When they say girls are demanding, do they mean their moms who’ve forsaken a million sacrifices to devote and cherish their families, which they glorify as the quintessentially ideal motherhood? Or do they mean their sister who, bound by the gender-specified household responsibilities haplessly manages to educate herself, far less privileged than the men who readily exploit the space given for future pursuits? Or do they mean their female acquaintances who’re unfalteringly trying to balance their ambition of becoming self-sustained alongside that restricted room of independence at their homes? Or for that sake they’ve to mean their maids who are wandering house to house with the grandest that they can dream of—is to do daily dishwashing and garbage collection, so she can feed the stomach of her poverty-stricken family, mismanaged with a drunkard husband?
We can have abundant enumerations of women compromising their health, diets, routines, desires, career choices, mental and menstrual health, and social or sexual appetites simply to leverage to that designation of a praised Indian woman. Or simply because the misogynistic conventions have cradled along and we perpetually kept fueling the mentalities. Statements like ‘Sacrifices make a woman glorious’; ‘only jeopardizing your aspirations can mean selfless service’; ‘compromising yourself is compulsory to uphold womanhood’; ‘nurturing, pampering and entertaining everyone every hour is as if; the JD of a lady’; and that ‘being a better wife for days and nights, a nourishing mother solely accountable for her children's deeds, and a socially-worshiped ideal for all, is only what makes you a complete woman’ are the problem.
Women have, since times blurred, been coerced to believe, uphold and dignify what was entitled to her by the society. Each time, settling to pursue an educational course that her father sought more comfortable and womanly, she compromised her diligence and expertise. Each time, settling for a forte that’s predefined as feminine, she jeopardized her career choices. Each time, settling to marry someone absolutely strange, incompatible, or just filthy rich, she sacrificed her youthful feelings and fascination. Each time, settling for a marriage or a conventional job, she deserted the possibility of being an entrepreneur, she gave up on the ideas she had outgrown her restrictions with. And the list went on to infinity with she, settling for innumerable kids, negligible financial autonomy, family obedience, frequent ignominy, least conjugal authority, zero discretionary powers, and much beyond elucidation, crushing all of herself into believing she was always and only made for this, as the best good she could afford.
However, glancing at the arguments, it would be amateurish to claim that “No Women Over-demands”, which is a widely presumed fact at least in India, but as we dig deeper, we gradually etch out the rationale of women being accorded to such avarice or temptations by their respective families. Not being responsibly taught the need to earn, to make and manage financial decisions, to invest and to save, to look for the monetary merits of her family, simply tying their knots to a (mostly) imperfect yet considerably rich man, itself defines the motivation behind crushing a girl’s youthful desires, ambitions, and career completely, staking her next 40-50 years for a strange however a wealthy man. Under the label of acquiring materialistic content once with him, a girl dwells in the psychology of only desires and no deeds. What else shall we expect out of a woman brought-up with a compelling mentality of being married away to a husband who’ll keep her like a princess? Don’t these rhetorical lines instill in a girl’s mind that she must hold her teen desires in jeopardy for a strange man to take over her physical and psychological autonomy in return for fulfilling all her so far cherished desires?
Well, in today, when it sounds subversive to unanimously praise someone settling for the bare minimum with no consideration for her life beyond settlements, it would be an equal injustice to feed in the temptations of an avariciously brewing woman.
We need to put an end to our mother’s last piece of chapati that she usually dedicated to our mouths and start realizing that sometimes not sacrificing your share doesn't make you a bad mother, rather it redefines that you’re only a human! We need to allow our sisters, wear, demand and ask for whatever the world she may want, but to be only made eligible to earn enough of that money too, extending her the freedom to ask for, but with a sense of accountability to know how to fulfill it.
If you think the discussion on women settling for less, ends here, let me bring about the talk of opinions! Financial decisions, negotiation for a salary hike, career and future goals of the children, arrangements for an occasion, opinions on business, and standpoints in politics-how many mothers, grandmothers, aunts, wives or sisters have we seen owning the dignified right to speak upon and address the problems emerging in these areas? Null and None! Why?
Is settling for ‘bring a dish of French-fritters, we’re watching a cricket match’ not a compromise? Is being silenced with ‘come on, it’s about finances, what if you studied commerce, we men bear real decisions’, not a sacrifice of self-respect? Is ‘we’re going to venture outside, got to arrange tents and catering for our daughter’s wedding, let me know the list of your cooking ingredients’ not so regularly echoed in all our homes?
What is it? Are women who bear the physical brunt of continuous exhaustion not steady enough to go out and make these arrangements for her family? Does the interest harbored amongst the girls since her very childhood handed a Barbie-doll, not affect her sports and gymnastic choices when as she grows up almost railroaded? Is the tagline ‘women are the best nourishing gender not governing their restricted roles within a four-fenced home boundaries against the exposure of aggressive socioeconomic and political backdrop?’ Is that not a subversive justification of why they’re not perfect for outside roles, shackled within ‘pious’ homely bounds, nothing but bounds?
Written By: Upasana Kashyap
Graphic Designer: Tarini Gulati
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