Supporting Men and Women to Share Unpaid Caring: The Most Powerful Way to Increase Women’s Economic Empowerment? Part 2- The Global South

As this session went on, it became inherently clear that many of the matters being discussed were only relevant for those living in the global north. Those living in the global south weren’t necessarily thinking about paternity leave when legislation was just starting to address safely incorporating women into the formal workforce, cycles of familial poverty, and maternity leave. Similarly, discussions surrounding the sharing of unpaid work change in the context of informal economies, which exist in both the global north and south, but are oftentimes less regulated in the global south. The third panelist was Gary Barker, the president and CEO of Promundo, an NGO based in Brazil that involves men and boys in gender equality advocacy. Mr. Barker’s perspective as a male from the global south diversified the conversation. In Brazil, women partake in unpaid care work three times as much as men. Legislation to address this has fallen flat because researchers haven’t yet been able to gather statistics on the state of fathers; those gathered are often attributed to chance and show no consistent patterns. If a man is not raised to participate in unpaid care work (i.e. watched their father take part) he is reluctant to take time off work, feels inadequate to perform such duties, and expects female partners to uphold social norms. Barker also mentioned the isolation and depression most men who take on unpaid care work experience, acknowledging the irony that society expects a woman to silently swallow this isolation and depression.

            The last panelist was Jillian Bartlett, General Secretary of the National Union of Government & Federated Workers of Trinidad and Tobago. I found Ms. Bartlett’s speaking points to be most enlightening concerning the global south. In Trinidad and Tobago, women participate in unpaid care work four times as much as men. However, Bartlett argues that this can be attributed to the fact that women are conditioned to think that men’s work is more important. Unpaid care work is intrinsically devalued; what value can there be in something that does not reap monetary reward? She goes on to argue that creating agencies such as trade unions to represent such women can provide safe spaces to destroy these perceptions. If we change the way society views unpaid care work (men are not babysitting when they agree to watch their children!) we invest in a future that focuses on sustainability rather than constructed gender differences.