Unbundling women's work

 #SDG5 

In addition to paid labour in the workplace, it is customary for women to be burdened with a large amount of unpaid labour in many of these categories:

Pregnancy and childbirth
Physical childcare - bathing, feeding, cuddling and so on
Earliest childhood education - before schooling

Nutrition and catering services / Food and beverage handling
Bed-and-breakfast (hospitality) management for family and guests
Home care and facilities management

Personal grooming and fashion duties
Laundry, grooming, and related duties for spouse, children, others 
Public relations officer and relationship manager to teachers, extended family, and friends
Public appearance duties

Partnership towards external projects or goals
Counseling for spouse
Companionship for spouse
Entertainment and leisure

Emotional labour and relationship maintenance
Physical wellness and personal care
Bedmatics and sexytime work 

Nursing and healthcare services
Primary parent and child-handler for about twenty years
Shopper, Driver, Nanny, miscellaneous
Chief Operating Officer position in some busy homes, with or without a Chief Executive Officer 

Not every woman will attempt to do all of these things, and most women could find better things to do instead.  Some men could find fresh opportunities in so-called women's work.
 
I can see many of these jobs being unbundled into expert industries and fields:  catering services, life-counseling, spa services, co-living and managed housing, personal shoppers, health, entertainment, childcare, elder-care, concierge, cleaning, fashion, and so on.       

Some people, male and female, may be better off specializing in one or two or maybe three areas at most, and not try to be "superwoman" who is poorly compensated, and society may find itself better for it. 
Some people may relish the combined role, the traditional 'wife and mother' role.  For those who do it, male or female they may be, and still manage to do it all very well, I hope they can be very well compensated.

The current situation is that many women do their best with this combined homemaker role and are not well compensated for it at all, then they combine this with doing their best in an external job role, and there they are also less well compensated for their work than men doing the same work.

We say we appreciate women as individuals and citizens, or women as wives and mothers, or women as friends and lovers, or women as leaders and workers, but as a society we cheat them and leave them tired AND broke.   

There is nothing romantic about female poverty.  It's time to change. 

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