other—human beings have to survive to work and in order to work, they must be properly nourished. When the Industrial Revolution happened (1760–1840), it was decided that it was men who were more suited to work in the factories, doing the heavy lifting, etc, and women were relegated to being the nurturers.
Luckily, this is not the eighteenth century any more and we have come a long way from those gender stereotypes. Today, women are also vying for traditionally male-dominated jobs in factories and elsewhere.
So, isn’t it time to bust this myth? Cooking is a life skill. You do it enough times, you are exposed to it enough times and you learn. There is no significant difference in the ability of men and women to cook, and there are numerous examples of male chefs who are just as skilled and accomplished as their female counterparts. Do men and women have different cooking styles? Generally speaking, yes.
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Often, women have been raised to be good at household tasks, which include cooking and cleaning. So, while everyone has their own unique way of cooking, shaped by personal tastes and social influences, these differences don’t really affect how much we enjoy cooking or the dishes we make.
There are typical ways men and women approach cooking— men might show off a bit more and take pride in their cooking, while women might be quietly confident since cooking is often a routine task for them.
At the end of the day, cooking is a basic skill everyone should know, and that includes cleaning up afterwards. So when we teach our boys to cook, let’s make sure they learn to tidy up too. It’s all part of the process. And if women were better cooks than men, then we wouldn’t have so many talented male chefs who have achieved global recognition for their culinary skills.
Jamie Oliver from the UK and Vikas Khanna, Ranveer Brar and Sanjeev Kapoor from India, are just a few examples of male chefs who have received numerous awards and accolades for their innovative and outstanding cuisine.
3. Women have more patience
Women have as much or less patience than men. There have been various studies conducted on gender differences in patience and their findings are inconclusive as to whether one gender has more patience than the other.
A study published in the Journal of Economic Psychology in 2010 found that men and women had similar levels of patience in a delay discounting task (a psychological test used to study an individual’s preference for smaller immediate rewards versus larger delayed rewards. This task is often used in research to understand decision-making processes, particularly in the context of self-control and impulsivity), which measures the ability to delay gratification.
A study titled ‘Gender Differences in Time Preferences’ published in 2014 found that women were more patient than men in certain situations, such as waiting for a larger reward, but that there were no overall differences. Gender is just one of many factors that can influence an individual’s level of patience.
4. Women can multitask
Women can multitask. As can men. The belief that women are inherently better at multitasking is a common stereotype, but it is not supported by evidence from recent studies and reports.
In fact, several studies have found that multitasking can be detrimental to productivity and cognitive performance regardless of gender. For example, a 2019 study, ‘Multicosts of Multitasking’, found that multitasking, or trying to do several things at once, actually makes our brains work much harder than we might think.
When we multitask, our brain isn’t really doing everything at once. Instead, it’s quickly switching back and forth between different tasks. This constant switching is tough on the parts of our brain that help us focus and manage what we’re doing. While our brains try to keep up with all this switching, multitasking often means we don’t do any of the tasks as well as we could if we focused on them one at a time. So, even though it might feel like we’re getting more done, multitasking can actually make things harder and less efficient.
Moreover, a recent study published in BMC Psychology, ‘Are women better than men at multi- tasking?’ found that there were no significant gender differences when it came to multitasking abilities.
While it is true that women may have more experience juggling multiple responsibilities, such as work and caregiving, it does not necessarily mean they are better multitaskers. In fact, research has shown that attempting to multitask can lead to increased stress and decreased well-being, which can have negative impacts on both men and women.
5. This is all ‘women’s work’
There is one bigger myth that looms over all these myths—that all of the above is ‘women’s work’ and men are not good at them.
We are in 2024, where equality should no longer be a hard concept to grasp. Yes, men are socialised to treat caregiving and housework as ‘feminine jobs’, but they also will have to catch up on their emotional intelligence if they want to stay in the game. This means sharing caregiving in its entirety—because while caregiving is not the only criterion to develop emotional intelligence, it certainly contributes to it.
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In today’s world of social media and information overload, it should not be difficult for women to unlearn biases and learn to value themselves more. At a recent talk at IIM [Indian Institute of Management] Ahmedabad, I asked a room full of students if they envisioned a future where their wives worked and, together, they sustained a healthy, happy and prosperous lifestyle. The answer was a firm yes.
But when I asked if they also envisioned a future where both contributed equally to caregiving—including sharing the cognitive and emotional load—there were a few nods amid what was mostly an unsure silence.
The answer was right there in the uneasy silence in that room. Even if they couldn’t explain the discomfort they were feeling, it had already taken hold—men can unlearn the socialisation that they are not good at housekeeping if women can unlearn the belief that they cannot be breadwinners. It is high time men realise the superpower of emotional intelligence.
Unlearn that a wife is not another pair of hands to help a mother with housework, or if you live alone, to clean and cook for you. Lend a hand at home. Learn to recognise the signs of overwork in your partner. If she’s harried, irritable, always tired and quieter than usual, it should not take much to understand that she is overworked. Often, she herself wouldn’t understand that she is overworked. Tell her she is overworked. Try and help her. Don’t sweep it under the carpet as ‘women’s problems’ or hormones.
Images: TOI+/AI
Excerpted with permission from “How Not to Be a Superwoman: A Handbook For Women to Survive the Patriarchy” (published by Penguin India)