We hear a lot about gender equality. It seems that it’s usually women who are striving for equality with men, but one school in Spain is coming at it from a different angle. Perhaps we need to focus more on men becoming equal with women.

In old-fashioned, “traditional” gender roles, it’s the husband who goes off to work while the wife stays home with the kids and does all the cooking and cleaning. Nowadays, many women work outside the home and many men help out with the housework and childcare, but many women also feel that they pick up more than their fair share.

Why is it that many women still feel like many household tasks are left to them? Perhaps it’s because men don’t know what they’re doing.

Think about it. As children, many girls probably helped their mom in the kitchen or learned how to sew on a button or iron a shirt, but did boys learn the same things? Many boys might have been preoccupied with other activities.

It makes sense that if boys never learn how to do the laundry, make the bed or cook a meal they’ll be resistant to doing those activities as adults.

The Montecastelo School of Spain has added a home economics class for the young men that attend the school. They learn everything from cooking and sewing to carpentry and plumbing.

Gabriel Bravo, a coordinator for the program, told a newspaper, 

It seemed very useful for our students to learn to perform these tasks so that, when they form a family, they are involved from the beginning and know that a house is a matter of 2, it’s not a matter of the woman cleaning, doing the dishes, and ironing. This will allow them to become aware and learn to handle themselves at home.

Many of the young men at the school were hesitant to learn tasks like sewing and ironing, but once they learned how, they realized that it wasn’t so hard after all. Bravo said,

For some it was the first time they had held an iron, it was fun and instructive at the same time, we are quite surprised and the parents are very happy.

We remember taking a home economics class back when we were in school, but many schools don’t offer these classes anymore, and if they do, they’re not required. Do you think it would be a good idea for more schools to require students to take home economics class?