Домашние обязанности. Household chores.

К занятию 8. Домашние обязанности (лексика)- дополнительный материал

Read this text and learn the words for household duties.

What do we mean by «household duties»? Usually it’s cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning the house, etc. Women have traditionally been engaged in all these things for many centuries. The situation began to change during and after the First World War, when some women, having mastered «male» professions, did not want to return to «kitchen slavery». In Russia this was facilitated by the Revolution and the new Bolshevik ideology, which called for gender equality, including in the management of the household. It was the young Soviet state where that huge number of pamphlets and campaign posters appeared urging men and children to share household chores with their wives and mothers. Meanwhile, in Europe and America, the question of equality of duties between the two sexes was not looked so progressively. The woman there was still perceived primarily as «the keeper of the hearth». The situation worsened after the Second World War, when there were calls for women to return from the factories and production, where they went to replace men, and to do what nature intended them.

The typical housewife’s day of that time looked like this. You had to get up before anyone else in the house, get dressed and make up to look good. Then cook breakfast for the whole family, wake up the household, feed and send them: husband – to work and children – to school. Then the woman washed the dishes left after breakfast, cleaned the house (wiped dust, vacuum cleaned or washed the floor), washed, dried and ironed clothes. Then she could go shopping or gossip with her friends over a cup of tea. When the children came back from school, they needed to be fed lunch. Then it was time to cook dinner and wait for the husband. It was necessary to meet the husband friendly and beautiful, despite whether you are tired or not during the day. After dinner it was necessary to wash the dishes again, put the children to bed, and repeat everything from the beginning in the morning.

You will call it a terrible fate? But let’s go back to the USSR. All calls for the separation of household duties between a man and a woman often remained only beautiful words. And to all the duties listed for a western woman the duties of a foremost production or exemplary milkmaid were added. That is, in fact, Soviet women carried out both women’s and men’s work. What can be observed in modern Russia, too.

Write what you have to do on each day of week.

feed the pets; help Mom in the garden; help Dad with the car; do a lot of housework; put the dirty plates in the dishwasher; go shopping; set the table before breakfast and dinner; water the flowers in the garden; make the bed; put the clothes in the wardrobe; take out the rubbish; hoover the carpets; wash the dishes; sweep the floor; mop the floor; cook the meals; iron the clothes; wash the clothes

Match the words to make them phrases.