Diary of a day during the COVID-19 pandemic

The days of our lives are pages from a diary as well. No matter how long this diary might be, we still will choose some pages that were unique to us. Sometimes general events make a period of time stand out.So, maybe some distinguishing features make a situation different from the others. And it might occur that “the different” is seen as special, and we treat it as such.

I start the day at 5 in the morning. I do my morning prayer and do some reading, then we randomly divide our housework based on gender roles. Me, my sister, and my mother do the cooking and the cleaning. While my father and my brother take care of the garden and plant fruit trees. This division makes people dependent on their given roles, and they develop wrong attitudes about it, and attribute their negative behavior to their individual perception about gender roles.

People often adapt to their roles but aren’t always okay with it. Moreover, these roles are often discriminatory and inconvenient. This wrong perception has reflected especially in the situation created as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when domestic violence is more prevalent.

In Simone De Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” first volume of the book is presented facts and myths about gender and different gender perspectives. In it, when some people are asked “what is a woman?” – their
answer is “A womb”, while for men they say “he is the topic, the absolute, while she is the other”. The division “us” and “them” makes us act based on our given roles. Misconceptions that gender makes you more prevalent are highly welcomed by men who are also culturally prepared to consider
themselves superior to the others.

When a man considers that even his personal hygiene as doing the laundry, cleaning the room, etc. are only for women or girls, this is something that makes them incomplete in regards to personal skills of daily life, and also is an addition to the work girls or women of the house do.

This added burden has been noticed even more during quarantine due to the fact that people are more panicked, they become more obsessive in behavior, and this burden falls on women.

Another prevalent negative aspect in our society is disrespect in relation to others, especially women and girls.

Therefore, it is very important to reflect on behavior since girls and women are not responsible for the situation we’re in. the reason is that men are used to spend more time outside the house and do not try to find the adequate way to fit in to the lifestyle.

Stay home and respect others, since when you give respect you get respect back.

This article was written by Shkurta Bregovina, a student in the Department of Social Work in UP under the monitoring of professor Vjollca Krasniqi within the cooperation with SIT. This article was written within the project “Men and Boys as Partners in Promoting Gender Equality and the Prevention of Youth Extremism and Violence in the Balkans”, implemented by CARE International Balkans in partnership with SIT and YMCA in Kosovo and supported by Austrian Development Agency, and Oak Foundation.