Comparing women in the west and the east?

i was fortunate enough to have a gap year during my studies last year. During the year i travelled around in asia; Pakistan to India to Nepal to China. The locals there were so good to me and i found my self staying with different families who i had friends here in the UK. I immediately noticed how hard life is there and how a simple commodity such as water is not easily obtainable as easy as turning a tap on. It was the men who worked and the women who would do the housework; such as harvesting despite the presence of dangerous animals and scorpians and snakes, getting water from wells, taking kids to school, cooking, cleaning etc. This was all to common in villages. This made me think that the women there work harder than men in the western civilisation and definetly more harder than women just to get by daily. Whilst most women here are scared of creepy crawlies, those women risk farming in an environment filled with snakes, scorpians etc.