Gender equality in housework among professional ...

Gender, Place & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography

ISSN: 0966-369X (Print) 1360-0524 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgpc20

Gender equality in housework among professional Filipinas in Melbourne: painfully slow and illusory? Cirila P. Limpangog To cite this article: Cirila P. Limpangog (2016): Gender equality in housework among professional Filipinas in Melbourne: painfully slow and illusory?, Gender, Place & Culture, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136808 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136808

Published online: 28 Jan 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cgpc20 Download by: [Cirila Limpangog]

Date: 29 January 2016, At: 01:08

Gender, Place and Culture, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136808

Gender equality in housework among professional Filipinas in Melbourne: painfully slow and illusory? Cirila P. Limpangog School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

ARTICLE HISTORY

Downloaded by [Cirila Limpangog] at 01:08 29 January 2016

ABSTRACT

This article analyses how professional Filipinas in Melbourne negotiate housework with their partners in the absence of the domestic workers they were accustomed to in the Philippines. To some extent, the absence of maids revealed the informants’ escape from classism and sexism. I argue that as a result of the women’s persistent strategising, household work division did eventually become more egalitarian although variously insufficient to be able to relieve them from extreme stress. The women’s ambitions and career demands were important drivers in renegotiating the domestic realm. Yet the slow change towards gender egalitarianism is seen as a response to changed circumstances rather than to commitment to ideals of gender equity.

Igualdad de género en el trabajo hogareño entre profesionales filipinas en Melbourne: ¿extremadamente lenta e ilusa? RESUMEN

Este artículo analiza cómo las profesionales filipinas en Melbourne negocian el trabajo del hogar con sus parejas en la ausencia de las trabajadoras domésticas a las que estaban acostumbradas en Filipinas. Hasta cierto punto, la ausencia de mucamas reveló la huida de las informantes del clasismo y el sexismo. Sostengo que como resultado de la estrategización persistente de las mujeres, la división de trabajo del hogar se volvió eventualmente más igualitaria aunque variadamente insuficiente para ser capaz de liberarlas del estrés extremo. Las ambiciones y las demandas de las carreras de las mujeres fueron importantes motores en la renegociación del ámbito doméstico. Sin embargo, el lento cambio hacia la igualdad de género es visto como una respuesta a las nuevas circunstancias más que un compromiso con los ideales de la igualdad de género.

墨尔本中的菲律宾专业人士的家户工作性别平等：痛苦缓慢且虚幻不实？摘要

本文分析居住于墨尔本的菲律宾专业人士，如何在缺乏他们在菲律宾习以为常的家庭帮佣的协助之下，与其伴侣协商家庭工作。就某种程

CONTACT Cirila P. Limpangog © 2016 Taylor & Francis

[email protected]

Received 7 September 2014 Accepted 6 October 2015 KEYWORDS

Household division of labour; gender and skilled migration; Filipina migrants; cultural identity; gender relations; intersectionality PALABRAS CLAVE

división del trabajo del hogar; migración de género y capacitada; migrantes filipinas; identidad cultural; relaciones de género; interseccionalidad 关键词

家户劳动分工; 性别与技术移民; 菲律宾移民; 文化认同; 性别关係; 相互交织性

2

C. P. Limpangog

度而言，缺少家庭帮佣，揭露出受访者逃离了阶级与性别歧视。我主张，由于女性持续不懈的策略化，导致家户工作分工最终的确变得更为平等，儘管在多方面仍不足以将其自极端的压力中释放出来。女性的抱负和事业需求，是再协商家户领域的重要驱力。然而迈向性别平等主义的缓慢变革，则被视为对改变后的境况之回应，而非对于性别平等理想的承诺。


Introduction It is by now axiomatic to suggest that gender, culture and the family household are mutually constitutive. This article attempts to unmask a particular and concealed aspect of this axiom. It considers gender inequality in the informants’ households, and strategies they pursued to reconfigure domestic work arrangements after migration. These issues unfold through questioning how these professional Filipinas cope with the daily grind and mounting stress of paid and reproductive work in the absence of the domestic helpers they once enjoyed as middle-class professionals in the Philippines. Through an intersectional analysis of gender, culture and class, I argue that the migration process unmasks patriarchy and embeds professional women as the principal labourers of the domestic sphere. I further argue that women’s persistent strategising especially forthright negotiation with their spouse, improved their situation over time, but such small pockets of success can only be sustained with increased social support and men’s elevation of role from helper to co-principal in housework.

Method This article is based on one of the major findings in my PhD thesis that focuses on the various identity disruptions and reconfigurations of professional Filipinas who migrated to Melbourne, Australia. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, I conducted in-depth interviews with 20 professional women recruited through snowballing, in 2006–2008. I use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. While it is widely accepted that Filipinos leaving the homeland are generally highly educated and had careers prior their migration, my definition of professional here is limited to those who achieved tertiary education and were employed in white collar jobs, as this is the cohort of Filipinos I believe is under-studied. In a milieu where the term Filipina was co-terminus with mail-order bride (Saroca 2007) in Australia, I sought to provide voice to these women whose migrations were prompted by diverse reasons including middle-class maintenance, more liberating quality of life and pursuance of an alternative lifestyle (Limpangog 2013). To validate the results, I undertook participant observation, attended meetings in Filipino community associations, conducted informal interviews with community leaders, and reviewed the literature. In accordance with grounded theory (Glaser and Anselm 1967), I analysed the data and categorised the themes as these emerged. I analysed the informants’ stories through the intersectional lenses of gender, class and culture. Originally coined by legal scholar Crenshaw (1991), intersectionality urges us to analyse the converging vectors, of gender and race, and then with other social categories. People’s lived experiences become the starting point of this multidimensional enquiry on their differential access to power and deployment of agency. Like Crenshaw, I see the various shades of violence, oppression and marginalisation of women as products of sexism and racism, but I also recognise their capacity and their environment to challenge oppressive structures and gain egalitarianism. Following Patricia Hill Collin’s theory of matrix of domination (1990), I view informants as occupying diverse degrees of marginalisation being female, Asian immigrant and with a non-English-speaking background despite their assertions of having above-average English capability; and privilege mainly due to their high levels of education that translate to careers. While this article focuses more on the household level, I acknowledge the interlocking forces at the individual, familial, institutional and societal streams of gender and race vectors that fortify what Purkayastha (2005) calls the skilled migrant women’s cumulative disadvantage. It is cumulative


Gender, Place and Culture

3

because despite (Indian) women’s high educational attainment, work experience prior to migration (to the US) and their husbands’ willingness to support rebuilding their careers, they experience long-term disadvantages primarily because of carework, made worse by the economic and political imperatives that conditioned their migration. I also appreciate intersectionality as taking place within a transnational context, where the social categories of gender, race and class as influencing women’s identities, as well as the hierarchical structures that they negotiate with in local, national and transnational spheres (Anthias 2012). Valentine (2007, 19) emphasises that ‘space and identities are co-implicated’, in the lived experience. This means that the women’s migration to Australia and their reenactment of domestic work produces new – and at the same time, continue, albeit modified forms of, power inequality and social exclusion. Rodó-de-Zárate (2014) uses relief maps to illustrate places of oppression, controversial intersections, neutral places and those of relief in spaces that are otherwise only occupying a singular power relation. In this research, I am particularly interested in how identities get reinforced, challenged and changed through women’s interaction with the household oppressive forces. Like Valentine (2007) and Rodo-de-Zarate (2014), I believe that power relations shift in various moments of the women’s lived experience in Australia, but I am also aware that the interviews may not capture the nuances of the gradation of power relations. What I see and analyse here, however, are those significant moments of resistance that facilitated or continued to curtail gender equality in housework. By applying reflexivity, I strove to comprehend the women’s meaning and purpose – away from the caricatures they have been represented with by the dominant groups. Andersen (1993, 42–43) suggests that while minority scholars have the privilege of accessing trust and comprehension of cultural ways of the subjects, they are constantly faced with self-criticism to ensure authenticity of their own voice and those of the subjects. I share this predicament in relation to the issues of my being an ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ within the Filipino community, and power relations inherent in researcher-participant proximity. My subjectivity informs my interpretation of findings, which in turn involves a ‘fusion of horizon’ – that of the historical specificity of the researcher and that of the object of inquiry. ‘The fusion at the center of understanding means that we must see knowledge production as a flexible, creative, historically influenced process’ (Cerwonka and Malkki 2007, 23). Thus while race is undoubtedly an important variable and I have used it elsewhere (Limpangog 2012–2013) within intersectionality approach as revealing the various shades of discrimination the informants encountered, I focus more on culture, in this article. It is the informants’ identity as woman and Filipina that most pronouncedly emerged as affecting their gender status and negotiation thereof at home. The next part of this article reviews the literature on household division of work, and discusses some dominant notions of gender egalitarianism in the household, in the Philippines and Australia. The last part presents and analyses informants’ efforts to renegotiate housework with their spouses.

The persistence of gender and cultural identity in housework division I define culture as the beliefs, values and habits that structure social behaviours. I emphasise that understanding the fluid nature of people’s experiences in various roles and places (Price 2010) can illuminate the Filipino immigrants’ experience of housework. Culture works not just by getting us to perform particular roles, but also by constituting us so that we become invested in and attached to those ways of being. Yet, following Hall’s (2003) idea, a new social milieu brought about by migration and other life-changing events can disrupt history and displace people. Espiritu (2001) asserts that this displacement sometimes compels immigrants to maintain their old, familiar identities as a counter-measure against assimilation and a response to marginalisation by the dominant group. It might also be their way of asserting boundary markers that differentiate their values and practices from those of the dominant culture (Bottomley 1992). In the Australian context, this is reinforced by some of the ideas surrounding multiculturalism, especially those that emphasise difference, encourage language maintenance and celebrate aspects of the migrant’s culture that are self-defined as intrinsically valuable in determining identity. Gender and cultural identities are their ‘lifeline to the home country’ as well as

4

C. P. Limpangog

their basis for claiming cultural superiority over the dominant group (Espiritu 2001, 415). Yet, ethnic or cultural identity, just like gender and class identity, is a process, and therefore, it is never fixed. I do not subscribe to groupism, even if these women always say ‘kasi Filipino tayo’ (because we are Filipinos) in rationalising their actions. I recognise the differences even among people of similar social categories, but that understanding the broader habits in these categories are important in understanding women’s specific identity and location. In what follows, I briefly contextualise prevailing housework values and practices in the Philippines and Australia, for these significantly shape the women’s own strategies in housework negotiation.


Housework division in the Philippines In a pre-colonial myth ‘Si Malakas at si Maganda’ (literally translated as ‘The Strong and the Beautiful’), a man and a woman emerged from a split bamboo pole. They were to be known as the first Filipino couple. By the very nature of coming out together from bamboo halves, and their endowed virtues, they were therefore equal but unique from each other in terms of qualities. This ideal of gender complementarity is, therefore, handed down from the ancient past, although corrupted during the Spanish occupation. Sparked by the campaign of Filipina suffragists, this would later on be restored through the 1935 Constitution enacted during the American occupation, and in recent times expanded through reforms and legislations. Filipino daughters, like sons, have the right to inherit and own properties, and to acquire education. Contemporary Filipinas also have the right to access credit and capitalisation, travel, be employed and pursue careers without acquiring the consent of their parents or spouse as enunciated in the 1987 Family Code. Authority in the family is ideally equally shared between spouses. Despite its egalitarian principles, in practice, crossing of gender roles is frowned upon. Like the malakas icon, the man represents the haligi ng tahanan, literally ‘pillar of the home’ or metaphorically ‘builder of the home’ (Parreñas 2006, 104–105). He is primarily responsible for the economic sustenance of the family, being the main breadwinner, and thus considered as head of the family. However, this is slowly eroding in contemporary times given the wife’s employment and career advancement. All informants in this study were either professionally employed or were enrolled in tertiary education in the Philippines before moving to Australia. At home, the man performs the handyman tasks. He occasionally ‘attend[s] to the children not so much in terms of routine chores of getting them dressed or putting them to bed, but rather in amusing them and taking them for a walk’. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as illness of the wife-mother, he performs female-oriented chores lest he be ridiculed as ander di saya (literally, under the [woman’s] skirt), meaning, henpecked (Hollnsteiner 1991, 133). As ilaw ng tahanan (light of the home), the woman is responsible for ensuring the moral and emotional nurturance of the children. She is the family’s financial resources custodian, housekeeper, and caretaker of the children, the aged, disabled and sick as well as other members of the extended household needing care. Despite the changing culture that favours equality in all facets of family life in the Philippines, women aspiring for career growth are still saddled with their primary domestic duties. The only and prevailing alternative is hiring of live-in domestic helpers who are usually recruited from the wider familial pool. Thus, housework and carework conflate in the woman’s ilaw ng tahanan identity. The influx of overseas work disturbs the egalitarian ideology in Filipino families. Studies (Asis, Huang, and Yeoh 2004; Parreñas 2005) demonstrate that the unparalleled feminisation of Filipino labour migration over the last 30 years has disrupted the ideal of a stay-at-home ilaw. Ironically, the persistence of women’s domesticity is still romanticised in the Philippines (Parreñas 2008), as in other countries such as Indonesia (Silvey 2005) and Mexico (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1997). To reiterate Parreñas’ observation, the Philippine government is sending ‘mixed messages to [migrant] women’ by first proclaiming them as bagong bayani (new heroes) because of their huge economic remittances, but at the same time maintaining that they should stay put at home precisely to nurture and care for their families (Parreñas, 2008). The state’s ideology of migrant working women’s domesticity


5

is reinforced by the children’s own expectations, who articulate their predicaments in terms of lack of intimacy, feelings of abandonment and a commodification of mother–child bonds (Parreñas 2005).


Housework division in Australia Australia subscribed to family wage ideology, which following the 1907 Harvester judgement set the minimum decent wages, and uses the fulltime male breadwinner/fulltime female caregiver model (Leahy 2011). It resembles gender complementarity in the Philippines, but like in many first world countries where women’s rights were advocated, this would be replaced with a modified breadwinner model where men continue to be the main earner, and women shuttle between part-time employment and fulltime homemaking. Women got some respite in the 1980s with the introduction of caregiving institutions, but would face new housework battles, when they won equality in labour market, at least in policies (Leahy 2011). Men have been encouraged to increase their housework and carework participation, especially with the outset of family-life work balance policy, but this is largely lip-service as the following studies show. Using large-scale studies, Bittman et al. (2003) found that women in the US and Australia decrease their housework participation when they earn as much as their husbands. However, women’s decreased housework did not necessarily increase men’s household participation in Australia and very little in the US (Bittman et al. 2003, 208–209). Women did not optimise their income-based bargaining power to obtain men’s participation but ‘replace[d] their time with purchased services, or housework simply goes undone’ (Bittman et al. 2003, 209). Australian women were even found to increase their housework as their income exceeds their husbands, as if to compensate for ‘gender deviance’ (Bittman et al. 2003, 187). Australia holds a history where women’s employment is considered secondary to their husbands’ and thus warrants less compensation. The authors speculate that such norms of prestige and status hierarchy might have persisted to the degree that even women’s increased economic power is incapable of reversing gender at home (Bittman et al. 2003, 209). Moreover, the Australian society does not have a culture of importing and employing live-in maids. Although the services of low-waged cleaners and nannies are readily available for those who have the means, the wages are dictated by law and if the person works for more than a few hours per week, employers have to pay tax, take out insurance cover for them, and in other ways ensure that their employment is formalised. This places domestic helpers out of the range of most people, even those on professional incomes. Whether the striking decrease in women’s housework is due to the transformation of gender culture or the availability of housework technologies and services remains highly debatable. Baxter (2002) argues that the gender gap in housework division persists, positing that the lessened housework load of women does not necessarily proceed from men doing more, but from how domestic labour is performed. Using national cross-sectional data from 1986, 1993 and 1997, she reports that women in paid work do three-quarters of all indoor tasks and most of the child caring, although a significant decline of six hours in housework is observed in 1997. Craig (2005, 2007a), and Bittman and Wajcman (2000) report that, notwithstanding the popular advocacy about shared parenting and improved quality of institutional care services, Australian women’s time crunch does not result in a reduction of carework. Baxter’s (2002) findings on the un-linked relationship between women’s reduced time and men’s increased time for housework is interesting, although she notes evidence of men’s increasing involvement in meal preparation. She attributes the changes to availability of technological devices, lowered standards of housework and women’s propensity to prepare less time-consuming meals, using for instance readyto-mix sauces, pre-cooked and take-away food (Baxter 2002, 419–421). The shift towards egalitarianism is, thus, rather illusory. Although many of these studies find increasing involvement of men in housework and childcare through time-use analysis, they do not sufficiently portray the state of gender egalitarianism between couples (Sayer 2005). Time-use method is incapable of taking into account a range of crucial factors, such as employed women’s tendency to forego more leisure time than men (Sayer 2005) and women’s regular and routine multitasking (Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie 2006) in their bid to balance paid work with


6

C. P. Limpangog

family. Multitasking cannot be fully measured through such linear methods as childcare often occurs alongside housework (Craig 2007b) or is incorporated into other adult activities (Bianchi et al. 2000). This multi-management of labour has not been fully recognised in many studies on the gender division of household labour nor has the intensity and complexity of inputs required for each task been routinely considered (Budig 2008). Moreover, until now, quantitative studies have ignored cultural differences between women or the varying institutional discrimination they face. As an exception, Craig’s (2007b) study of Australian women reveals that those of non-English speaking background and those located in the rural areas spend significantly more time in both paid and unpaid work compared to their Englishspeaking and urban counterparts. Although my informants claim to speak English better than other Asian immigrants and have negotiated, with some success, discrimination in the workplace (Limpangog 2012–2013) and their bid for equality in the domestic sphere shows a more complex power dynamics. Like their working-class sisters, professional immigrant women, they are often described in studies (Cooke and Bailey 1996; Crompton and Harris 1999; Espiritu 2008; Hardill 2002; Harvey 1997; Snaith 1990; Spitzer et al. 2003; Wong 2000) as worn out and stressed as they juggle paid and unpaid work. But unlike blue-collar, manual and unskilled jobs, a skilled career usually demands constant progression in the organisational ladder within a competitive environment.

A slow, painful but promising process of improved gender relations Was a spouse’s decision to at last ‘put on the apron’ enough reason for the informants to rejoice? The interviews reveal that men’s housework contribution did lessen women’s burden to some extent but did not significantly change their ‘multi-tasking’ approach – a reason that kept stress levels high. While informants readily assumed carework without reservation (Limpangog 2011), housework was a different story. Without or with little help from kin, and with men assisting with household work only when ‘needed’, informants were forced to renegotiate their terms. Half of the informants were already married prior to migration, and came to Australia either with their respective families or through the petition of their partners. With the exception of Maggie and Lorena, their spouses are all Filipino nationals. All of them had a maid at some points of married life prior to migration. While in the Philippines, these women relinquished much of their housework to domestic helpers, and they were able to pursue their careers with less stress. Lorena (financial controller): In the Philippines, perhaps I wasn’t really that close to my kids. I didn’t even know that my child did not know how to tie his shoelaces. Robert was eight years old when I was about to take him to school. ‘Hey mom …’ he said. ‘What?! You’re already eight years old but still you don’t know how to tie your shoelaces?’ I only realised that here. The stress was enormous. Back in our country when you are employed, when you get up in the morning, the children have already gone to school. Even if you sleepover, someone will take care of them. We had two helpers back then. But [here] …who’s going to take care of them, who’s going to feed them? … I had a lot of realisations when we got here.

In Lorena’s case, carework was shared with a maid. To function as an idealized mother who is hands-on and long-enduring, was a great dilemma without a maid in Australia. Yet it also enabled her to know her children more intimately. As described later in this article, the absence of maids also provoked her to confront gender inequality in housework. Leah (programming engineer): We had two helpers … [They] alternately took care of the kids, while someone was in charge of cooking and other things. When I came home I felt then that I was really hands-on with the kids because I was the one giving them a shower and taking them to sleep. But actually the maids did everything else …

Like Lorena, Leah passed on the nitty-gritty of carework to the maids. She ‘missed’ their reliable assistance and the comfort they provided. In a way, she missed the social status that she once occupied. In the new habitus she was compelled to develop her care skills especially as her extended family did not offer much help. Her husband’s contribution went mostly to house cleaning, but less to carework. The realisation of the maids’ job as ‘exhausting’ only dawned on her in the new context. Sharon (administrative officer): I was renting my aunt’s house in Manila … most of the time she’s in the U.S., so the only one left there was the housekeeper who also happened to be my nanny. She would cook for me. I was


7


quite pampered. So I’ve got a maid as well as a nanny for my son. When I came home, the food had already been prepared; all I had to do was to sit down and eat. After eating, I’d go away and someone else would clean up. I was pampered. All I had to do was go to work, and go out for socials. When I had a baby, it was also easy because I had a nanny with me. So when the nanny goes for a day-off on Saturdays, still I had the maid. When it’s the maid’s turn to take a day-off on Sundays, I still have the nanny.

Sharon evaded most domestic duties in her previous ‘pampered’ lifestyle. It was clear to her that domestic drudgery was in store once she migrated and lived with her fiancé in Melbourne. She attributed her downward social mobility in Australia to being displaced in the labour market, marrying someone who had no stable income, and in being unable to afford domestic help. She suggested that domestic chores were the province of lower class women in the Philippines. Sharon had happily relegated to them much of the reproductive work, so she could succeed in her career and enjoy leisure activities with her work colleagues and expatriate bosses. The maids were trusted, treated like family, and given generous wages, she said, and she did not perceive their class difference as problematic. She longs for a holiday in the Philippines where she could enjoy again the convenience of having maids. After migration, informants were faced with varying degrees of hardship while they adjusted to living without maids. The exceptions were Susan and Amy. Susan and her husband did not then have any children. They trained themselves not to rely on a maid as a psychological preparation for migration, ‘… We lived in a small apartment. What would the maid do? There was just the two of us, and usually we came home late’. Amy claimed the same. ‘We let go our maids a year before we migrated to train ourselves to survive on our own’. The sudden change of having no maids saw the informants burdened with an increased demand to multitask. It entailed losing an important comfort zone and a sudden class status demotion. Although middle-class Australian households normally do not employ live-in maids, their Filipino counterparts have been used to having them and it was part of their status symbol. The maids’ services naturally diminish the housework of the middle and upper class populations, and conceal men’s lack of participation in housework. Their accessibility in the Philippines enables women to advance their careers. Conversely, live-in maids are not commonplace in Australia and accessible only to the affluent. This and, the women’s geographic distance from kin, as well as men’s disproportionate domestic work participation all contribute to stalling women’s career progression. Also, the Filipino cultural notion which assumes that women have to be in charge of housework even if they, like their husbands, are also engaged in paid work appears to be reinforced in many couples. When pressed as to why they did not directly instigate equal housework with their spouses, their answers echoed a similar tune: that it was ‘improper to explicitly seek help when one is obviously under a lot of stress’, as Rosanna, a dentist, said. Gemma, a teacher, claimed that during peak hours, when she is busy with cooking, cleaning the sink, feeding and then preparing the children to bed, and after which preparing her lesson plan – her spouse was glued to the TV unless asked for help. The women initially assumed that their spouses would get the message. However, as interviews showed, this was not always the case. ‘Kasi Pinoy tayo’ (because we are Filipinos), is a line of reasoning they often offered in adherence to pakikisama (smooth interpersonal relationships), although some eventually resorted to pakikibaka (confrontation) when all euphemistic means were exhausted.

Informants who migrated with their spouses The informants mostly did not question their uneven household burden while in the Philippines. After all, the so-called ‘second shift’ was bearable with the maids’ presence. But after migration, 7 of the 10 informants who came with their families reported that housework division between them and their spouses remained largely unequal. Their husbands’ increasing participation did not lessen their daily domestic burdens. The stories of Lorena, Rosanna, Luningning and Gemma in the succeeding section support this observation. Those who were content with their husbands’ contribution shared their housework negotiation.

8

C. P. Limpangog

Maggie (broadcast journalist): It’s 50-50. Eric is an excellent parent. He helped out in changing nappies and in washing them … We didn’t use disposable nappies. Well, the washing machine is there … He also shared in minding our baby [while he was doing his postgraduate studies]. He would take her to my office during breastfeeding time…Whoever comes home first does the cooking … I usually do the cleaning, but don’t ask about the standard of our household tidiness! Leah (programming engineer): It’s about equal. I usually do the cooking which I don’t really like to do but he likes home-cooked meals, and so he puts up with my cooking. But he does the yard work, the car. I mostly I bathe the kids. Anything that’s related to the kids, I usually do … [.] … He’s in charge of taking them to and fetching them from school. I also do ironing, laundry. But when it comes to cleaning, my husband does it. He’s diligent when it comes to vacuuming … because vacuuming is backbreaking work, right? … He also mops the floor …


Susan (most recently medical officer): Not a problem. [My husband does] the garden, vacuuming, occasionally the cooking … but not really. Yes, he does the laundry and ironing. He enjoys ironing while watching TV. It takes a long time but eventually he finishes it. And he likes to be involved in putting things in order as well … There is equitability.

Although Leah and Susan’s narratives suggest egalitarianism, the difficulties they faced in reconstituting and advancing their careers were partly due to their unshared carework. The interviews revealed that both assumed primary care-giving roles. Susan had insisted that looking after their son was her moral and emotional duty, which became more onerous when he was sick. It is possible that her self-expectation to provide hands-on care was reinforced by her professional identity as a medical doctor, and that he was an only child. Meanwhile, Leah saw her natal family’s lack of childcare involvement as hampering her career reconstitution. However, as implied in her above account, her husband did less than she did. Clearly, Susan and Leah’s claimed egalitarian relationship with their spouses was limited to housekeeping and it clearly excluded childcare. Maggie and her husband first met in a progressive community movement during the Martial Law period in the Philippines. It is possible that her strong feminist orientation and his community involvement contributed to their configuration of gender equality at home.

Informants who married their spouses in Australia The other half of the informants, who married their spouses after migration, presented a mixed scenario of equity and lesser but increasing equality in household work. Alma (clinical psychologist): I told my husband, ‘just continue doing what you have been doing [house work] before you married me.’ And he did.

Alma said that her husband does some of the cooking, house-cleaning, marketing and gardening. They did not have rigid work segregation. Without any children or pets to care for, managing the household was ‘not that strenuous’. Some of their meals were provided for by one of her siblings who owned a catering business. Alma’s family time, meanwhile, extended to assisting her elderly mother in her community work and looking after her personal needs, as well as minding her young nephews when her sister needed a break. Ligaya (economist): We share in cleaning the house. Washing, doing the laundry … we do these individually. When he asks, ‘what’s up for dinner?’ I’d say, ‘nothing, but there is rice. It’s just enough for me, so you choose whatever you want to have’. But sometimes I cook in bulk, so we’d share it. When all we’ve got are leftovers and I’m not in the mood to cook … you suffer, you cook for yourself.

The study of Baxter, Hewitt, and Western (2005) on married and co-habiting couples shows that the latter have more egalitarian relationship in terms of housework. She argues that the ‘incompleteness’ in the latter lends a period of renegotiation towards an equal partnership. This possibly explains Ligaya’s relatively unconstrained household duties. Her idiosyncratic approach to sharing housework with her partner was due primarily to the fact that they were neither married nor had children to look after. Thus, finding a compromise in housework appeared to be easier. Vilma (government executive): When I was struggling to fulfil the requirements of a full-time student and a breast-feeding mother, my husband would do the household chores including cooking. He practically managed the


9

house while I was struggling to balance studies and caring for the baby. He never complained even if he was working full-time himself. My newly arrived sister and brother couldn’t help, as they were not living with us. They were studying or struggling to find work, too. So I took my baby to uni. For three months there was no place for childcare. Having the baby while attending classes heavily impacted my studies. I had to tape-record some lectures. Later, the cooperative at uni opened a childcare facility. Shifting between studies and the baby made things work for me.

Dividing the tasks into purely housework and childcare during the early part of their marriage worked out well. Their apparently egalitarian arrangement was carried on even after child-rearing years. Vilma eventually finished her studies and got a series of job promotions. Having been volunteer couple-counsellors to others in mixed marriages, we can speculate that Vilma’s spouse had a more than average appreciation of equality in marriage.


Bending the gender divide: husbands’ housework participation Informants emphasised that the accessibility of electrical appliances, especially dishwashers, microwaves and laundry machines reduced the labour-intensity of work that was usually passed on to maids in the Philippines, thus making housework ‘bearable’. Many tried to renegotiate housework with their spouses through restrained rather than confrontational approaches. This means performing one’s reproductive role with hardly any complaints but with gentle requests, and if protesting, doing so without having to raise one’s voice. They conducted themselves in what can be described as culturally acceptable, to retain smooth interaction even amid difficult negotiations. Still, men’s contributions were seemingly inadequate to bail them out of reproductive stresses especially during the first few years of relocation. The oppressive work divide per ilaw ng tahanan and haligi ng tahanan cultural roles resurfaced, and even encouraged by traces of the historic male breadwinner/female caregiver model in Australia, which while already replaced by egalitarian models remain entrenched in families and in institutional policies. Gradually though, some informants reported their spouses’ increased domestic involvement. Many had to be ‘supervised’, ‘reminded’, ‘coached’ and in extreme circumstances ‘demanded from’ as they transitioned to more egalitarianism. This was their pakikibaka approach, and it did involve a lot of emotional preparation for the women. The story of Lorena elucidates this slow and difficult but promising transition in gender relations.

The case of Lorena I first met Lorena in a Philippines–Australia environmental education campaign, and later, in a community caucus regarding workplace bullying. In both occasions, she exuded courage and adeptness on workers’ rights issues. The many years of advocacy to advance the Filipino migrant workers’ rights made Lorena a respected leader in her circle of activists. Yet despite her public display of feminist and egalitarian ideology, it came as a surprise that she was the ‘traditional’ wife for so long. Balancing mothering duties, housework, paid work and community work for Lorena was extraordinarily difficult. When we were still in the Philippines, I was already working full time [but we had maids]. Here it’s the same, so my kids were mad at me. What we did was train all our children to cook. All of them know how to cook from the time they turn 12.

They had scheduled cooking and housecleaning assignments. Enlisting the children was their best strategy in managing the household, although involving her husband took several years. … He was spoiled. He didn’t even know how to do boiled eggs. Our struggle was extreme even before we moved to Australia. You see, my husband’s mother is a pensioner because she is a widow of an Australian veteran. The pension she receives is in Australian currency, which is huge if you convert it to Philippine pesos. Then, my h usband was a scholar, as that was the privilege given to children of Australian veterans. All of his school expenses were provided for by the Australian government … (…) He was extreme. He was already in high school and yet someone else had to put on his socks.


10

C. P. Limpangog

Thus, resettling in Australia was very stressful for Lorena especially without maids to turn to. Her husband was willing to help but first she had to ‘organise everything’, then later, ‘push him to initiate’. He seemed clueless on how to go about with housework. Lorena realised how it was ‘nearly impossible’ to change people who had a deeply gendered upbringing. She was so stressed and frustrated that at one point she thought of leaving her marriage. Nonetheless, over time, Lorena’s husband had learned to cook. ‘When I come home from meetings, I’d call his attention…because there was really no initiative from him. He is now cooking three times a week’. The many years of repetitive reminders and instructional guidance paid off. And what’s more, their children were also taking turns in the kitchen. Lorena’s remarks suggest that her husband had assumed the masculine role inscribed in the Philippine patriarchal households. (As her husband was brought up in the Philippines in a Filipino household, although the product of mixed marriage between an Australian father and a Filipino mother, it appears that her husband had imbibed typical Filipino gender roles, even allowing for the fact that Australian men in that era did little in the way of housework.) Reconstructing his identity to one that was more gender-sensitive took many years, with Lorena’s gentle but persistent prodding. Even in times of disappointment, she could not raise her voice against the ‘man of the house’, as she believed that was contradictory to the traditional ways of a Filipino wife. Lorena struggled to change her own personal outlook as a wife over the years. The influence of socialisation in her attitude appears to be deeply entrenched that even after many years of feminist activism she still found it hard to recast her identity. But she eventually succeeded. Informants, in general, demonstrated covert resistance and renegotiated housework by increasingly and repeatedly appealing for their spouse’s help. They achieved varying degrees of success, although others suffered continuing gender disparity. Like Lorena, her husband, too, was involved in a Filipino migrant workers’ movement in Australia. In addition to Lorena’s attempts to gain his domestic work participation, it is also possible that their joint activism in the migration movement catalysed his gradual change. The movement campaigned for, among others, women’s rights and gender equality. But what is troubling in Lorena’s case, as with the majority of the informants, is that at best she only silently resisted the double day prior to migration. She resisted but also was resigned to the fact that her husband’s ‘macho’ upbringing was extremely hard to alter. The availability of maids had previously enabled her to carry on her domestic and career work without having to negotiate for her husband’s equal participation. By doing so and perhaps with some hesitation, she accepted the double shift by passing on most of the burden to maids. This example shows that lack of interrogation of class disparity among women, even if it is facilitative of the couple’s smooth interpersonal relation, does not alter gender relations across class. Romero observes that the professional woman whom she referred to as victimized by sexism in both their employments and at home ‘denies that the burden of sexism is shifted to another woman employed as a household worker because the labour is paid’ (Romero 2002, 98). In the transnational space, the absence of maids required the informants to negotiate domestic work with their spouses. Yet it also raises the complex issue of sexism and class superiority over less privileged women, as some of the informants seemed to wish their domestic burden on them. While informants’ solution of engaging their spouses’ equal participation in housework shifts gender relations, it holds very little assurance that they would resist class-based inequalities or drop the hiring of maids should they resume their lives in the Philippines. Some informants told me that holidaying in the Philippines, where they could avail domestic help was a respite. The changes in notions of sharing housework are thus best interpreted as a response to changed circumstances rather than a newly acquired commitment to ideals of gender equity.

Conclusion This article has demonstrated how the informants utilised and reconstructed housework division, and in the process, altered gender roles and cultural values. Like other professional migrant women, they were



11

also confronted with severe hardships in the face of reconfigured social resources and their husbands’ lack of participation – although some claimed to be content with, while others admitted to have been forced to accept the latter’s ‘helper only’ attitude. For many, the absence of maids made the once covert gender inequality rather pronounced and harsher. After moving to Australia, many simply tolerated doing most of the work until children came, which then prompted them to renegotiate their husbands’ increased participation. The burden of carework and possibly the absence of maids were their leverage. Their career aspirations prompted them to change their communication styles from passive and gentle to one that was more forthright and assertive, but they were still careful from being confrontational or raising their voice to avoid marital strife. Although it disrupted their ideas of middle-class Filipino femininity, their strategy was carefully framed within the culturally acceptable ‘smooth interaction’ mode. Ironically, this time-consuming process rehearses women’s self-sacrificing persona that is also encoded in the ideal Filipino femininity. It can be argued that women’s gender identity as embedded in the Filipino culture and the still patriarchal nature of households in Australia coalesced, such that they toned down their assertions to gender equality, to their disadvantage. Similarly, their husbands’ transition from having no domestic responsibilities to taking on the role of ‘helper’ is probably best understood with reference to prevailing attitudes both in the Philippines and Australia. Clearly, the informants, especially those who married co-nationals, had tried to replicate their preconceived notions of housework in terms of standard gender roles. While the women were the principal household managers before the move, they were spared from much of its drudgeries and were free to pursue a career. Gender subordination in housework was not then magnified because of the equality enjoyed between spouses in terms of liberty, having a career, and its subsequent material and psychological rewards. With the change of household circumstances after migration, it was just a matter of time before the women would reclaim the privilege of having a career. Ensuring a career and an organised home required the increased involvement of husbands. It is possible that the household change catalysed these men to put into action what they already thought of as ‘fair’ even before the move, but obviously this was not enough. They need to move from helper to co-principal in housework. Indeed, power relations shifted in various moments of the women’s lived experience in Australia, although the specific gradation of nuances could not be captured by my in-depth interviews. What I have captured here are those significant shifts, smallish as they may sound, but seemingly incremental towards gender equality The change in their gender ideology may have resulted from several factors – most evidently, the career demands on the women. But like the earlier researches discussed, the extent of such change remains ambiguous. A few of the informants claimed that housework assignments between them and their spouses would have to be arranged around the latter’s leisure time even during peak hours, that is, preparing for dinner and putting kids to bed, thus compelling them to multitask. I concur with Craig (2007b) that multitasking cannot be easily captured in linear time assessment, and in my view cannot also be captured in qualitative interviews alone. I acknowledge the importance of capturing the fluidity of lived experience (Price 2010), and through intersectionality, we can appreciate that small, residual changes towards gender equality matters, but not without a high price. Because of heavy workloads at home and full time paid jobs, many of the informants experienced high levels of stress. This is an aspect where gender egalitarianism remains illusory, which demands a more complex investigation beyond the scope of this research. But it is also this experience of severe hardship that pushed some women to reconfigure their approaches and become more assertive. While the traditional gender divide persisted in most households, it is important to acknowledge that this varied among the informants. A few of those who migrated with their spouses had more equitable housework division than the others, although carework remained their charge. Those who married post migration appeared to have accommodated themselves more comfortably to a more equitable division of labour, although once again this varied. Their individual past and present positioning help explain the diversity in their gender equality achievements. Women’s efforts to train their children regardless of gender were an optimistic move to lessen their burden as well as to ensure that they appreciate it as everybody’s mutual responsibility.


12

C. P. Limpangog

Moreover, the absence of maids in the new setting unmasked the informants’ own escape from sexism, conscious or not. In the Philippines their ‘second shift’ had been largely relinquished to servants, thus obviating any domestic role negotiation with their spouses. Their privileged status and their unquestioning stance on housework roles prior to migration legitimised the gendered and classed drudgery imposed upon maids. It can be inferred that classism and sexism towards less privileged women doing domestic work would be condoned by professional women, if only to retain their work– home balance as well as to assert their middle-class status. I view that in this social relation – where their working-class sisters’ oppression is left unquestioned reassures the women of their ‘respectability’ and career continuity linked within their social status. The gendered housework therefore that the informants assumed prior to migration, and which increased their stress levels while in Australia, is a modified continuation of their old practices, and even reinforced by unequal gender ideology in Australian society. I do not deny that domestic work is a principal role shared by women universally. In this article, I have attempted to analyse the informants’ experiences from gender, class and cultural lenses in view of their typical reasoning of ‘kasi Pinoy tayo’ (because we are Filipinos),in reference to their non-confrontational approach with their spouse. But such claim of Pinoy-ness was enacted in order to relocate their displaced identities or give meaning to idealised identities rather than actually practiced prior to migration. This article had shown that while gender ideologies imbibed in the country of origin and the values attached to them persist strongly after migration, they are subject to change. Men’s increased participation and initiating children to assist in housework is important in the continuing quest for gender parity, and must be featured in the ongoing advocacy. Forthright negotiation while not culturally embraced at first seems more effective, thus must be encouraged towards housework parity. While women’s lead role in maintaining households is symbolically appreciated, it needs to be challenged along with other oppressive elements of the ilaw ng tahanan icon. Changes in the household can only go thus far; social support is necessary for such changes to be sustained. Modelling of gender equitable housework can be incorporated in school curricula, and through family-oriented institutions. For example, it can be integrated in ante-natal courses, pre-marriage programs, and even in boys and girls scout. Finally, recasting the housework gender disparity should not be women’s job alone. This study shows that covert resistance (Collins 1990) while successful to some degree, can be stressful. The use of new symbols, with both women and men doing the ilaw and haligi roles, children’s expectations (Parreñas 2005) can be modified. Men doing domestic labour, not as a helper but as a co-principal need stronger promotion, in the interest of assisting Australian women, immigrant or not, return to their careers, and achieve a better family life-work balance.

Acknowledgement I am indebted to the Australian Government’s International Postgraduate Research Scholarship and The University of Melbourne’s Melbourne International Research Scholarship in completing my PhD thesis from which this article is based. I also thank my research supervisors Assoc. Prof. Martha Macintyre, Assoc. Prof. Maila Stivens and Dr. Maree Pardy for their valuable support and guidance. Finally, I am grateful to the blind reviewers for their useful suggestions.

Notes on contributor Cirila P Limpangog is a university lecturer, community development practitioner and human rights activist. She has worked in international and community development for nearly 20 years, mainly in the Philippines and Australia in the specialist areas of gender equality and women’s rights, sustainable development and good governance. She currently teaches at the RMIT Global, Urban and Social Studies, and the Victoria University College of Arts.

References Andersen, Margaret L. 1993. “Studying across Differences: Race, Class and Gender in Qualitative Research.” In Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods, edited by John H. Stanfield II and Rutledge M. Dennis, 39–52. Newbury Park: Sage.



13

Anthias, Floya. 2012. “Transnational Mobilities, Migration Research and Intersectionality.” Nordic Journal of Migration Research 2 (2): 102–110. Asis, Maruja Milagros B., Shirlena Huang, and Brenda S. A. Yeoh. 2004. “When the Light of the Home is Abroad: Unskilled Female Migration and the Filipino Family.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25 (2): 198–215. Baxter, Janeen. 2002. “Patterns of Change and Stability in the Gender Division of Household Labour in Australia, 1986–1997.” Journal of Sociology 38 (4): 399–424. Baxter, Janeen, Belinda Hewitt, and Mark Western. 2005. “Post-familial Families and the Domestic Division of Labour.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 36 (4): 583–600. Bianchi, Suzanne, John Robinson, and Melissa Milkie. 2006. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life. New York, NY: Russel Sage. Bianchi, Suzanne, Melissa Milkie, Liana Sayer, and John Robinson. 2000. “Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of Household Labor.” Social Forces 79 (1): 191–228. Bittman, Michael, Paula England, Nancy Folbre, Liana Sayer, and George Matheson. 2003. “When Does Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work.” American Journal of Sociology 2003 (109): 186–214. Bittman, Michael, and Judy Wajcman. 2000. “The Rush Hour: The Character of Leisure Time and Gender Equity.” Social Forces 79 (1): 165–189. Bottomley, Gillian. 1992. From Another Place: Migration and the Politics of Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. Budig, Michelle. 2008. “Book Review: Economic and Social Security and Substandard Working Conditions: Changing Rhythms of American Family Life.” ILR Review 61 (3): 426–427. Cerwonka, Allaine, and Liisa Helena Malkki. 2007. Improvising Theory. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman. Cooke, Thomas J., and Adrian J. Bailey. 1996. “Family Migration and the Employment of Married Women and Men.” Economic Geography 72 (1): 38–48. Craig, Lyn. 2005. “The Money or the Care: A Comparison of Couple and Solo Parent Households’ Time Allocation to Work and Children.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 40 (4): 521–540. Craig, Lyn. 2007a. “How Employed Mothers in Australia Find Time for Both Market Work and Childcare.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 28 (1): 69–87. Craig, Lyn. 2007b. “Is There Really a Second Shift, and If So, Who Does It? A Time-diary Investigation.” Feminist Review 86 (1): 149–170. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–1299. Crompton, Rosemary, and Fiona Harris. 1999. “Employment, Careers, and Families: The Significance of Choice and Constraint in Women’s Lives.” In Restructuring Gender Relations and Employment: The Decline of the Male Breadwinner edited by Rosemary Crompton, 128–149. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Espiritu, Yen Le. 2001. “‘We Don’t Sleep around like White Girls Do’: Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26 (2): 415–440. Espiritu, Yen Le. 2008. Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Glaser, Barney, and Strauss Anselm. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Hall, Stuart. 2003. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader, edited by Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hardill, Irene. 2002. Gender, Migration and the Dual Career Household. London: Routledge. Harvey, Michael. 1997. “Dual-career Expatriates: Expectations, Adjustment and Satisfaction with International Relocation.” Journal of International Business Studies 28 (3): 627–658. Hollnsteiner, Mary Racelis. 1991. “The Husband.” In The Filipino Family: A Text with Selected Readings, edited by Belen T. G. Medina, 132–134. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, and Ernestine Avila. 1997. “‘I’m Here but I’m There’: the Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood.” Gender and Society 11 (5): 548–571. Leahy, Mary. 2011. “Women and Work in Australia.”Policy Online, viewed on 12 January 2016. Limpangog, Cirila P. 2011. “Moving Identities: The Lived Experiences of Skilled Filipino Women Immigrants in Melbourne.” PhD diss., The University of Melbourne. Limpangog, Cirila P. 2012–2013. “Racialised and Gendered Workplace Discrimination: The Case of Skilled Filipina Immigrants in Melbourne, Australia.” Journal of Workplace Rights 17(2):191–218. Limpangog, Cirila. 2013. “Migration as a Strategy for Maintaining a Middle-class Identity: The Case of Professional Filipino Women in Melbourne.” ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies 6 (2): 307–329. Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2005. Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2006. “Caring for the Filipino Family.” In Migrant Women and Work, edited by Anuja Agrawal, 95–115. New Delhi: Sage.


14

C. P. Limpangog

Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York, NY: New York University Press. Price, Patricia. 2010. “At the Crossroads: Critical Race Theory and Critical Geographies of Race.” Progress in Human Geography 34 (8): 147–174. Purkayastha, Bandana. 2005. “Skilled Migration and Cumulative Disadvantage: The Case of Highly Qualified Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the US.” Geoforum 36: 181–196. Rodó-de-Zárate, Maria. 2014. “Developing Geographies of Intersectionality with Relief Maps: Reflections from Youth Research in Manresa, Catalonia.” Gender, Place & Culture 21 (8): 925–944. Romero, Mary. 2002. Maid in the USA. 10th ed. New York, NY: Routledge. Saroca, Cleonicki. 2007. “Representing Rosalina and Annabel: Filipino Women, Violence, Media Representation, and Contested Realities.” Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 22 (1): 3–31. Sayer, Liana C. 2005. “Gender, Time and Inequality: Trends in Women’s and Men’s Paid Work, Unpaid Work and Free Time.” Social Forces 84 (1): 285–303. Silvey, Rachel. 2005. “Consuming the Transnational Family: Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers to Saudi Arabia.” Global Networks 6 (1): 23–40. Snaith, Janina. 1990. “Migration and Dual Career Households.” In Labour Migration: The Internal Geographical Mobility of Labour in a Developed World, edited by James Johnson and John Salt, 155–171. London: David Fulton. Spitzer, Denise, Anne Neufeld, Margaret Harrison, Karen Hughes, and Miriam Stewart. 2003. “Caregiving in Transnational Context: ‘My Wings Have Been Cut; Where Can I Fly?’” Gender and Society 17 (2): 267–286. Valentine, Gill. 2007. “Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography*.” The Professional Geographer 59 (1): 10–21. Wong, Medeleine. 2000. “Ghanaian Women in Toronto’s Labour Market: Negotiating Gendered Roles and Transnational Household Strategies.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 12 (2): 45–137.