‘MeToca’ fails: the Equality application for the distribution of tasks at home that cost more than 200,000 euros

It should be noted that the development of the system had a cost of 211,750 euros, as established in the contract of the Secretary of State for Equality and Against Gender Violence with the winning company, Wairbut S. A, as published by ABC. However, the total cost is even more, since the application was accompanied by a series of advertising spots that cost 30,737 euros, of which only a trace remains in X. In fact, on the Ministry of Equality website, the only data on “Where Have You Been?” Campaign Leads to a Completely Empty Drive —you can see it here—.

An ineffective application

It was in September 2023 when the then Minister of Equality and the Secretary of State for Equality and Against Gender Violence, Irene Montero, and Ángela Rodríguez ‘Pam’, presented ‘MeToca’ as part of the Co-Responsible Plan “to better distribute tasks domestic and care. The objective, in the words of ‘Pam’, was to make an application similar to others that are used to, for example, divide the expenses of a group trip. The reality is that the application had a cumbersome interface, unnecessary data that, if not completed, blocked its use, and a barely customizable operation that divided work at home through graphs, the level of effort made and the time spent, through pre-established tasks. . «What it will do is that you can count the time you invest in household chores. But we’re going to have to be bold and smart in the types of tasks we account for,” ‘Pam’ said. Among them, Equality decided not to include any related to children, without considering their care as a domestic matter.

The beneficial option of delegating household responsibilities to children was also not considered, by indicating in the registry that the user must be at least 18 years old, the age of majority. But the nuances and restrictions were not limited to age alone. Once the citizen registered, they were forced to indicate their gender, between female, male or non-binary. If one did not fill out this information, ‘MeToca’ prevented access to the application.

Equality invited citizens to create “teams” with different options. From the most common, such as “buying food”, “cleaning”, “doing the dishes”, “setting the table” or “doing the laundry”, to more unusual issues such as “personal attention”, “planning activities”, ” emotional attention” or “care and surveillance.” Once the work was recorded, the level of effort (from one to three), the time (limited to a maximum of eight hours) and the date on which it was carried out could be indicated. This last requirement was planned for past activities or activities that occurred on the same day, without the option of scheduling in the future and planning in advance who is in charge of it.

Curiously, the application highlighted in pink those tasks linked to women for years, such as those related to shopping or clothing, such as “doing the laundry”, “ironing”, “planning purchases”, “arranging clothes”. » or «change of house clothes». On the other hand, those related to men were marked in blue (“various maintenance”, “home repairs”, “gardening”, “pet walking” or “picking up and tidying”), which indicated a obvious gender separation, something that has always clashed with the discourse against colors that Montero always defended as Minister of Equality: “The color pink oppresses women, specifically girls, and feeds the sexual division of labor.”

Negative reviews

The reception by users speaks for itself. Before ‘MeToca’ disappeared from the app stores, it had mostly negative reviews, specifically being rated 1.5 out of 5 stars. «How wonderful! “Some friend has pocketed a fortune for an app that is impossible to put into practice, creates conflict and is absolutely obsolete,” highlighted a user who had downloaded the application. “I just ironed the cat and unloaded it.” “The Ministry has to get into people’s private lives to tell them what they have to do and how to do it,” mentioned another.