The gender task balance
The aim is to enable everyone to become aware of gender stereotypes and to identify areas of activity in persona!, professional or public life on which it would seem interesting to work in order to enter into a process of equality and empowerment.
Distribute a double entry table to each participant with a «dedicated time/involvement» column and a «decision making» column. Ask each participant to fill in, line by line, the percentage of time considered dedicated to these different activities, on the one hand, by women or girls and, on the other hand, by men or boys.
lt is best to do this work individually to begin with. Then, at the end of the workshop, get your audience to share their opinion on the results obtained in this table.
The groups will pool informations which will increase their knowledge on the major trends in gendered activities, whetherthey are family, professional or public.
There are two ways of doing so : you can invite participants to share the results of their cards (this option works regularly with groups that know each other well), or you can do research, upstream, on the representation of women and men in the professions, in the political sphere, etc. There are sometimes studies that report on the distribution of domestic tasks.
The balance makes it possible to present the theory of the three roles in so far as it sheds light on the concept of the double or triple day, according to which women combine different raies (reproductive raie - family; productive raie or occupation and the community raie). Depending on the country, the balance can also be used to present the under-representation of women in certain economic sectors or occupations.
Finally, the column on decision-making allows us to talk about women’s economic dependence in certain contexts where access to an economic activity does not guarantee autonomy since they hand over their salaries to male family members.
lt is possible that among the participants, there may be people who do not fit into the trends presented because their family situation or occupation would be the opposite of the trends. Vou can draw on their experience to recall that inequalities between men and women are the result of social representations that evolve over time and according to societies or traditions.
A discussion can be initiated to reflect on solutions or processes to be implemented to overcome these inequalities.
Adapting the tool :
if you want ta highlight the idea that gender relations can change over time, you can invite some participants ta use their parents or grandparents as a mode/ for filling in the form.
This cana/sa be useful ta bring diversity ta a group that may be homogeneous (for example, of the same age or socio-professional category).
The Scale is a tool that makes it possible to visualize the distribution of tasks and workload by gender through the analysis of a panel of activities.