Answer: (b) not equally valued

Answer: (a) Fishing

Answer: (b) 9 years

Answer: (d) All of these

Answer: (a) Class IV onwards

Answer: (a) Dolls

Answer: (a) Yes

Answer: (c) Women

Answer: (a) A domestic worker

Answer: (a) 23

Answer: (c) Both

Answer:

Answer: anganwadi

Answer: equality

Answer: girls

Answer: devalued /invisible.

Answer: False

Answer: True

Answer: True

Answer: False

Question 1.
What is the important part of one’s identity? What teaches us the acceptable behaviour?
Answer:

• To be a boy or girl is an important part of one’s identity.
• The society teaches us the kind of behaviour acceptable for girls and boys.
• We often grow up thinking that these things are exactly the same everywhere.

Question 2.
What do we generally learn about women and men?
Answer:

• We learn that most societies value men and women differently.
• The roles women play and the work they do are usually valued less than the roles men play and the work they do.
• We also learn that inequalities between men and women exist in the area of work.

Growing up in Samoa in the 1920s

Question 1.
Where is Samoa? Briefly write about the life of children there.
Answer:
Samoan islands are in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. According to a research Samoan children did not go to school. They learnt to take care of younger siblings and fishing. They learnt these at different stages of childhood. Fishing being important, they learn long fishing expeditions.

Question 2.
Describe the life of the Samoan people in 1920s.
Answer:

• As soon as babies could walk, their mothers or other adults no longer looked after them.
• Some children at 5 years of age, took over this responsibility.
• Both boys and girls looked after their younger siblings.
• At the age of nine years boys joined the other boys in learning outdoor jobs like fishing and planting coconuts.
• Girls continue looking after small children or do errands for adults till they were teenagers.
• After becoming teenagers girls had much more freedom.
• After the age of fourteen or so, girls also went on fishing trips, worked in the plantations, learnt how to weave baskets.
• Cooking was done in special cooking-houses, where boys did most of the work.
• Girls helped with the preparations of the food.

Growing up Male in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s

Question 1.
Give an account of the growing up in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s.
Answer:
Grooving up in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s:

• From class VI onwards boys and girls went to separate schools.
• Girls school was designed very differently from the boys school.
• They had a central courtyard where they played in total seclusion and safety from the outside world.
• The boys school had no such courtyard and the playground was a big space attached to the school.
• Every evening after the school, the boys watched as hundreds of school girls crowded the narrow streets as they looked very purposeful.
• The boys used the streets for different things like to stand around idling, to play, to try out tricks with their bicycles.
• For the girls, the street was simply a place to get straight home.
• The girls always went in groups, perhaps because they also carried fears of being teased or attacked by boys or other bad elements.

Question 2.
Do we all grow in a similar manner?
Answer:
Examples of children from Samoan islands and Madhya Pradesh makes it clear they that we all grow differently. Even within our own family the childhood of our elders would be very different from ours.

Question 3.
How does the society make a distinction between girls dnd boys?
Answer:
From the young age society make a clear distinction between the two genders. Boys are given cars and girls are given dolls.

Through the toys the difference starts. The girls are dressed differently, are asked to speak softly. Boys on the other hand play different games, are considered to be tough.

Through this the children are conditioned to play the specific role when they grow up. , This even affects our subject and career choices later in the life.

Question 4.
Is there a equality between the genders?
Answer:
In most societies including ours the work done by men and women are not valued f equally. They do not have the same status in society.

My Mother does not Work

Question 1.
What is the story board about?
Answer:
The given story board is about understanding the importance of house work. Shonali wants her mother to volunteer for school excursion. According to her friend Harmeet’s mother always comes because she doesn’t work.

Question 2.
What happens at Harmeet’s house?
Answer:
Harmeet and his father were of the opinion that Jaspreet is a housewife and does not work. Jaspreet decides to go on strike for one day.
Next day there was chaos at their house:

• Children got up late missed their school bus.
• There was no water as pump wasn’t switched on.
• Harsharan, Harmeet’s father had no breakfast and had to drop kids to school.
• The children went without lunch. Their mother gave them money for the canteen.
• In the evening there was no tea for Harsharan and house was also untidy.
  This made them understand that housework is also important and should be valued.

Valuing housework

Question 1.
Why is the work of men and women not valued equally?
Answer:
In most societies the work of men and women is valued differently.

• Men work outside the house.
• Women do all the household chores like cleaning, washing, cooking, care giving etc.
• These works are not considered real works and are not recognized as work.
• It is assumed that these come naturally to women. These do not have to be paid for.
• Society devalues this work.

Lives of Domestic Workers

Question 1.
Describe the lives of domestic workers as given in the chapter.
Answer:

• In the given chapter, Harmeet’s mother was not the only one who did the housework.
• A lot of the work was done by Mangala, their domestic help(ef).
• Many homes, particularly in towns and cities, employ domestic workers.
• They do a lot of work—sweeping and cleaning, washing clothes and dishes, cooking, looking after young children or the elderly.
• Most domestic workers are women.
• Sometimes even young boys or girls are employed to do this work.
• Wages are low, as domestic work does not have much value.
• A domestic worker’s day begins as early as five in the morning and ends as late as twelve at night.
• Despite the hard work they do, their employers often do not pay them enough on show them much respect.

Question 2.
Briefly write about life of domestic worker Melani?
Answer:
Melani worked in Delhi as a domestic worker for a rich family. She had to do all the work along with two other girls.

• They got up at 5 o’clock and got a cup of tea with two dry chapattis as breakfast.
• They cleaned the house and did all other work.
• In evening Melani cooked food. She secretly cooked extra rotis for herself and other two girls.

They could not wear chappals in the house even in winters.

Question 3.
What does housework involve?
Answer:
The housework actually involves many different tasks.
A number of these tasks require heavy physical work:

• In both Rural and Urban areas women and girls fetch water.
• In rural areas women and girls carry heavy headloads of firewood.
• Tasks like washing clothes, cleaning, sweeping and picking up loads require bending, lifting and carrying.
• Many chores like cooking, involve standing for long hours in front of hot stoves.
• The women’s work is strenuous and physically demanding, words associated with men.

Question 4.
Explain another aspect of housework.
Answer:
Another aspect of housework is ‘care giving”.

• This aspect is related to looking after the children and nurturing them.
• Taking care of the elderly or ill people in the home.
• All this requires strong emotional aspect along with physical labour.
• In fact if we add up the work (housework) and care giving time women work much more than men.
• Now with women working even outside homes their leisure time has further been reduced.

Women’s Work and Equality

Question 1.
What do you understand by the term “double burden”?
Answer:
In today’s world many women work inside as well as outside the home. This is referred to as “double burden”.

Question 2.
Why we see low value attached to women’s work?
Answer:
Low value attached to household or care giving work is not a family matter. It is due to the inequality between the genders existing in the society. It should be dealt by individuals, society as well by the government.

Question 3.
What does our Constitution say about discrimination?
Answer:

• Our Constitution says that there should be no discrimination on the basis of gender (male or female).
• In reality inequality between the sexes exists.
• The government recognises that burden of childcare and housework falls on women and girls.
• This naturally has an impact on the girls attending the school.
• It determines whether women work outside the house and their jobs and careers.
• Government has set up anganwadis or child care centres in villages.
• The government has passed laws that make it mandatory for organisations that have more than 30 women employees to provide creche facilities.
• The provision of Creches helps many women to take up employment outside the home.
• It also makes it possible for more girls to attend schools.