Your Job, My Job , Our Job !
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I am up to no good and any incident/ character or instances are deeply influenced by every individual living or dead in my social circle. ( #pokerface)
With due credits to social media, national media and our not so informed generation (P.S Irony is that this post will go live on social media :-P), our vocabulary is pretty rich now. We have learnt empowerment, equality, appeasement, uplift, sexism,gender bias and many more. Isn't it all too simple , " We just do what we can and not stereotype".And someone rightly told me... there is no " His" job or " Her" job and its just a job.
Many of my female friends who vouch for being treated as equals with men , sometimes get very very ambiguous. Like at work place we need equal treatment , equal pay but need need a guy to get up when the train compartment is full, so they can sit. Getting your boy's hair cut at the salon also needs the man of the house to sort. What's the big deal if the mom goes and for people who have been there and done that ( including me !), will swear its no big deal at all. People will initially stare because you will different, and once others follow then it becomes a norm.Fixing your kid's cycle , doing plumbing, hopping onto the loft, dusting the ceiling,standing in a male dominated queue, playing soccer on the street, running on the road and blah !!! We can attempt and reduce dependencies. And again, people will stare because that is the best they can do, and one fine day your activities will become a habit for their eyes. Trust me ! Chivalry is not gender specific.
Now coming to my lovely male friends, ambiguity is your forte too. Why do other women go OOOh ! And AAh ! , when someone 's husband cooks , when he helps your kid with homework, when he does the dishes, when he goes grocery shopping, when he mops or sweeps the house, when he washes or dries the clothes, when he baby sits while the lady of the house steps out for some "Me Time!", When he enjoys shopping as much as she does, when he prays more than his mother ever did, when he helped washing his girl's hair, when he did hold his lady's bag while she walked along. Trust me ! You do not become a lesser " MAN", nor do you become a torch bearer for feminism. Again, because you had the courage to break the stereotype you will have someone sniggle but then again you will be that agent of change that makes an exception an example.
People argue that the men or women in the previous generations did things that caused so many gender biases, but I believe that's a different argument all together. We have our dedicated spaces and abilities that make us distinct and the strength lies in the differences and never in similarities.
No one is blue or pink, we all have traces of blue and pink in different proportions.
And like Socrates said,"The secret of change is to focus on not fighting the old but on building the new."
Nice provoking write up!! My opinions are also in line with yours except for few minor ones. Nowadays, most of our female counterparts are able to and are willing to do things, which are equal to that of men. The term "equality" holds good for men and women- in all kinds of jobs like household chores, office tasks or any job on day to day life. But there is one thing which all women cannot equate to men- that's physical strength. Men are stronger than women, physically and here we can never talk about "equality". This doesn't mean that we can't do the work that men does but we need some space at times.
ReplyDeleteGood one Sandy.. I too believe that when we want equality, shouldn't expect early start from office as a mommy excuse.. But mostly had to do. 😊😄
ReplyDelete-Thilaka
Loved it Sandhya!
ReplyDeleteThings are changing these days though!
We as mom of boys are doing almost everything as u say!trust me we can proudly say that we arent as dependant on male counterparts are our mom's were!