July
21, 2000
AP News
MEXICO CITY -- Banging
spoons against pots, hundreds of women marched down a main boulevard
in Mexico City on Friday to demand men share domestic chores and to
publicize a one-day household work stoppage.
The protesters -- maids,
farmers, housewives and professional workers -- demanded the
government ban sexist depictions of "women's work'' from textbooks,
and calculate the value of household work into in official economic
figures.
"No woman should lift a finger on July 22,'' said Dunia Rodriguez
Garcia, one of the organizers of the march and Saturday's work
stoppage. Rodriguez Garcia did not offer an estimate on how many
women would take part in the strike, first held in 1999.
July 22 was designated International Housework Day by the 1995
U.N. international women's conference in Beijing A few men showed up at the march carrying placards reading "I'm
ready to share the housework.''
"I help my girlfriend with the chores,'' said Luis Cela de la
Vega, a 30-year-old retail employee. "This idea that men don't have
to work in the house is a very deep-rooted.''
"We have to work in the fields, work another job to make ends
meet, and then come home and do everything at home,'' said Blanca
Reina, who farms potatoes and alfalfa in Milpa Alta, one of Mexico
City's few rural precincts.
"Our husbands only work one job, and they don't bring home much
money from it,'' said Reina. "But they have the right to relax,
while we don't have the right to feel tired.''
Studies by Mexico City's Program for Equal Participation of Women
have shown Mexican men are among the least likely to do housework
among Latin American countries, although an increasing percentage of
Mexican women work outside the home.
For the estimated 1.7 million maids who work in Mexico City
homes, respect for housework is also a class issue.
"There are a lot of disrespectful names used for maids, so we
consulted our members and decided they should be called 'home
employees','' said Gaudencia Valdez, of La Esperanza, a maids'
association.
"Home employees don't get health care, benefits, or vacation,''
Valdez said. "Our work must be recognized as being equal to any
other kind of job.''
