The Spanish government hopes to encourage men to do more at home by developing a free app that will record how much time each household or family member spends on domestic chores.
Announcing the measure in Geneva earlier this week, Spain’s Secretary of State for Equality, Angela Rodríguez, said the aim was to shine a light on the invisible “mental load” taken on by women when it comes to housework.
Rodríguez told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women: “We will soon introduce an application that will allow people to register the housework that different members of the family do, so we can see how many hours each of us spends on housework. work and thus rearrange the time we spend on this chore.’
She said the new app, whose development budget is reported to be €211,750 (£184,000), is designed to ensure that every member of the family carries their weight. “We think this is an exercise that can be used at home to divide responsibilities between sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, or between roommates or life partners, because the division of these tasks is sometimes uneven,” she said.
Rodriguez said the app will also serve to highlight all the invisible jobs needed to keep a house running smoothly. While it can take 20 minutes to tidy up the kitchen, she said, that depends on whether someone has thought to buy detergent or planned the shopping list.
She later responded to critics of the plan in a tweet, saying: “Ah, privileges. What really annoys those who are annoyed by the chore-sharing app is the ability to start doing work at home.”
The app is part of the Equality Ministry’s Shared Responsibilities Plan, a series of public policies designed to improve equality between men and women.
The ministry said: “The challenge lies in designing comprehensive care systems from a gender, intersectoral and human rights perspective that promote shared responsibility between men and women, the state, the market, families and the community.”
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