It is worth the noting—women and equal rights! Can both go hand-in-hand?! Do I hear the vigorous, running the air past them, nod of a hall full of people, mostly males, if the eyes are as good as my ears. Now how very ridiculous is this—men, of all people, should at least not lie from both ends of the mouth! They, for the most, do so perhaps to please themselves, to say things have come a long way, and both men and women, stride together in tandem. Yes, the duo deal with demanding bosses in high-performance companies, high-pressured jobs. That definitely is true. And for ages now women form a sturdy and wholesome part of the workforce—doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, professors, pilots, boxers, wrestlers, bus drivers and what not, definitely rubbing shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts but…a reality check, a good dose of it, to put things in the right perspective.
Fine, again for the most, the way-of-life of, “lock them in the Tower because they don’t appease our every whim and fancy”, might be a matter of history but…but, again re-ally, women and men treated as equals in the eyes of the male mind-set?! Now treading on, before I am branded as a card-holding feminist—someone akin to, even in today’s world, an erstwhile witch to be burnt at the stakes, then puh-leese, hold your horses! Feminism what do we do with these man-made isms?! Absolutism, Activism, Absurdism. To mark people, to put them in certain definitive boxes, stereotype them, and set them apart from the normal world. Here must add that one can debate from morning till night but what exactly does “normal” mean?! Who actually are the normal lot?!
Okay, no more mulling over these high-emotion battling thoughts and put this pen on the road set out to take. For ever so long, we hear how in America there’s a “glass ceiling” at the workplace for women. Initially, when you are a pile of years younger, I tended to, quite honestly, look up at the roof or the skies, depending on your locale, whenever the term glass ceiling came up, until I was gloatingly enlightened by a gentleman, of course a Hindustani, that the expression meant that women can’t go up, in their career graph beyond a certain point. And viola, the coinage of glass ceiling came into being! They could sprain a nerve in their necks, piningly staring at the glass above, which if they dared to break, would most likely, end up cracking their skulls. So, basically, it’s about staying put.
Glass ceiling also means that you might be holding the same job, the very same designation but…but…your salary cum bonus package would positively be a notch (or more) below your male colleague. This is as unfair as not landing a part in a film, despite meeting all the requisites the character requires, because your eyes were not brown enough or rather not the right shade of brown! Here, In India, never heard of your paycheck being less than the colleague’s whose job is exactly, down-to-the-last-letter, the very same. A precise replication! In other words, we Indians, more naturally the progressive ones, unlike those Americans, touted for their upward thinking, the land where women were liberated and thus been able to reshape the order of things, ringing in a better, brighter world. Yes, this hauls in a dampeningly, down-headed terrain.
Now, to land back to India. Fine, equal pay for equal work in government offices, private limited companies etc. and etc. but what about at the home-front, being considered at par with your husband?! Both of you have jobs, careers, then how is it that the wife has to do most of the running around in the house?! Is that why the title of, “the Lady of the house” is bestowed on her?! Of course, there’s such a thing as, “Man of the house” but have my ears gone for a hike or is there actually a different tone and tenor to the latter?! A booming note to this title?! A woman can work endlessly, multitasking, not because that’s how God created her, but because this business of living made her ambidextrous, being able to wield her left and right hands with equal ease, howsoever frenetic be the pace. The lady deals, more or less solo, with the kids’ homework, their PTMs, camping trips, nurses them back to good health with home-made soups and concoctions to rid her darling child of that cough and cold. Daddy does chip in—fun-filled shopping expeditions for school trips, he with a thumbs-up expression takes on, his applauding is the loudest for his little munchin on annual day…needn’t go on.
The kids, of course, crown him with the Super-Dad trophy. Nearing finishing line, and I see there are more miles to go, so say we make a dash for it?! The maid had taken yet another off. The wife makes a one-pot meal, and don’t take a few frightened steps back if you, the one—who had that very morning rustled up breakfast, packed lunch tiffins and now after office had managed to put a decent dish on the table—finds accosted by a face that looks like thunder. Yes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! These visuals might be over-the-top, an amplified version of how things are, but the fact remains—most Eastern men, though I hear during the Covid days, many men did find themselves not asking directions to the kitchen, then discovering which cupboard housed the stainless-steel tea pan, and the fridge no longer was an alien being! Remember, no maids trooping in and out.
Funny, that many top-notch anchors don’t marry. Now, however, how would they be able to juggle a consuming and challenging career while simultaneously running a home and hearth without crumbling?! The same for our cinema’s leading ladies who are at the top of the act—Preity Zinta, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif. Yes, they’ve tied the knot, somewhat late in the day, and either are superb actors, appearing sublimely content with their partners or in truth are so. Is it because their lesser-halves are able to whip up marvellously flavoursome pasta sauce, or that the heroine’s beans on toast are inhaled as if it was a club sandwich?! The hands-down answer, methinks, is in the latter!
Time to race to the kitchen, make a pot of coffee, while readying to take on, heads-on another day.