“Where is it? ”: Emma’s new comic on the sharing of household chores is a hit – Elle

Published on May 20, 2022 at 4:18 p.m.

We discovered Emma in 2017 with « Fallait demande », a salutary comic strip in which she highlighted a concept hitherto confined to the academic and feminist spheres: the mental load, that is to say the psychological weight that weigh on women the management of domestic and educational tasks.

Read also >> Mental load: from theory to popularity

Since then, Emma has come a long way. Author of several comic strips including « Un autre regard », « La charge emotional » and more recently « Lucine et Enzo » (Massot Éditions), she continues her work of democratizing feminist notions, to make them more accessible and open the field discussions within couples and homes.

His new work, “Ça se putsoù? is one of them. Posted yesterday on its website and on social networks, this new comic echoes the one on mental workload. She accurately points out the techniques, conscious or not, that men have to escape domestic chores.

Women, conditioned to always do more

As Emma explains to us, « Ça se semetoù » originates from an observation made by the author: when we talk about the unfair sharing of household chores within the home, one of the arguments used to justify the disinvestment of men is that the wrongs are generally shared. Men would do less than their girlfriends because the latter are too “in control”.

However, as she cleverly proves, if women find it so difficult to let go, it is also because men have implemented a whole series of strategies to do less than them. When they are preventive (cleaning and tidying up before the living room turns into a shambles), the men do preventive work: they deign to put their hand to the paw when they can no longer ignore the state of their home.

For Emma, ​​if women today continue to take on the majority of domestic tasks, it is « because they are painful to perform, they are not paid, not valued… but they have to be done « . « As a result, it is the people who are most conditioned to feel bad if they are not done who stick to it », analyzes the illustrator.

In “Where is it? Emma shows how men have developed, consciously or not, a whole host of techniques to pass under the radar: passive resistance, bad temper, the total lack of autonomy or even pure and simple incompetence. By regularly mixing white and colors, or by constantly asking their partner to help them cut three tomatoes, they finally manage to escape chores.

They thus behave like “slackers”. « You could also say ‘slack’, » sums up Emma. “It’s a word that represents people who manage to escape a painful task. In this case, often men.

« If we don’t give them leads, it may not move »

In “Where is it? “, Emma also shares advice that has worked for her to better distribute household and parental tasks at home. Namely: list all the domestic missions and distribute them fairly. “I’m still a little uncomfortable with it. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t give a solution because it’s the institutions that have to change, she confesses. « But I’m no stranger to the problem, and if I tell readers that the solution is to make a revolution, it won’t help them, » she laughs.

“There are plenty of good-willed spouses who are caught up in hellish work rhythms. So, if we don’t give them leads, it may not move, ”continues the designer. Especially since, five years after the release of his comic strip on mental workload, the distribution of domestic tasks within the home is still not more egalitarian. « The gap has widened since the Covid, » she notes.

But, this comic can perhaps change things. In any case, this is what Emma hopes, who explains that she received many reactions of « exasperated relief » from women, but also from some men who admitted to having been « slapped ». “I have the impression that comics have had an effect on them, they realize that they also use these techniques. But I also had men who commented: “phew, I’m not concerned! « . I would like to have the opinion of their spouses, all the same,” laughs Emma.