| Who Cares?! – Preface to a Lesson
Kit
by Mrs. Hedy d’Ancona, former Dutch
minister for health, social and cultural affairs
The project “Who Cares?!” is
an example of the successful collaboration between a (large) institution
for Multicultural Development (interestingly named ‘Forum’)
and Formaat, a somewhat smaller Theatre of the Oppressed company.
“Who Cares?! aims at raising the conscience about the division
of labor between the sexes; It explicitly asks young people, girls
and boys alike, from a multicultural background how they are going
to cope with the pressure from their families. Mrs. d’Ancona,
a life-long campaigner for women’s rights, spoke at our
premiere night and wrote the following preface to the lesson kit
that goes with the performance:
“Equality between men and women; hardly anyone in our society
has problems with that. Yet it is only 25 years ago that great
differences existed between the sexes in a number of areas. Girls
studied less years in schools than boys and were mainly found
in the lower echelons of the education system. Women would work,
but would quit after marriage, certainly when children were born.
Seldom did women have political or managing functions. These handicaps
have been eliminated in a relatively short time. The number of
female students at Dutch universities is almost equal to those
of their male colleagues, there are many working mothers and some
political parties present an equal number of male and female candidates.
Struggle
This situation didn’t occur just like that. It needed a
strong women’s lib movement, a lot of protest by women,
much attention by the media and eventually also politicians that
supported the demands. In that respect the women’s lib movement
was particularly successful. The success was so overwhelming that
young girls don’t seem to feel like continuing the struggle.
After all, they are able to plan their own lives: they are no
longer at the mercy of the unexpected arrival of an unpredictable
amount of children and they can choose almost any profession.
Has it then been arranged the way me and my
fellow campaigners envisaged years ago? Well no! We wanted more
than just catching up. We didn’t want women to lead the
same lives as men. We strove for another kind of society. A society
in which men and women would divide the paid and unpaid labor
equally among each other.
Division of Labor
Unfortunately this still doesn’t seem to work. A just division
of the work at home is advancing just a little bit, but not too
much. The same things goes for paid labor. Maybe many young women
think they will sort it out if the moment has arrived. Young men,
for their part, don’t feel the slightest urge to organise
these things in such a different way.
As long as people keep quiet, politics don’t
come into action. Why should there be more parental or care leave,
more part-time jobs also in senior management, less pressure of
work at the beginning and further onwards in your career, if those
involved don’t demand it themselves? Before you noticed,
as a young man or woman you’ll slide into a maelstrom in
which the woman does the inside work and the man works outside
the house.
Involvement
That’s why it’s a good idea to challenge young people
to talk about these developments. At a time when you still have
a choice. Because why should the present generation of young people
act differently or better than their parents or the rest of society?
The play Who Cares?! offers the opportunity to think in time about
the ideal situation for the future. The play makes young people
conscious of the problem that for instance the desires of young
people about care and labor do not correspond with those of their
parents. Who Cares!? was based on stories by young immigrants,
and it presents the most important dilemmas in an attractive way.
I saw the performance and I enjoyed it. Not
only because of the professional way in which the issue was presented,
but also because of the interventions by the spectators who replayed
scenes according to their own ideas. The hilarity, the approval
or disapproval by the public; I seldom enjoyed such an involvement.
It made clear to me how you can make a subject, which I usually
find on the agendas of respectable committees, sparkle. And the
most important thing: such a performance gives young people, and
rightly so, the feeling that it is about them and their future.”
Translation: Ronald Matthijssen
Under Pressure 11 - August 2002
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