Today I woke up amid several woman’s day wishes, with my phone notifications constantly buzzing me out of deep slumber.
Today was no different than others. The household chores and the usual office grind are never ending affairs and here comes the end of this day! We were taught to appreciate efforts that women spend during every walks of our life right from our school days. But we never gave it a serious thought.A thought to what a woman goes through every single day, every week, every month and then years altogether. Wishing well is so easy, but are we ready to bring across some change in the way society thinks or the way the other gender treats women? Then we need not observe any specific days.
The World is accelerating at such an immense pace, first world nations are setting up examples, developing countries are thriving globally by their progressive thinking. We have women presidents and prime ministers around in the world, women leaders in several organizations.Now we have women leading at higher positions in Army, navy and air force. We often gush at their valiant displays during republic day parade, aero shows as brave women pilots. They have set excellent examples to inspire other aspiring women. But there are few factors that still obstruct vital progress.
The patriarchal society does not support its women enough to pursue their aspirations. Recent statistics shows we still have so many girls drop out of secondary schools, colleges mostly in the age range of 6-17 yrs for household work or early marriage. Among those, at least 2% dropped out due to safety concerns and another 2% due to poor financial conditions or facilities. As for the rest proceed to college, there is another 5-7% dropout too. Mostly in families, boys' education is given more importance than a girl's. If economic condition is bad, either the girl has to earn scholarship to continue her studies or is married off. Its a sight to see, expectation on girls and women to finish off the house-hold chores as well as do the studies / handle office responsibilities. Any incapability to handle the household work is dealt with harsh criticisms . Have seen lot of girls in the family brooming, mopping and washing clothes & utensils even on their exam days , whereas boys have to just focus on their studies and are being given all the help needed. Not to mention, there are boys who also help their mothers in household chores in the absence of sisters. But young girls are groomed for household work right from an early age. They are made to believe it is their responsibility to keep the home spic and span, perform all types of chores, cook and feed the members of the family. Lot of families living in the urban areas have overlooked this concept, but not culminated this kind of thinking entirely.
For example it still surprises me to see men in the family just walk to the dining area, eat and walk off. They don’t even bother to pick their plates to keep in the sink or clean after them. They don’t ask women whether they need any help in the kitchen. Instead they boss around, can you bring me that book, pass on the newspaper, get me a glass of water and so on.
Change begins at home, and change comes from within. Instead of simply wishing women on this day, please pick up your own plate, gather your own stuffs, stop sending women on errands especially when you dont have anything else to do. Educate your sons to do the same. Let us change the mentality of our households where women are treated inferior socially. Let us support women in our life and crush this patriarchy.
Be it our mother, sister, wife , relative or acquaintances or colleagues at office. Let us stop judging them for once and for all. Women working in offices have to compromise on some aspects in order to complete her chores, look after her family and also keep her superiors satisfied about her working abilities.
Another thing that astounds me is that women do not support women; let alone men. In the patriarchal families, elder women train younger women to follow certain ideologies and to not consider herself before any male member in the family. Which means first preference would be to feed all the men and then feed other remaining and then leftovers to oneself. This is still prominent in 75% of the Indian families. Neglecting oneself in the name of love and care for others is a farce. One should stop treating certain members preferably purely based on genders. Also in lot of villages, female infanticide is prevalent still today. They are thought to be a burden to the family. That’s how the dowry system evolved in the early ages.
In the offices, percentage of women climbing the rungs of corporate ladder starts dropping as the job level increases. Very few make it to the board of directors and very few to the office of the CEO. Women do not get the necessary support or flexibility often in most of the offices. Expecting mothers are frowned upon, new mothers laid off. Lot of recruiters hire in the name of gender diversity. But the question worth pondering is why does a company suddenly feel the need to be inclusive by diverse gender? If their policies were lenient enough, there would have been many women already working with them. In current corporate scenarios wherein WFH and hybrid work culture is rampant, healthy work life balance is a myth. Can companies provide flexible work hours to the men and women who need to balance their personal life with work?
Instead of having women’s day gratitude sharing day/week, can we recognize the women who slog overtime neglecting their personal life by rewarding them a flexible work schedule? Despite the newer generations evolving we see decreasing gaps in the gender bias, but it will definitely take another century for a complete overhaul at this pace. Hopefully, a day may come when women wont need special recognition on this single day, infact she should feel welcome every day.
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