During my growing up years, my mother was a housewife. We were a single-income, Middle Class Family. Several Indian middle class households during those days subscribed to the traditional division of labour in the marital space, i.e. the man went out to earn a living and provide for his family and the woman stayed at home to look after home and hearth and raise the children.
However, in the last couple of decades this picture of the average family has changed (at least in urban India) since more and more Women have started going out to work. Their well-meaning, sympathetic partners ensured that they shared they the burden of domestic work because their women had taken it upon themselves to supplement the family income.
All fine and dandy within the family, but is the outside world ready for it? Has society evolved enough to be able to accept the fervour with which some women pursue their careers? Or for that matter accept that the man can care enough about his home and kids enough to ‘interfere’ with them? NO.
In the professional space, the existence of the glass ceiling is common knowledge. Working women have it tough in the professional domain simply because they are at work when society expects them to be at home. If she prioritizes her family over her work, she loses her image at work. If she chooses not to start a family and pursue her career, she is dubbed ‘unfeeling’ and ‘un-womanlike’. From the practical point of view, there is very little infrastructural support in the form of childcare facilities for working mothers. Men, on the other hand, always had it easier in the professional sphere because they were expected to be there in the first place. However, within the changed scenario, they have a tough time fitting into the domestic space and trying to call the shots in it because they are not expected to worry about the home and kids. He is faced with a scowl if he tells the cook that the food is too salty. He is met with raised eyebrows from the school staff if he calls up to inquire after his child’s missing cap or lost spoon. These are small examples of how certain things are still considered a woman’s job. Even though the poor man may be eating salty food he has no right to complain about it, unless it is routed through his spouse! :-)
The fact remains that we have not been able to shed the stereotypes of the ‘man’s job’ and the ‘woman’s responsibility’. With this kind of a mindset wouldn’t the traditional division of labour in the marital space be suited to all? Regressive as it may sound, we’re still not ready for this new arrangement where both the man and the woman take equal responsibility for the world outside the fours walls as well as within it.
