#ShareTheLoad: United in Heaven, Divided on Earth!!

Scene 1: Its lunch time, Neha went along with her with her colleagues to the Cafeteria of a private Organization.

A colleague asked looking at her as she was holding only her wallet and not the “lunch box”, “hey Neha, where is your lunch bag today? Haven’t you brought it?”

“Nahi yaar…yesterday prepared the presentations till late, so couldn’t wake up in time in the morning?”And then she had her lunch from canteen

Scene 2 : Its Lunch Time, Rohan was at his desk when his friend Ajay called out

“Hey Rohan, let’s have lunch yaar”

“Han Han…coming, coming” Rohan said while getting out of the desk

Rohan and his colleagues sat together in a table in the canteen and opened up their lunch boxes.

Arre Yaar…main bhul gaya, I have to get something from canteen…”

“Why, haven’t brought dabba, Neha se jhagada hua kya…?” one of them said blinking one eye.

“Abe sale, aisa kuchh nahin hua. Last night she slept late, so couldn’t prepare dabba today as she couldn’t wake up in time in the morning” Rohan said laughingly and went to have something from canteen.

For Picture Source click in the link below.
http://www.bonobology.com/Features/54/Marriage/United-by-marriagedivided-by-gender-roles-and-responsibilities

I think, from the scenes above, all of you must have understood what I wanted to say. at least the illustration says it all. Household chores still has a feminine tag attached to it. No matter what heights women achieve in their professional fields, at home they have to do (in most of the cases) cooking, dish washing, laundry etc.  We often wonder, why can’t Rohan make dabba for both of them in the morning some days? At least the days when Neha is really unable to do so? Many would agree with me that it’s not in the DNA of Indian households (mostly as there are always scopes for some exceptions) to teach boys household chores. At least when one is married, the lady is supposed to handle both office and home while for boys, often they marry to have someone handle home for them.  

Frankly, this one thing has really challenged the sanctity of Indian families. Divorces are happening these days in alarming rates. “Doing work/job” aren’t a choice for girls these days; rather it has become a necessity. The Lady has to share the economic load of the growing requirements of the family, unlike earlier times. But household chores still remain an exclusive work for women as men doing them still considered as prejudice.  Isn’t it unfair? I have friends and relatives whom I have seen becoming a robot muddling through the home and office quite exhaustively. I have some friends whose had to face the pain of a “broken marriage” just because they were unable to manage both work and home.

Honestly, if we will not take these established gender stereotypes seriously and work towards breaking them right now, we can’t expect our children to enjoy their family lives. It’s a question of the future of our children, their emotional needs and their legitimate rights to have a blissful family life.  It will happen if we teach our kids regarding these stereotypes

The following way, we can teach the Gen-next  about the outdated gender stereotypes in household chores. 

Now days both Rohans and Nehas (read boys and girls) get equal upbringing in terms of education, care and support from the family. The only difference is, still parents ask their girls to learn to take responsibility of the home, children and household chores while boys aren’t needed to learn.

The parents have to wake up if they want their children to be happy in future.  They should start teaching their boys to bear the responsibility at home.

Workshops at schools should be organized to depict, a family that works together, share the responsibilities, is a family that stays together.

New curriculum should be developed as home skills to instill young minds with the equality in sharing the loads at home.

All those advertisements should be ban that “glorifies” “Maa ki hath ki safai” or “Maa ki hath ki khanna”. It has a gender stereotype over tune to it.

Technology should be used to reduce human effort and time to do works. For ex. Washing machines reduces human effort to clean clothes. Also Detergents should be made so strong and efficient that it should further reduce the human effort for cleaning of clothes by making laundry an easy job.  Ariel has made itself like one. it should be applied to other chores as well. 

More and more campaigns like #ShareTheLoad should be created to spread awareness…

Lets teach our boys some chores. Like I do to my son, he readily ask for them though. At least I don't prevent him doing them for me thinking he is a boy. 

It’s not that everyone is like Rohan as people are changing these days. But we need a big part of the society to change, free itself from those outdated established norms.

It’s said that marriages are made in heaven to unite two people, then why should there be “stereotypes” to divide them/couples on Earth?’ The established gender stereotypes are real threat to the “sacred knots” of our society. 

Important Note: The Title is inspired by an article written by Anupama Kondayya in www.bonobology.com. and the illustration is taken from it with permission from the author. Its an interesting article. To read Click Here. 

           

 “I am taking part in the #ShareTheLoad Challenge with Ariel and Aksharaat BlogAdda.”