REDEFINING WOMANHOOD
Woman are an integral part of humankind. The special features of female gender are….
They are beautiful but physically usually a little weaker. But so far as mental faculties or other intricate physical abilities are concerned, they are the same with males or even transgenders. The added facet to this creation is they carry the human race forward by bearing children with the help of their male partners. Females are as such normally no different in the battle of life.
However off late the focus is, why are females exploited at home or work. This snowballing discussion around every woman’s day celebration or even otherwise is perhaps the key cause for all this menace.
Every person male or female have to carry stress at work. So is it with parenting and managing a home,. If a woman drives her way to work or school and the man gets the food ready at home then why point at differences. Perhaps two or three decades back when we were all evolving, some women by choice stayed back at home and steered the wheel there.
Everyone changes roles. Even a man has to carry the responsibility of being a son, a friend, a husband and a father while they hold the burden of earning and working outside. Its high time to do away with gender specific analysis and highlighting such issues anymore.
There are men who these days stay at home and take care of family and chores there because the woman has a stable job outside. This kind of working reshuffle is seen both in the urban and rural areas. Not only that, many affluent families are financially fathered by the working woman.
It’s definitely not only the females who are vulnerable to stress, depression or getting burnt out. Every human at any age from childhood to old age can feel exhausted and bogged down. This is no way gender specific. However, the fact that females are usually physically weaker does not make them vulnerable unless the society reiterates that woman are different, weaker, less privileged etc. The general outlook towards women by the society at large has time and again made them victims of unwanted criminal activities. If people are nurtured learning the fact that women can be physically harassed and they are downtrodden then how can we wipe out such consequences. Celebrating Woman’s Day by spotlighting on some woman who supposedly broke barriers only means that these barriers still exist.
Why aren’t men who broke such illusionary barriers also appreciated. What about the men who are singly parenting kids, are they ever talked about? There are men who work outside home for a living like all of us and yet back home they teach, feed, cook and do all chores to keep the family going. Every piece of work is ability specific. If a judge gives a judgement, will it change depending on the judge’s gender? If a doctor treats a patient, will the protocol change depending on the doctor’s gender. These skills are ability specific. There is no shift in the work output determined by the gender of the service giver.
Let us continue to appreciate achievers in all fields but let it be gender neutral. The more we keep reminding the society that women have now done things like these, that we need a change of attitude, that we need to give them equal status …. It only keeps highlighting the fact that women are still not equal. Why do we need reservations for women? Every job or service is ability specific. If a man is excellent in culinary skills or in sewing nobody highlights it with gender bias. But if a woman flies an aircraft or does any highly skilled piece of work, an applaud is definitely called for but let’s keep it gender unbiased.
The new generation men from enlightened backgrounds are slowly learning to feel shy if they are not competent in kitchen management or housekeeping.
Let’s do away with this focus on women as the feeble, fragile, infirm human.
The demeanor change should begin in every home. Once men start sharing every piece of work that crops up at home with no reservations then how will unhealthy values roll down to the next generation.
If we can swap this acknowledgement of achievements with admiration of skills and abilities keeping the gender bias neutral, perhaps only then we will live in a society of coequal.
Men are equally vulnerable at work or home. They are bigger pressure cookers of stress and victims of discrimination. But the spotlight of all unhealthy inadequacies is hovered around females.
If we can do away with such unreasonable bias, we will gradually build a social structure where every person gets their due attention and appreciation remaining neutral of other unhealthy factors.
By
Dr Madhumita Priyadarshini Das