Editor's Blog: Domestic powerhouses

It is a well known fact that despite a sea change in attitudes towards responsibilities at home, women still continue to carry the lion's share of the burden when it comes to parenting, household duties and the care of the elderly.

No, this is not a moan. It is a reaffirmation of a universal ground reality, because time-honoured habits are extremely hard to dissipate.

The good news is that in the developing world, there has been a time-honoured tradition of domestic help. Nanny, cook, cleaner, laundrywoman, gardener…. All these have been available to educated, working middle class women in the southern hemisphere for centuries and continue to be available, even though the tradition of domestic service in the northern hemisphere collapsed about a hundred years ago.

Those of you who have looked at the culture of domestic help with shock and awe, should pause for a few minutes and consider the realities of these so-called privileged women.

Unlike their northern counterparts, these women do not get social welfare payments to be stay-at-home mums and the social stigma of packing off elderly parents to homes for the aged almost always provokes shame and embarrassment.

Further, many of these women are better educated and qualified than their spouses and more often than not a dual income household becomes imperative when the cost of living rises so high it becomes impossible to maintain a quality life.

Also, when recession hits, it is mostly men who bear the brunt of redundancies and layoffs and women are then forced to pick up the slack. Men also stay unemployed longer after they are laid off, forcing women to become the sole family breadwinner.

In the absence of social welfare, the double-edged positive advantage for men and women with little or no education and skills is that because service in the household is affordable to the middle class, there is money in circulation which goes toward keeping them gainfully employed and keeping their families from becoming destitute.

The UAE is quite unique in that while family culture may keep Emirati women from joining the workforce in droves, the groundwork for their full participation has already been laid with equal opportunities, equal pay, legal status, access to education and the right to work.

And, while thousands of highly educated female Emiratis have heard and acted on the clarion call to join the workforce, it is now up to them to chip away at the stigma surrounding work outside the home by mentoring their hesitant sisters so that they too can participate in the building of their nation.

In the countdown to International Women's Day on March 8, my wishes go out to all working women at home or at the office, who I believe work hard, conscientiously and consistently to provide for their families or supplement the income of their fathers or spouses.

It does not matter what hemisphere you come from, the fact remains that strong, successful women make for strong, successful families and in turn very strong, successful countries. Remember however, that you don't have to be burdened with all the responsibility. If you need help, get over your pride and seek it.