Psyché &Soma: Eylül 2011

One Day Project: After Work

The balance between professional life and domestic life is a subject that has been the object of many scholars through the last decades. Much research focuses on women’s daily routines, equal share of the household chores (cooking, cleaning etc.), childcare (caring for and educating children), social life, and personal care activities. In addition to that, time statistics analyses in most countries claim that working women do more house hold chores compared to the men, in the family. Depending on different surveys and countries the distribution of domestic duties by gender changes from culture to culture. The values of the culture affect the relation between gender roles and unpaid house works. To emphasise and visualize this issue, a cross-cultural photography project was carried out in Denmark and Turkey named “One Day”.

The documentary project was the work of photographer Sehlem Sebik, who was supported by the Danish Government Cultural Scholarship, FREIA (Feminist Research Centre at Aalborg University) and EDGE (Centre for Equality, Diversity, Gender at Aalborg University). The project aimed to show working married mothers’ “One Day” after work. The goal of the project was to observe one day of working mothers in two different cultures. The first question was: “Are there similarities between the working mothers’ lives despite the differences between the cultures and the levels of development of the two countries? According to the research by Turkish Institute of Statistics in 2006 and the Second European Quality of Life Survey made by European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in 2010, women do more house chores than men in both countries. Turkish working mothers spend 2 hours and 8 minutes for house hold chores and child care activities. Turkish men spend only 51 minutes on this kind of chores. In general, Turkish working mothers and house wives spend 5 hours and 17 minutes on this kind of tasks in one day. The European quality of life survey shows that the percentage of involvement in daily household work is 80% of women and 51% percent of men in Denmark. Both countries have legislations of average working hours, maternity leave, and public childcare services, but they are slightly different. Turkish men have a longer working week with 55 hours a week on average, men in other European countries work shorter hours. The average number of weekly working hours in Denmark is also lower compared to Turkey. Maternity leave in Turkey is 16 weeks for women and 3 days for fathers, whereas in Denmark parents have 52 weeks of paid maternity leave in total. The project should also be viewed in the light of these facts and the viewer should question how governmental power affects our everyday lives through the use of legislation.
Photography is selected as the method in the project to show women’s daily routines in “One Day”. In an effort to make the sample groups homogenous, the volunteers were selected among mothers that are similar in terms of profession, age and social status. Married working mothers who lived in urban areas were selected as the target group. The ages were between 25 and 45. All of the attendants had bachelor’s degrees. The project took place in 12 households with both Danish and Turkish families. Before the photography sessions, a questionnaire and a time schedule form detailing typical weekly schedules were filled by the volunteer. The observations of photographer of different households also directed the project naturally. Only mothers’ and families’ daily routines were captured. The positive acquisition of the project was understanding another culture without prejudgments through face to face communication. The families with children followed nearly the same routines as dictated by the children’s school hours, day care centres’ hours and the parents’ working hours. The exhibition is arranged to display the12 women’s “One Day” after their work with this similarity of modern life.
The exhibition can be seen at Aalborg University, Kroghstræde 3 in the area outside rooms 3.115 and 3.117 between Sep. 15th (opening reception between 14.30-17.30) and October 31st.

Psyché &Soma

18 Eylül 2011 Pazar

Kvinfo announced "One Day" Exhibition

2 Eylül 2011 Cuma

One Day Project: After Work Exhibition

One Day Project: After Work Exhibition