The daily clock
A reflection activity tested by APEF as part of its men’s discussion circles.
APEF supports women in Bukavu in their socio-economic and political emancipation, through literacy training in Swahili and sewing-cutting training. APEF also offers them entrepreneurial and emancipatory training. Following these emancipatory training courses, the female learners approached APEF to suggest training courses for men : they felt that their fathers, husbands, brothers, etc. were not receptive to their feedback on the training they received, on themes such as gender and gender-based violence, the importance of civil marriage, inheritance, household income management, etc. With this in mind, APEF decided to set up non-mixed talking circles for husbands, fathers and guardians of APEF learners, to enable them to discuss these issues more freely, but also to raise their awareness on those issues.
This sheet presents the procedure for the third talking circle on gender-based inequalities in the distribution of tasks and workload. The first two talking circles proposed by APEF deal with representations of masculinity, and the place of men in society.
Modalities
Location : A place that is easily accessible and where it is convenient to organize a non-mixed meeting, where men like to get together (APEF offers its talking circles in a bar-café). A place where it’s feasible to sit in a circle.
Participants : A group of men (15 at APEF) and a facilitator.
Activity duration : 1 hour.
Objective of the talking circle : to raise awareness on positive masculinities through a non-mixed, open listening and speaking space, enabling men to talk about the problems they encounter in their daily lives, while being guided (by the facilitator) towards discussions related to gender and masculinities.
Objective of the activity : To visualize the distribution of tasks and workload according to gender.
General procedure : Despite the facilitator having a framework, a guideline to "follow" throughout the session, it’s important that men feel confident and free to speak on the subject that seems important to them. The facilitator’s goal is to steer the discussion towards positive masculinities in parallel. The facilitator first proposes to the participants a discussion on general issues they face daily, and then leads them to the reflection activity on masculinities.
How does this activity unfold ?
1st step : individual work
The facilitator asks to write down on paper the course of their day "describe everything you do on a normal working day as precisely and completely as possible from waking up to going to bed (complete 24 hours) indicating the hours/schedules.
Once you have done this for yourself, I propose you do the same exercise but reflecting on your wife’s day."
2nd step : Synthesis and collective reflection
Sharing of each representation. Possible to create a circular diagram for men and women in a summarized manner.
Once the sharing is done, the facilitator can ask the group :
- What emerges from this schematic synthesis ?
- Is there a difference between men’s and women’s daily clocks ?
- What can we learn from this ?
3rd step : conclusion by facilitator
This comparison can help understand who works the most, who does which activity, who has a greater variety of activities, who has the most free time or who sleeps the most, who takes care of the children the most, ... In general, we can observe that women have a double workload compared to men.
This discussion is also a way to ask men (a question that can be asked without men feeling obliged to answer out loud) : what tasks could they do to alleviate their wife’s workload ?
