“Gender roles get into our house together with us.”

Adanech Asfaw is an assistant professor and vice president at Mettu University in Southwest Ethiopia. While participating in a gender awareness training organized by the second phase of Provision of Adequate Tree Seed Portfolios (PATSPO II) project on 6 April 2023, she shared the following story.

“Coming back from work, when my husband and I open the door, gender roles get into our house together with us. I am educated; I work as hard as my husband. But when we get home, even though we are both educated, I act just like my mother and my husband acts just like his father. At home, I cook and take care of household chores while my husband watches TV sitting on the couch. And I have accepted it and don’t complain about it. My mother helped my father with the farmwork, but when they got back home, my mother cooked dinner while my father sat waiting for dinner doing nothing. 

Ethiopian women don’t feel comfortable when men try to cook. I must admit that the culture we are raised in has dominance over the personal beliefs of both women and men. The training should bring about change on the ground. I hope things will change in the future with such gender awareness trainings.”