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Stuck with ‘Office Housework’



A man who doesn’t help is 'busy'. A woman who doesn’t help is 'selfish.'

Anytime there is a party to plan at my office, food to share, water to serve, coffee to be made, desks and office machines to be cleaned, floor to be moped etc, everyone in the office looks at me.

I am a woman, and I am supposed to be used to these things? And when I refuse to do them, I am called lazy, selfish or ‘not a wife material’. Yes, ‘not a wife material’.

When I started work at my current office, I was informed the lady before me was doing the dishes among other ‘office housework’ which I found appalling. 

I was then informed by her (we are in the same church) that she was forced to do so in addition to her secretarial job. I found this very wrong.

After a while and some remarks, I realized I was expected to do same, but I could not be bothered. I refused to play the position of a housekeeper when I have been hired for another job.

I however did not fully get out of these chores because whenever there is a visitor, I am expected to be the one to ‘serve’ the person. No one cares if I am having lunch or I am on the phone, I have to stop whatever I am doing and perform this chore.

The visitor would be in a different department with capable men but no no. They are too manly to do these things so I have to.

It got me thinking about the statement “a woman’s place is in the kitchen”. Reality is, even at our various corporate jobs, many women still end up in the kitchen. 

Women end up doing dishes, cleaning fridges, and coffee making machines, washing napkins and running errands especially those in administrative roles.

It is gradually becoming a norm that four or five employees will be in an office, no one is expected to lift a finger to do the cleaning (not that there are no janitors), yet everyone, especially the men expect the woman to do the cleaning.

How fair is this? They want to keep us in the kitchen at home, and now we end up in the kitchen at the office?  


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  1. Efo Dela19 April 2016 at 08:58

    At my old job we had this problem. It was an Engineering firm and one of my team members was a lady and my boss would ask her to do chore stuff.
    At first we all complained then she just accepted doing it and it became a bit hard to complain.
    Sadly we accepted it as a norm

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    1. Sista Clinik22 April 2016 at 04:54

      At least you guys tried to change this situation.
      Sadly, most women believe that these kind of jobs are theirs to do.
      They do not want to be seen as "not a wife material".
      Rome was not built in a day.
      Hopefully, we will be able to educate many women to break from this way of thinking.

      Regards,
      Sista

      Delete

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