Leisure activities for women are few and far between. The 24/7 hustle and their role as primary caregivers at home doesn’t allow them the luxury to rest. The United Nations “World Social Report 2023” shows that women globally spend more than 250 minutes per day on unpaid care work – on average, triple the time spent by men. Unpaid domestic and care work that women do has been invisibilized for a long time, ensuring that their prospects of getting a break or rest from that work have been left out of most discussions.
Experiences of labour and leisure are always gendered and are products of patriarchal social structures of power. Our modern neo liberal understanding of leisure doesn’t allow either girls or women to fit in.
According to the general conceptualization of leisure, after 8-10 hours of work, workers are given time to rest, time for themselves. Corporate workers get a weekend getaway, to revitalise themselves for a week’s work. In simpler terms, leisure refers to the time free from work and duties.
However, the increased informalization of women’s work and the unpaid nature of domestic work push women to an extent where an hour of rest becomes arduous. Unsafe public spaces, restrictions on their mobility, social taboos and prejudices attached to resting women labelling them as “lazy”, “irresponsible”, “slacker”, “wasting the time” etc, make it more difficult for both women and sometimes even girls to take breaks especially from household chores.
However, as mobile phones become more embedded in our lives, it has broadened certain ways of offering leisure. Mobile phones have become a reason to take some time to rest or to get some ‘me time’ for Indian women. Nayantara, a domestic worker in Delhi, talks about her day that begins at 5 in the morning.
She does a cooking job, and performs caregiving and domestic tasks at her home too. She owns a smartphone, which offers her moments of relaxation. She uses WhatsApp, youtube and a Hindi news app to avail news information, to converse and to watch videos of her regional language and bhakti series.
“Pura din kaam karne ke baad ye phone mere mann ki sunta hai, mere pasand ki cheez dikhata hai (after working all day, this phone shows me what I want to watch), she says. She adds that Youtube’s voice assistance application helps her find videos based on her interests. During COVID-19, the phone was a major tool for her to gather information on the situation and to ask for the well being of her loved ones.
How Mobile Phones Can Empower Girls And Women
Mobile phones are providing different ways to access leisure not only in private spaces, but in public and work spaces too. Nema, a domestic worker from Pune, says that she listens to music on her way back home. She does a cooking job in three houses in Pune, and is raising her 2 children. Her husband is an alcoholic and does not really contribute to household chores and income. Nema’s phone gives her an escape after a long work day. She also watches videos in her regional language and makes video calls to her extended family and friends whenever she has the time.
Audio video tools that assist a person to navigate digital spaces have immensely helped women, particularly illiterate women, develop certain levels of digital literacy. Women who own or use a shared phone find different ways to communicate, entertain themselves and gain information from these smartphones.
The stark digital divide in terms of owning a digital device among the men and women, rich and poor, urban and rural population is evidently present. A recent Oxfam report has distinctly shown that technology and digitalization have benefitted the privileged but have also been the cause of inequalities creating a digital divide.
This holds true for girls too. Girls who have access to a mobile phone, particularly a smartphone, feel safer and more connected due to it, and use mobile phones to save time and money and access educational opportunities. The mobile phone in that sense can only be a source of leisure, but also help millions of girls in our country access the information, connections, tools and services they need to get ahead in life.
Many scholars have argued that leisure is an act of resistance or a very political act, while resting, women make a statement of resisting the prejudiced roles. Phones have redefined the notion of leisure for women. Time allocation constraints have been limiting women to access leisure. Thus, instead of getting full fledged rest breaks, they sneak in short breaks to enjoy phone time.
Nayantara and Nema’s experiences demonstrate to us how phone’s audio-video applications can offer women moments away from work and a chance to enhance their digital literacy skills. These two women open a door to the possibilities that a smartphone can offer. By making more easy to access tools, tech firms can actually help millions of illiterate people to enhance their digital literacy levels and become a part of ongoing digital developments. Their instances of finding moments of rest is also making room for the possibility of leisure for women.