This revealing P&G campaign takes a look at couples' mental to-do lists

P&G is taking a revealing look at the gender imbalance in household chores in its latest campaign from Spain. In a project titled #mentaldownload (#descargamental in Spanish) the company aims to reflect that, despite the fact that families and roles are changing, many women continue to be responsible for all logistics and decision-making in the home. The project, by Proximity Madrid, involved carrying out a study of 2,400 men and women across Spain and covering the issue of daily responsibilities in the home. The results (shown on the project website) reveal that 71% of women suffer from the so called "mental load" compared to only 12% of men. An accompanying film, see here, shows five couples who were asked to list their mental tasks in the notes app on their phones. The couples then swap phones and read each other's lists aloud--revealing that while many couples think they split chores equally, the woman is nearly always the one multi-tasking between home and career. It's a more nuanced take on the debate than other campaigns that have tackled this issue (including previous films by P&G brands Fairy and Ariel, from the U.K. and India respectively), perhaps reflecting that in some partnerships, the imbalance is more hidden than you might think. The idea is for the #MentalDownload project to be the first step towards changing this imbalance. P&G is providing a guide for identifying the division of responsibilities in the home as well as advice from experts to make their daily tasks more manageable, available on its Próxima a ti website, a multi-brand platform for helping families that launched in 2008.

This revealing P&G campaign takes a look at couples' mental to-do lists

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