How washing machines liberated women

A few years ago, I was pleasantly shocked to find washing machines in homes in India.  Shocking because it is after still a country with unreliable power supplies, and inadequate water supplies.  But, pleasant because it was a reflection of how much women were liberating themselves from the traditionally defined rigid roles.  And it is this liberation from the time-consuming and low-productive chores that is essentially the story of women, and the story of economic progress itself.  I often remark in my classes, which begin tomorrow, that the story of economic progress is also a story of the changing roles for women.  And when we discuss demographics, I tell them we might as well forget men.

Hans Rosling makes a wonderful case for this:



My favorite example from India is not even the washing machine as much as the elimination of the "aattukkal."  It is, as the writer here describes in a fantastic essay, "the traditional stone-grinder, to grind the dough for idli and dosai."  The traditional cooking involved a whole lot of grinding, and the "aattukkal" was the big grinder for huge volumes, and which also required water.  The "ammi" was the small grinder, primarily for dry grinding.

The grinding work--yes, literally a grinding work--took up at least two hours every day.  And, yes, this was a task for the women.  About forty years ago, my mother was liberated from these chores thanks to machines.  A small mixer, which could do both dry and wet grinding, the "Sumeet," was one heck of an addition to the kitchen.  My mother, always a careful and diligent worker, put that to excellent use and maintained it well enough to get more than twenty years of service from that machine.  I bet she alone knew how valuable it was in her life.

But, the attukkal was still in use--after all, the mixer couldn't handle large loads of wet grinding. 

And that too changed when another machine entered the kitchen, and it completely eliminated the need for an attukkal.  With the machine, mother could simply dump the soaked rice into it, press start, and go about her other household chores.  Or, simply sit down and read a magazine.  Even after all these 35 years, she uses that same machine.  Mother knows how to treat machines well, and they respond equally well to her tender loving care, it seems. 

What a liberation is has been for women even within my life time!  There is still a long way to go for many of the women on this planet.  But, we ought to pause for a moment and celebrate what we have achieved thus far.