Honey I’m Home – 1950s Switzerland

So the Swiss government voted against Sunday trading but did allow Cantons a four Sundays a year concession, big deal.

Those of the Conseil National who voted against Sunday trading must have wonderful Sundays. I can just picture it: Hans wakes to the twittering of birds outside his bedroom window, woosh the door opens and there is Frau Hans. She has been up since before sunrise. Her apron is starched and matches her outfit. She bears a breakfast tray and a large smile fills her impeccably made up face. Hans then goes to church/plays golf/retires to his study before sitting down to a fabulous family lunch prepared again by Frau H. with a loving smile bordering on beatification. Hans adores his wife – what is sexier than a woman who can cook and doesn’t mind cleaning up afterwards? After his power nap where he dreams of a Switzerland full of shiny white sheep, his grandchildren arrive and they all go for a massive hike up the Ruebli. Hans loves his Sundays.

Brigitte on the other hand, a single divorced mother with two boisterous boys, dreads Sundays. Having worked all week she is exhausted. The Saturday morning Migros shop along with the thousands of others often brings her to the brink of despair. Come Sunday she is a wreck. She drags herself out of the house to take the boys to the park and in the hallway of her apartment building passes Mme Felder. Mme Felder has been recently widowed and finds Sundays very difficult. Sundays remind her – as no doubt it reminds all those who no longer conform to the standard family type: singles, widowers, divorced – that she no longer has a family.

This unwillingness by the government to allow Sunday trading effects working women the most. The vast majority of wives take responsibilty for the daily and non-daily household tasks and we don’t need the stats to prove this, we know. Most women want to work or to occupy themselves with other interests than the household and this decision is just another thorn in the side for female emancipation. It goes hand in hand with not allowing canteens in schools for primary children outside the cities, in not providing enough childcare. The government want women to stay home.

But this policy comes at a cost. With our ageing population and declining birth rate, women are needed even more in the workforce and have a valid contribution to make. The Swiss government is wasting a valuable asset; missing out on productivity because of women’s reduced access to the labour market. Let us face the facts it is no longer the 1950s.

Sunday trading will completely redefine the weekend as we know it. It is not just the shopping/errand running that we will have more time for, it is the life that goes around it, the bars, cafés and restaurants that will be open as well. Leisure time has changed. Our lives are moving at an amazing pace, families are changing and women want and deserve more than a marathon run from Monday to Saturday.

Herr and Frau H. can still enjoy their idyllic Sundays but for most families this type of life doesn’t exist anymore.

Copyright Jules Ritter December 2007