Did you know that women in Canada spend more than double the amount of time caring for their children than do men? In 2010 they devoted 1,336 hours more than their male counterparts to the task of unpaid childcare.
They also spend more time cleaning house. In 2010 women spent an average of 13.8 hours per week performing domestic chores, while men spent 8.3 hours. That’s 286 hours that women lost to unpaid menial labour. Taken together, childcare and household chores accounted for 1,622 hours of a woman’s life on average in 2010. That’s the equivalent for each woman of over 31 hours, just shy of a full-time job.
Plus, the wage discrepancy remains unresolved, with men earning more money and being employed full-time more often, despite more women earning bachelor’s degrees than men. Women comprised only 37.4% of lower-level managers and 31.6% of senior managers in 2009.
And the media–T.V. shows, films, advertisements, etc.–encourage the imbalance to remain by perpetuating stereotypes. Advertisements were assessed based on their portrayal of women and men during a peer-reviewed (i.e. legitimate) study. The authors reached the following conclusions:
“… advertisements do not depict how men and women actually behave; rather, they serve the social purpose of convincing us that this is how women and men are, want to be, or should be. Such an orientation accomplishes the task a society has of maintaining order. [The authors of this study found that]: (1) a woman is taller than a man only when the man is her social inferior; (2) a woman’s hands are seen just barely touching or caressing–never grasping or manipulating; (3) when a photograph illustrates instruction, the man is always instructing the woman; (4) when an advertisement requires someone to sit or lie on a bed, the person is almost always a woman or child… Also, the author makes a connection between the image of women and the behavior of children. Women are often posed acting and looking like children. Finally, the author points out that whatever a man is wearing in an advertisement, he wears seriously, whereas whatever woman is wearing appears as a costume.”
Resources:
Women in Canada at a Glance: Statistical Highlights
