Household Chores as an Obstacle to Women’s Writing

On Reading Black Milk by Elif Shafak

Author: Wahedyar Afsaneh

The lifestyle of writers and intellectuals differs from that of ordinary people. Writing is a mental pursuit that constantly occupies the mind, and professional writers often seek solitude to safeguard their mental health, keeping distractions and turbulence at bay so that their creativity may flow. In a patriarchal society, with its rigid gendered division of labor, such a privilege is far easier for a man to claim.

But imagine being a woman—married, managing a family, and at the same time losing sleep to the irresistible pull of writing. Have you ever thought about women who work outside the home, shoulder the running of the household and the care of children, and still try to write? Is it not an almost impossible balancing act?

It is no wonder, then, that many women of letters become less productive after marriage or even abandon writing altogether. To juggle employment, household responsibilities, and writing at once is an exhausting task. This imbalance explains why, historically, women’s literary output has been comparatively scarce, and why so few great female writers have emerged. By assigning childrearing and housework almost exclusively to women, patriarchal systems have denied them the time and energy to devote to artistic and literary creation. As Virginia Woolf remarked: “If Shakespeare had had a sister of equal genius, that sister, because of the encumbrances of being a woman—motherhood, housekeeping, and so forth—would never have had the opportunity to become Shakespeare” (Shamisa, 2018: 274).

Household duties, because of their time-consuming nature, have long been a major obstacle to women’s growth. In the past two decades, Afghan women have made deliberate efforts to challenge this unfair division of labor. Many believed that reforming the foundations of the education system might offer the next generation of women a better future. Researchers studied the Ministry of Education’s primary school textbooks, highlighting how they reinforced stereotypes: that managing the home was a woman’s duty and the public sphere a man’s domain. They called for revisions to these gendered representations, but their efforts were in vain. The schoolbooks published in 2019 remained deeply biased, with the separation of the two spheres still firmly in place.

Changing such entrenched mindsets is no easy task. It requires time, awareness, and a cultural shift in which men begin to see themselves as equally responsible for domestic work and childcare.

Unfortunately, just as housework carries no professional recognition, writing in our society rarely brings financial reward. Writers are often forced to take on other jobs simply to survive. This lack of economic value attached to writing is one of the main reasons why there are so few professional writers among us. Yet there remain those who, driven by love for the craft, write constantly without expectation of reward, sharing their works freely with readers.

Until the twentieth century, women had little chance to create art or literature, constrained by the burdens imposed by patriarchy. Fortunately, in the last century, we have witnessed the emergence of remarkable women writers across many countries. Their works have a unique power, resonating deeply with female readers, often filled with intimacy and recognition. Confessional writing in particular, or narratives that speak from a distinctly feminine perspective, carry a freshness and richness that the literary canon had long been missing.

Black Milk, by the celebrated Turkish writer Elif Shafak, is an autobiographical work in which she recounts her inner struggles on the threshold of motherhood. Pregnancy and motherhood disrupt life’s equilibrium, and for a professional writer whose main concern is her art, confronting this transformation—sweet as it may be—brings both confusion and disorientation. In addition to the monologues, she holds with herself and her many inner voices, Shafak explores food cravings, superstitions about pregnancy, and postpartum depression, all from a woman’s perspective. Interwoven into her narrative are reflections on the lives of women artists throughout history, showing the many obstacles, they endured simply to be able to write.

For in patriarchal societies, the conditions of life are seldom suited to women’s writing. Women who wished to dedicate themselves to literature often had to hire domestic help, which required financial independence. The book reminds us that wealth has played a decisive role in affording women the time to write. Virginia Woolf, after all, not only had a room of her own, but also a cook, a maid, a valet, and a gardener. To save time, she would jot down their tasks on slips of paper rather than speak with them directly.

By the end of Black Milk, the reader cannot help but wish for more writing by women—for more stories that reveal the inner world of women, so that men might gain a deeper understanding of them, and women themselves might look more closely at their own experiences.

I will close with two striking lines from Shafak’s book:

“Sometimes the greatest prize for a woman writer is not receiving major literary awards such as the Booker or the Orange Prize but finding a caring and hardworking nanny for her child.” (Shafak, 2017: 67)
“Women writers begin the game seven-nil behind.” (ibid., 45)

References:

1. Shafak, Elif. (2017). Black Milk. Translated by Shaliz Fadaeiniya and Siamak Taghizadeh. Tehran: Melikan.
2. Shamisa, Siros. (2018). Literary Schools. 11th edition. Tehran: Ghatreh.