Listen to this audio file and answer the questions.

1. Fill in the blanks.

   Ana who is originally from Finland and now living in Hackney, London says that she has been living with her ———————————– (fiancé, parents, siblings). She is ——————— years old. She says that —————– (her fiancé, she) does most of the housework. Her fiancé does about ———————- (30%, 70 %) of the work.

2. Underline/Circle/chose the statement which is true.
   1. Which statement is true?
      1. Ana and her fiancé does not fight at all.
      2. Ana and her fiancé fight because they don’t like one another.
      3. Ana and her fiancé fight only because of housework.
   2. Which statement is true?

      1. Ana goes to work, eats food, watches the TV and then go to bed.

      2. Ana works, go to gym, cooks food, cleans the dishes, watches the TV for one hours and collapses in bed.

   3. Which statement is true?
      1. While Ana is cooking food, her fiance cleans the floor.
      2. While Ana is doing the chores, her husband is sitting the babies.
      3. While Ana is doing the dishes and cooking food, her fiance is either on social media on his mobile phone or is watching football.
   4. 1.  
3. Answer the following questions using complete sentences.

   1. How many minutes per week women spend on housework? 

   2. How many minutes per week men spend on housework?
4. Explain the following words/expressions by making a sentences.
   1. Scrub the floors down with bleach
   2. Implicit and explicit division of labour
   3. To have structure around things.
   4. To hung on gender roles
   5. Division of labour based on gender differences
   6. women infiltrate the work place
   7. Take the role of the breadwinner
   8. She found herself facing the reality that ….
   9. window-cleaning
   10. clean the fire-place
   11. clean the fish tanks
   12. Dust the surfaces
   13. do the laundry
   14. do the floors
   15. floor-cleaning
   16. ironing
   17. take the rubbish out
5. One reason for the skewed division of labour at home is because men and women continued to be socialized differently. Do you agree? Why or why not? Discuss. How each person’s upbringing can cement or challenge these stereotypes. Are we destined to carry these ideas with us?
6. Who does the most housework in your house? Do you work evenly or do you work more than your partner?
7. A girl from Romania has has come up with an original solution to the problem. She charges her boyfriend for her cleaning services. She started charging her boyfriend 10 Euro per hour two years ago but recently she has raised the rate to 12 Euro per hour. Moreover, she can decide how much cleaning her boyfriend gets as no negotiations were made regarding the extent of cleaning to be done. Do you think that the responsibility is worth the money? Why did she accept this responsibility? What reasons does she mention in the tape?
8. Mark, 58, lives in the South of London with his teenage child and his wife who works on a full time job. The arrangement that Mark has made is that he works full time at home, five days a week.

   How did Mark strike the deal?

9. Mark’s wife bring home the bacon and Mark runs the house.

   What is meant by bringing home the bacon?

    

   What is meant by running the house?

10. Mark suggested to his wife that they should swap the conventional roles.

    What is meant by swapping roles?

    What conventional roles did they swap? What is meant by conventional roles?

    1. Mark suggested to his wife that they should swap the conventional roles. She should bring home the bacon and he would run the house. As a result, he got self-respect because he was not contributing anything when he was searching for job but not doing the housework. Mark says, “I enjoy supporting the other members of the family and keeping the show on the road”.

        

       How did Mark get self-respect?

       What is meant by keeping the show on the road?

       How will Mark’s non-traditional role affect how his children see the world?

11. Are we somehow socialized to incorporate certain gender specific roles when it comes to housework? Can we tell how much of our perception of women as the primary homemaker is socially learned? What is your personal opinion about these statements?
12. To what extent does the cultural background of the two life partners determine the division of labour?