National Adult Literacy Database

August 2, 2004

The following story was written by Sylvia, from Toronto, Ontario. Sylvia is enrolled at East End Literacy.

The Work That Women Do In and Outside the Home

by Sylvia

Women's job is supposed to be at home and outside the home because they have the responsibility to work for the community.

We start the day by making breakfast and fix lunches for the family. After they are gone off to school and work, it is time for cleaning, picking after them and making the house beautiful. When they return in the evening, we like to see our kids in clean clothes. So we get into doing the laundry and ironing the children's and husband's shirts and pants. After that, it is time to prepare the special dinner and desserts, which they always look forward to. Then we share our workloads with our husbands or family members when the kids go to bed. As you can see, a woman's duty is never done since it starts again in the next morning.

We do the grocery shopping twice a week and go to the market area once a month on Saturdays. We take the kids to the parks to have fun. We also take them for a picnic and movies. We also take the kids to the shopping mall. From there, it's the McDonalds or Burger King for their treat. We encourage our kids to take part in extracurricular activities, such as sports and arts.

Women also work outside the home. Women do different types of work like men do. They are doctors, dentists, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, electricians, swimming instructors, personal support workers, hairdressers, and so on.

She is stronger in certain types of work that require more patience, understanding, gentleness, flexibility, love and kindness. For example, both teaching elementary students and counseling require patience and understanding. Babysitting and nursing require caring, flexibility and understanding.

We can see a woman is strong in her work, both inside and outside the home. She is committed to her children, family, friends and her community. She is also committed to her job at home and outside home.

[This story was taken with permission, from EEL Today - A Collection of Student Articles, February 2004, entitled The Work Women Do In and Outside the Home, written by students at East End Literacy.]