I was talking to my cousin Charu this morning about an article she had written on the occasion of Mother's Day, called India: Mothers' Identity Crisis. It was a good piece, and dealt with an issue that I've often wondered about.
For a long time, we had a reasonably clear division of labor between the genders in India - the man brings home the bacon, the woman cooks it. I don't think it was fair, but it was at least clear. Now, when women are beginning to be a lot more career-oriented, their traditional role (taking care of the household, especially in the matter of raising kids) somehow seems to remain more or less unchanged. To be fair, there are a number of families that are adapting to the changed scenario. But I hear from my friends and family of a number of cases where the wife is still expected to come home and cook dinner after a long day's work.
Let's look at parenting for a moment. I've wondered if there are solid biological reasons why women should have a greater role in parenting than her career might allow at times. As I understand it, the women rear the young in most species. But I know so little about this subject that I'd rather not take a stand at the moment. Just wanted to put the question out there. If anyone of you actually reads this blog, tell me what you think.
And here's the other question that has bothered me for a while. It has to do with the freedom given to women in society. Fundamentally, this is kinda crazy, isn't it? What do we mean by giving freedom to women? Do we give anybody the air to breathe? Shouldn't it be theirs by right? Who is anybody to give it to them, or take it from them?
I'm sure there's a bunch of you women out there who would respond to this with varying degrees of vitriol, mostly involving different uses of the word "naive". You're mostly right: what seems obvious and what actually is are quite different.
However, what I am trying to get at here is a question of mindset. There are, I agree, a number of situations where a woman has to fight to get what should be hers by right. But at the same time, I think there are also situations where a woman will be free if she believes her freedom to be as obvious a fact as her existence itself. If you internalize the idea of your freedom to the point where you simply do what you want to do (subject to all the other caveats about freedom, such as responsibility and so on) and regard as absurd, anyone else's presumption to tell you what you should do... maybe the effect would be that people would mostly just accept you as you are. I say this because I see women who seem to have that quality: some kind of deep-seated realization that they are free, as opposed to being made free. And it seems to work for them.
Now, none of this is easy. If you want to be a career woman, there will obviously be situations where family needs and career needs will conflict, and I cannot see easy answers for that. And like I said, as a practical way of implementing freedom, this approach of simply doing your thing will (unfortunately, but clearly) not work in many situations. And it takes more wisdom than I possess to be able to distinguish between the situations where it will work and where it won't.
But maybe, just maybe, a few of the minor skirmishes between the sexes will cease to be if one party simply did not recognize the other party's right to be there on the battlefield in the first place.
Does this make sense to anyone? Women, especially? Let me know.
For a long time, we had a reasonably clear division of labor between the genders in India - the man brings home the bacon, the woman cooks it. I don't think it was fair, but it was at least clear. Now, when women are beginning to be a lot more career-oriented, their traditional role (taking care of the household, especially in the matter of raising kids) somehow seems to remain more or less unchanged. To be fair, there are a number of families that are adapting to the changed scenario. But I hear from my friends and family of a number of cases where the wife is still expected to come home and cook dinner after a long day's work.
Let's look at parenting for a moment. I've wondered if there are solid biological reasons why women should have a greater role in parenting than her career might allow at times. As I understand it, the women rear the young in most species. But I know so little about this subject that I'd rather not take a stand at the moment. Just wanted to put the question out there. If anyone of you actually reads this blog, tell me what you think.
And here's the other question that has bothered me for a while. It has to do with the freedom given to women in society. Fundamentally, this is kinda crazy, isn't it? What do we mean by giving freedom to women? Do we give anybody the air to breathe? Shouldn't it be theirs by right? Who is anybody to give it to them, or take it from them?
I'm sure there's a bunch of you women out there who would respond to this with varying degrees of vitriol, mostly involving different uses of the word "naive". You're mostly right: what seems obvious and what actually is are quite different.
However, what I am trying to get at here is a question of mindset. There are, I agree, a number of situations where a woman has to fight to get what should be hers by right. But at the same time, I think there are also situations where a woman will be free if she believes her freedom to be as obvious a fact as her existence itself. If you internalize the idea of your freedom to the point where you simply do what you want to do (subject to all the other caveats about freedom, such as responsibility and so on) and regard as absurd, anyone else's presumption to tell you what you should do... maybe the effect would be that people would mostly just accept you as you are. I say this because I see women who seem to have that quality: some kind of deep-seated realization that they are free, as opposed to being made free. And it seems to work for them.
Now, none of this is easy. If you want to be a career woman, there will obviously be situations where family needs and career needs will conflict, and I cannot see easy answers for that. And like I said, as a practical way of implementing freedom, this approach of simply doing your thing will (unfortunately, but clearly) not work in many situations. And it takes more wisdom than I possess to be able to distinguish between the situations where it will work and where it won't.
But maybe, just maybe, a few of the minor skirmishes between the sexes will cease to be if one party simply did not recognize the other party's right to be there on the battlefield in the first place.
Does this make sense to anyone? Women, especially? Let me know.
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