The modern, Indian woman is forced to perform a delicate, juggling act, as she tries to maintain a work-life balance. Excelling at work is not enough. She is also expected to perform all the household chores.
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“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, writes Simone de Beauvoir in her treatise “The Second Sex”. Basically, through this line, Beauvoir expounds how the concept of “woman” is not just an inherent construct, but a social construct.
The day she is born, a girl immediately comes into the frame of a patriarchal discourse from where she is judged and analysed, as per the rules and regulations that the patriarchy has set for her.
Well, de Beauvoir’s treatise was written in 1949, and in the Indian context of the 21st century, it would be quite unfair if we comment on Indian women as “weak”, “inferior” and “delicate”, while tagging men as “strong”, “intelligent” and “superior”.
Because, Indian women have come a long way today, fighting back against the trends of the masculinised society. They are playing an excellent, egalitarian role in society, walking shoulder to shoulder in almost every field with men.
Women Forced To Juggle Work With Domestic Duties
From bagging the Miss Universe crown, to bringing home the silver medal for weightlifting in the Tokyo Olympics, and thereby lifting up the honour of the country, we are giving our best to prosper in the private and public spheres.
In fact, we can say at this juncture that women are in a better position, in comparison to men, in terms of the population statistics released by the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS5, 2019-’21).
But while keeping all this in mind, we can’t really ignore the sufferings of some women who still face the herculean task of maintaining a balance between their dual roles in the domestic and business worlds.
Because, as per the ancient myths of the patriarchal formulas, the household is a domain reserved just for the women. They need to look after it. While a man is just an economic supplier barred from the duties aligned with the domestic realm.
Some Of My Friends Are In The Same Boat
While having a long conversation with my friend Sneha on the phone, I got to know that being a school teacher in Nagpur, she works for almost 9 hours per day.
And, after returning home, her in-laws expect her to finish all the household chores by a stipulated time, just as a full-time homemaker is supposed to. Strictly caught in between domestic and office duties, Sneha has no redemption.
On the one hand, money is an essential commodity to survive in this expensive and materialistic world. On the other hand, the patriarchal society has rarely altered its expectations and demands from women.
Again, there’s a story from one of my former colleagues, Preeti, who is presently an IT (information technology) professional in a renowned MNC (multinational company) in Nagpur.
The Pressure Of Finding A Suitable Boy
Due to the pandemic, Preeti has been consistently facing an unsettled work life.
For the past couple of years, she is either losing jobs or not getting the kind of career opportunity she wants. Meanwhile, her parents are repeatedly forcing her to stick to one job (with a decent payment) somehow.
They want to find a suitable boy for her on a matrimonial app and get her married soon. According to her parents, she is aging and they can’t afford to waste any more time.
Such stories of uncertainty and the marginalised voices of women are still prevalent, albeit in a repressed tone, in society. Sneha and Preeti are not just located in Nagpur, they are located in different corners of the world with different names.
Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Women’s life is torn apart with silent tears. They have to fight for their existence in the ultra-competitive, technical world. Also, they have to struggle to retain their own identity in a household setting.
To wind up: women are facing complexities with unspeaking dilemmas in the present generation. We can’t ignore the words that Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak says:
“Between patriarchy and imperialism…the figure of woman disappears, not into a pristine nothingness, but into a violent shuttling which is displaced figuration of the ‘third world woman’ caught between tradition and modernization.”
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Written by Aninnya Sarkar. Sarkar is a research scholar and English lecturer in Nagpur.