Really doing your share at home? Martina Dvořáková’s audit helps couples find out
Martina Dvořáková was so tired of the gender imbalance in household labour in Czechia that she did something about it, creating a Fair Household audit. It’s a questionnaire that helps couples reflect on who does what in the home – and whether that division of work is truly equitable. I discussed several aspects of the project with Dvořáková, as well as why the term “feminist” continues to be frowned up in this country.
What is your own professional background? And what’s your own family situation?
“I studied Social Sciences here in Prague and in Amsterdam and I have been working in the NGO sector since then.
“I’ve worked abroad and here in social work and palliative care and now I’m doing this initiative Fair Household.”
What’s your household like? You have children?
“Yes, I’m married. I have two kids, aged six and 10. Everybody asks me if I’m living in a ‘fair household’ and I always say, Yes, I am.
“Because it means different things to different people, and for me it is feeling free to express my wishes and needs and being able to talk to my husband and to adjust our careers and lives and free time for both of us to be happy.”
Where did you get the idea of having this survey, and this whole Fair Household project?
“The idea was born during the Covid 19 pandemic, because at some point our lives just shrank to our households.
“And we could see that women were overwhelmed and exhausted; everybody had to pitch in, but women did the vast majority of stuff, like home schooling, the wellbeing of everybody and cleaning, cooking.
“I was struck by, OK, these patterns in the family don’t work and we need to do something about it.
“I thought this would be an opportunity to change something, but then when the schools opened again and we went back to where we were before, it was just like nothing had changed.
“And I just decided to do something about it.”
What’s a strong sign that somebody is living in a household that isn’t fair?
“I think it’s very much a feeling thing. You need to observe how you feel at home, or if you have the same opportunity to, I don’t know, do your hobbies or adjust your career to whatever you want it to be.
“But also any sign of dissatisfaction with how the division of labour is in your household. Yes, I think everybody knows if he or she is happy about it.”
I must confess when I was young my mother would get my sisters to do housework and I was allowed to sit on the couch. I knew that it was wrong, but I stayed sitting on the couch.
“Yes, sure, I would have done the same.”
Would you say that’s a common situation in Czech households?
“I hope not any more. I had the same experience when I was little, but I saw it in the neighbours’ family because we were two girls in our family.
“But I saw it was well back then and it struck me. I was like, What?! How is that possible?
“I hope it is not the case anymore, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”
It probably hasn’t changed that much in 25, 30 years.
“Yes, it hasn’t changed. But on the other hand we know from data that fathers are much more involved in caring for kids than the generation of my father was.
“So something has changed.”
About the audit, how does it work? And what are the things that you’re asking the participants?
“The household audit is in PDF format and you can download it, print it out and then try to fill it in.
“It’s a list of items that we usually do at home that keep our household running and keep everybody happy in the family.”
Like putting the kids to bed and that kind of thing?
“Exactly. I made sure that not only is there physical labour – like cleaning, cooking, doing shopping – but also mental and emotion labour which is, in my opinion, a huge part of domestic labour.
“Mental and emotion labour is, in my opinion, a huge part of domestic labour.”
“So there is also organising, planning birthdays, making doctor’s appointments, talking to kids before bed about how their day was, for example.
“You can fill in who does what and to what extent and then you can talk about it, compare your results and look at why do we see it differently – and maybe say, Why am I doing more in this section, maybe you could take over?”
Do the participants send the PDFs back to you, or do they just assess themselves?
“No, no. It’s a totally private activity.
“But my husband is working on an online version of this household audit, which would be great for me as I will see the results in an anonymous way.”
There were some categories that were surprising to me. One was “speaking with children”. How is that a task for anybody?
“Yes, I think that’s the biggest part of keeping the family together and developing strong ties between members of the family.
“Sometimes it’s a joy, sometimes it’s not.”
But are some parents not doing it? That’s what’s curious to me.
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“Yes, I think they don’t. It can happen that in the family one of the couple just devotes time to this kind of activity and the other one doesn’t see it as so important maybe – but also benefits from it.”
Also you have “planning and initiating sex”. Is that also a household duty?
“It sounds weird if you say ‘duty’, but it’s an important part of a couple’s life – and if somebody takes care of it more than the other one I think we should give them the credit.”
Typically what kind of feedback do you get from the people who take part?
“I think there are roughly two groups of people. One is couples who are pretty happy about how they divide their work at home.
“They are used to working on their relationship and they see the audit as another tool, like a fun activity for one evening: Let’s sit down and look at it and talk about us and have fun and maybe change something a little bit, here and there.
“And then another, bigger group: they are mostly women who download the audit and who are not happy. They want to change something and they maybe need to push their husband or partner a little bit to work on it together.
“Even the couples who are happy usually disagree on every item.”
“They tell me they find it useful because now they have something in their hand, something very concrete they can talk about. The discussion is not abstract, like ‘I think you do, I think I do’, but they can see it on paper.”
And it’s also kind of objective?
“Yes, in a way. But even the couples who are happy and there is no argument or disagreement – usually they disagree on every item.
“It’s very subjective how people see their contribution in the household, even though they are happy about it.”
Do some partners feel that they are doing more than they are actually doing – and then when they do the survey realise they are not pulling their weight at home?
“Yes, I just got an email yesterday from a guy yesterday who wrote me exactly this. He was like, I was really thinking that we do roughly 50-50, but I have to admit that it was not the case when we filled it in.”
You don’t get the data back so maybe you don’t know the answer to this, but are there cases where it turns out that the guy is doing more than half?
“Yes, I don’t know this from the audits but I know it from sociological data: We know that there is a small segment of society where men do more than the woman. But it’s really tiny.”
I’m not surprised it’s tiny. I don’t know any guy who does more than half. Frankly, I myself would be almost afraid to do this audit, because when I saw the categories like organising social stuff or making appointments, I was thinking, I don’t do any of those things. I feel like I’m doing a lot of other stuff, but I’m not fulfilling many categories.
“But I didn’t put any points or score in the audit, because my goal is not to encourage competitiveness between people – I just want people to be able to talk about it on the basis of something.
“What you say is very typical and that’s what women complain about nowadays most, this mental load. It’s the real invisible labour in the household nowadays and we need to talk about it more and try to divide it fairly.”
Is it possible that the women who would most benefit from this are the ones who are least like to do it, because their partners wouldn’t take part. I mean, if you take a couple where the guy doesn’t do anything, he won’t take part in this audit.
“Yes, that’s true. I am aware that the audit will work only for a certain type of people: people who are able to communicate, to give and receive feedback.
“My goal is not to encourage competitiveness between people – I just want people to be able to talk.”
“That’s why I would like to focus this year on maybe giving people more tools how to communicate better – or how to get to the point where they are able to fill in the audit.”
Are you aware of any couples doing the audit who are not heterosexual?
“Yes, I am. I actually did an interview with a lesbian couple, which people can read on the website.”
What was the situation there?
“In this case it was very similar to heterosexual couples. There were different needs. One of them had a bigger need for cleanliness and the other one didn’t.
“They went through couples therapy as well to sort it out and ended at a point where both of them were quite happy.”
Does this whole thing though sometimes come down to what people are good at? I’m not great at organising things but my wife is very good at it. She does it more quickly and easily than I ever would, so I leave it to her. Isn’t that normal?
“Yes, it is. There’s no problem if your wife is happy about it.”
She’s also a great cook, and a great cleaner.
“Oh, OK then [laughs].”
Now I’m starting to exaggerate.
“That’s what psychologists and psychotherapists advise: In the beginning just say to each other what kind of work you like or what doesn’t bother you and just take it and say, I’m going to do this.
“And the rest you need to divide according to your time opportunity.”
But I would take all the easy ones – like talking to the children.
“But that’s good that you are aware of it and can talk about it. That’s enough – just be able to know it and talk about it.”
Generally, how do you think the situation is in Czechia with regard to the division of household duties compared to in other European countries?
“We are not very good. In general in the gender equality index we are not doing very well.
“You can divide Europe roughly into northern and western countries, which are doing better, and southern and eastern countries, which are not doing so good.
“Yes, there’s a lot we need to change in gender equality in general.”
What are the countries that are the most progressive in this area?
“It’s not a surprise – it’s Iceland and other Nordic countries.
“Iceland actually usually ranks first in all these competitions in gender equality, and yet in 2023 there was a women’s strike because of gender equality, unpaid work and sexual violence.”
So even in the best country things aren’t good enough?
“Yes, exactly.”
What about Sweden? Is it the case that in Sweden that parental leave is compulsory for both partners?
“Yes, they have I believe 480 days of parental leave and fathers need to take 90 days – if they don’t they lose them.
“So they are not forced to go on parental leave, but there are three months of child care you can take if you want.”
We already touched on this, but do you think there’s been much progress in this area in this country in the last, let’s say, 30 years?
“I think in child care there has been. In household chores, no.
“It’s not just in the Czech Republic, it’s also in Western countries – we can see quite a change in taking care of kids, but in households they say that the revolution has stalled.
“We can see quite a change in taking care of kids, but in households they say that the revolution has stalled.”
“It’s not been moving, and I don’t know why it’s so difficult to move it.”
Looking to the future, are you optimistic that more progress can be made?
“Yes, I am. Because I see that we raise kids differently than the generation of my parents did. We talk more about this stuff. We pay more attention to emotions. We don’t say stuff like, I don’t know, Boys don’t cry.
“Also we need more role models, that’s true, but it’s connected; women are home doing unpaid work, that’s why they are not seen in the public sphere and in high executive positions, where we need to them.”
Do you call yourself a feminist? I know a lot of Czech women, even if they live like feminists, don’t like to use the word.
“Yes, I do! Yes, I’m a feminist, and my husband calls himself a feminist.”
Why do you think it’s so unusual here that people use the term?
“It’s very loaded, the term. I spent some time abroad – maybe that’s why it’s not so difficult for me to say it.
“And I think they don’t know what it means. They don’t even know they are feminists, if they have behave and think and have feminist values.
“But it’s frowned upon.”
Yes, it is frowned upon. But I still don’t get why. Everyone benefits, it seems to me, if we have feminism?
“Sure, yes, it’s not just for women, of course.
“I’ve also had so many hateful comments because of this topic.
“A friend of mine told me, You have short hair, and sometimes I wear glasses, and he was like, You look like a typical feminist – of course they’re going to hate you.
“A friend told me, You look like a typical feminist – of course they’re going to hate you.”
“Some say that it’s because of our history, that women didn’t fight for feminist rights, like in Western countries.
“It was like given upon them by the Communist Party and then it all changed and it’s all messy. People don’t understand feminist values, what they mean and how important they are, because it was not a grassroots movement.”
The website of the project, in Czech, can be found here.
