Rabat – About 70 percent of Moroccan men consider household chores most are women’s most important responsibility, according to a survey conducted recently by UN-Women in the Rabat-Salé-Kenitra region.
According to the survey, conducted among 2,889 households, 7 out of 10 men believe that “men should have the last word in household decisions.”
Men also consider themselves to be “responsible for women,” since more than 75 percent feel that they have a “duty of guardianship” towards women.
54 percent of men indicated that marriage is more important for women than a professional career; with 73 percent of men and 71 percent women describing employment opportunities as scarce, many believe men’s access to work should take priority.
Meanwhile, more than half of the women surveyed do not agree with the idea that women must be mothers and housewives, or that men should have the last word in household decisions.
Almost half of the surveyed women also reject the idea of men’s “duty of guardianship.”
80 percent of women say that an unmarried woman has, like unmarried men, the right to live alone, compared to 53 percent of men’s responses.
Among unmarried respondents, 61 percent of men and 73 percent of women consider it important that the future spouse works after the marriage.
The vast majority of working men, or 80 percent, and working women at 93 percent are in favor of equal pay for women and men in the same position.
Despite notions of guardianship, 70 percent of men agree with the women’s right to supervisory roles, while 36 of men consider women too emotional to be leaders.
In the same vein, 31 percent of women and 35 percent of men believe that women who participate in political life or who have functions of leadership cannot be good mothers and wives.
