Our students are required to write a learning journal. This is submitted with their assignments 6 weeks after the week long contact module is completed. They are also required to do practical work for about an hour before class starts at 9.30 – one task being to sweep the floors of their classrooms to challenge the normal South African ethos of assuming that mess is cleaned by a black woman. An African woman student from a country north of the Limpopo wrote this beautifully poignant piece about her experience one morning with a white South African male who seemed reluctant to engage in what he regarded as woman’s work. This is her story:
“Morning work was extremely interesting today. Our group was assigned to sweep the inside of the main building. Whilst we were doing that, I noticed one of the guys from engineering class holding a broom on one hand and his telephone on the other. He continued like that for a while and I literally had to move around him in order to sweep. After a while I asked him if he was going to sweep any time soon and he said, and I quote “I don’t sweep, it’s a woman’s’ job”. Boy oh boy! My initial reaction was to get all “feminist” on him, instead I asked what he meant by that, and he said, well, I am here to get a degree and not to learn how to do household chores – that’s why you get a wife. Still trying to be patient, I asked if it was the actual sweeping that bothered him, or that he had to do it at school, to which he replied that it didn’t matter in what context it was, sweeping was sweeping and he had no business sweeping. He is not in my year so I asked if he was in last years’ PGDip group, but he is doing some engineering masters on main campus and taking Renewable Energy Finance as his elective. In the name of being accommodating I started asking him questions about himself, and what else he is doing, etc. As he was talking, and probably without realizing, he started moving his brush and sweeping with me. And he continued to do so until we finished. He only realized he had been sweeping when I asked if it was as bad as he had thought it was, after all. He looked shocked and could not believe he had actually been sweeping. So, I didn’t voice my opinion of his stereotyping of women or whatever. I could have done that, and would’ve probably ended up in a heated debate with him or whatever. Perhaps he has reason to think that way, and I didn’t feel like being the one to burst his bubble. Sure, I would revel to bang his head with a saucepan and talk of how women aren’t only good for household chores, but then what good will that do?”
Huge “learn” there! Thank you for posting Mark Swilling.
Wow powerful way of challenging but also helping people to “relearn” and looking at life through different lenses.