It is 9 pm. The door opens. A woman in her mid-thirties enters all tired and worn out from a heavy working day at the office.
A man from the couch looks up, “Oh! You are finally home. I was actually waiting for you.”
“Yes, I had a very busy day at work today. I didn’t even have time to have a glass of water”.
“That is sad! Your boss should understand that you employees are human beings and have a limit of exerting your body.”
“True to that.” The woman sighed while taking off her high heels that had been burning her feet for a long while now.
“Let me relax you. Go and make a cup of coffee for us. We will sit together and chat over coffee. Share everything with me, it will help you relax.” He said with a smile.
Unable to say anything, she smiled back.
This scenario seems too familiar, isn’t it? It is a situation that can be found in almost every other household. The unbalanced distribution of household roles and duties is one of the biggest problems that remains unsolved at large.
The idea of having a woman working outside and returning home to work in the home is too strong to be opposed verbally. How often do girls hear that ‘learn the household chores or you won’t be welcomed in your in-laws place’? It is almost twice per day, if not more. But this is an expectation not only from the males of the society but also the females.
Mostly it is the women of the house who play a prominent role in suppressing another woman or clipping her wings. The seminars and workshops on gender roles sensitization is of zero use until and unless you begin the change in your own house. Often, the woman opts for the ‘smile’ rather than voicing against the wrong idea.
This needs to change.
These smiles are not only a woman’s answer but even a male’s reply to many. Not only the females but even the males face these injustices that throw an ax on their ambitions and dreams. I have seen men struggling with their jobs and yearning to give a different meaning to their life but then again, the frowning brows put hurdles in their way. We can never iron off those frowns but we can surely trim the objections to minor roadblock.
The normal understanding that gender role is a self-made choice and is not supposed to be a forced ideology needs to be nurtured as an accepted and expected behavior. A man can equally enjoy and manage the house well as a woman can build her job outside the four-walls of the house
It is high time that we understand that modernism does not mean your sense of fashion or trends but it is actually the evolving thoughts that reflect in your actions and words. The condescending words that try and jab a person’s idea of individuality and personality needs to be curbed and axed – by you – by me – by the world as a whole.
The freedom to spread your wings and turn in any direction that you want should be transformed into a reality of a free world.
The change is not going to be immediate but it will surely make the world a better place to live in, if we click the pause button and restart life like a fresh chapter with a fresh ink.
By
Vrinda Mishra
IG: @writer_vrinda
(With a flair in English and Hindi, Vrinda Mishra, is a published author and poet with books like ‘Zindagi Ke Panno Se’ and ‘Ek Pyali Chay’, and stories like “Rhapsodic Cadence’, ‘The Lost Soul’. A literature enthusiast by nature, she aims to paint the world in colour of her ink.)
Comments