Dues of Our Homemakers

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Sep 5, 2018 · 7 min read

There is no universal litmus test of equality. It’s meaning is as static as the river waters. What once seemed fair and equal to the greatest of minds, is not anymore. The actions that once implied empowerment of a section have altered their shades, so much so that they now have the air of being just another symbol of oppression.

There was a famous politician who once said,

"Equality is nothing but an illusion of a mind which is so delusional of its own importance, that in the grand stand of things, it believes itself to be an equivalent to the greatest minds of history or to those blazing minds who shall come to pass in future. We are meant to be different and by inference, unequal."

It is not so hard to imagine someone saying so. So thus I urge you, that this very moment, you imagine a politician, wearing the formal attire of one, standing on a huge makeshift stage and blaring into the speaker in front of a crowd of thousands.



Now hold on. If you have really imagined 'him’, my question is moot. But here it is: Is it really a 'him’? If yes, you are in vast majority. I frequently come across articles about gender equality and inclusion. Under some, it is not unusual to spot phrases like a "woman conductor" or "woman pilot" or "woman chef".



From the perspective of relaying information, I understand that the intention of most of them is to draw attention to the fact that the fields of public employment, which have been open to men for a millennia, are now being opened for the other half of human population. But by doing so, they are inadvertently perpetuating the practice of labels within labels. They are not wrong to presume that it is a male, because our imagination corroborate to the real world observations, whereby a disproportional weight is in favour of men. But it is time to keep nagging our brain into a more neutral stance. Unless we do so, the root-cause of discrimination lives on.



Whosoever heard of a male chief of justice? Or a male pilot? No, such prefixes are never or rarely attached because it is commonly understood that when someone says 'pilot’, it automatically refers to a male by default. And it is presumed that had it been a female, they would have explicitly mentioned so.



For disclaimer, the "famous politician" at the beginning was me. And unlike the real them, I can happily concede that the statement is an utter hogwash. We are different yet equals in essence and existence i.e. as human beings.

The labels we all acquire during our lives have some merits, demerits and prejudices of their own. So my argument is not against the existence of labels, which are quite inevitable. It is neither possible nor entirely wrong to classify people. We are a diverse group with irreconcilable differences. So we create some superficial tags to decipher the world better. My argument is against the strings attached to some labels or the prejudices we hold, whilst propounding equality of any kind. I simply seek to question the notion of 'this is how it is’.

A Dependency for Being

Being this as a base, in this piece of writing, I’ll be bidding to pick on the role of women in a traditional Indian household.



I’ve always frowned at the word 'housewife’. It confines a human into a very narrow interpretation of being someone who stays at home and who is somebody’s wife. It correlates their very existence to that of another person, as if there is no independent existence of their own. Urban India do challenge such conventions but only moderately succeeds.



Imagine for an instance that in rural India, a woman leaves her husband or he is unfortunately deceased. Where does that leave her? Our society has words for such cases, both kind and unkind. But is she really ever free from labels?

The social creation of an independent, free person requires the conception of an idea in the minds of the common crowd: the idea that she is neither bound to nor in need of a man, that she may or may not want another person in her life, that she has a choice to take her own path, make fallacies, learn and unlearn if need be. The element of choice is negated when society dictates terms of social acceptance.

A household in an average Punjabi village has not yet fully embraced the idea of a nuclear family. It may hold true for a part or all of rural India but that’d be just my conjecture. So I’ll revolve around what I can say with fair certainty. Such families latches onto the collective identity of old times, where generations live together as long as possible. Running the affairs of a house is tedious and tiresome. Although all members contribute their bit, but the lion’s share of management goes to the women of the household.



Being in my twenties, the observations I put forth are limited to the generation of my parents and thereon. In our nakedly patriarchal structure, we claim to put our mothers on the highest throne of divinity, equating woman to a goddess. It always seemed paradoxical to me that the theoretical thrones are so different from ground reality. Much less a goddess, the household women are usually not the part of financial decisions of their rightful property. Rarely does their opinion hold the same weight as the father, when it comes to deciding future of their child. Though it is understood that there’re always exceptions; in the form of some matriarchial socities or the women who challenge the norms and stand out against all odds; or even in regular rural homes who dare to effectuate equality.

There is an amusing expression which some parents give, “Our daughter is like a son to us.” It means that they hold the same value and love for their daughter that the society showers on a son. An honourable intent indeed, though it inherently signals to the societal favouritism for sons.

Anyhow, the focal point here are not the rarities but generality. It is obvious that all the labour of transforming a house into a home yields nothing tangible for a homemaker. They gain almost no favours, as they do not earn. Yes, there lies the cause.

Money matters, we’ve all heard. But it matters equally in the most intimate of relations we hold so sacred.

It is outlandish to imagine the possibility where a person or child would monetarily pay for the household services their wife or mother dispense. It is absurd simply because the services so rendered are bestowed out of love and selflessness. Mother wouldn’t ask to be paid for the pranthas she made at five in the morning because you had to leave early. Would she? And we love them for all that they do. And it settles the argument in our mind, if it ever arises at all.



But does that mean their work hold no tangible value? Being a hostel dweller, I know how costly the daily expenses are. I’m not debating for the need to recognize their effort at a more practical level. That goes without saying. I’m arguing for the equality they deserve at decision making level. I’m arguing for the respect and honour they deserve for managing not just our homes but our lives altogether. They are literally no less than the earning figure of the family because their contribution is as tactile as theirs.

Raja Rammohan Roy was a ferocious activist of women’s rights. He believed that unless the law requires natural inheritence of property for women as it does for men, they will not be socially uplifted. He was right, though he hugely underestimated the deep roots of a partiarchial society. Law books rarely bring change unless enforced. Enforcement will rarely work if the minds are still chained to the same old structure. Such minds always find a way around the ‘problem’. For instance, there is reservation for women in Panchayat elections and we’ve seen a surge in the participation of household women. The statistics looked rosy to me, as I studied them sitting far from my village in Dehradun. But witnessing the panchayat election presented something which statistics didn’t. It was an open secret that the face of a woman on an election poster doesn’t mean she is behind the wheel. It was mostly a contest between their husbands or brothers, who were the real drivers and beneficiaries.

A Case For A Not-So-Grim Tomorrow

So property rights weren’t the solution, neither was reservation nor was their status as a goddess. They were necessary leaps for sure but not comprehensive and final.

Where lies the end of it all, you ask? I believe it lies in the mind of an educated child. One cannot tame the minds of millions and wish partriarchy away. It is a gradual ongoing process. But one can steer and urge our young minds to look beyond conventions. There are questions which musn’t be silenced but encouraged. Let them question with a why when you say ‘this is how it is’.

In the school I studied, many of my companions had working mothers. At the beginning of our term, our teachers would ask us of the occupation of our parents. I’d happily relay my father’s job description but the term 'housewife' had a negative and inferior connotation in my mind. Limited as my vocabulary was, I had no better word to replace it with. In the present day, I bounce at every chance I steal, to simply say that my mother was a homemaker and she made not just my home 'home' but sew me the life as I know it. And I owe her a debt unpayable.


It all has been said before and in ways better and more comprehensive. But I needed to say it anyway.

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Disarrayed. Weird. Wannabe.

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