By Jenniefer Dkhar
Jawaharlal Nehru said: “You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of women.”
There has been a change in the position and status of women for the better but there is still a lot that is left to be done. It will take a long time for women to be provided equality and equity in every sphere. Subordination of women be it at home, at the workplace or the political arena is a condition that must change.
Even today, women still perform a greater part of unpaid domestic work across the globe. Gender pay gap still exists in every economy and women remain vividly underrepresented in positions of political and economic power.
At the domestic front, women are perceived as architects of the home. Home is a space where women do not merely live but a space that becomes their social world. The relegation of women to the home was not based on the biological difference between men and women but an adherence to an actively constructed social arrangement that has been made strong through law, custom, religion, and economic dependency. In many cases even today, women are looked upon as beings subordinate to their husbands who are recognised as heads of their family. The public world of commerce, politics, and civic life is the domain of men, while the private world of home and family is the domain of women.
It is encouraging that many women are carving spaces of their own but a great many of us are still never set free of gender roles and identities. Here, I’m reminded of Virginia Woolf’s essay Professions for Women where she says that women have always been perceived as Angels in the House. “She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it—.” Women have always been the nurturers and the caregivers in the house. Indeed, in almost every household, the woman is the one who sacrifices her needs, yearnings and desires for the sake of the other members in the family. It isn’t that a woman, especially a mother, bears grudges, it is a simple question of why should it be so?
In the same essay, Virginia Woolf writes ” in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to always sympathize with the minds and wishes of others.” These lines are painfully true. What is disturbing is the way in which a woman is being perceived as a being who has no mind of her own. No matter how belittling it may sound it is not true. Rather, if truth be told a woman has as much strength, courage, wisdom and intelligence as her male counterpart. All that is required is for the world to see a woman’s worth.
With the passage of time, women have gained access to education, professions that were always the domain of the male gender are seeing woman stand tall but women still retain their responsibility for unpaid and often unnoticed and unappreciated domestic chores of cooking, cleaning, childcare, elder care, emotional labour, and the vast invisible work of maintaining a household and a family.
A woman may be a working mother and is a contributor towards the economic fulfilment of the family but the responsibility of gratifying the needs of the family and the entire household still belongs to her. Regardless of their economic contribution, women are still expected to perform the majority of domestic work. The planning, anticipating, remembering, organising remains almost entirely female. Though women have moved from subservience and confinement in the domestic sphere yet the unequal distribution of domestic chores and care remains a structural and an integral part of a woman’s life and world.
It is noteworthy that access to education has been most transformative and we see women making significant advances in the judiciary, the military, the bureaucracy and other institutions of public authority. Yet, though women have moved from subservience and confinement in the domestic sphere, the unequal distribution of domestic chores and care remains a structural and an integral part of a woman’s life and world.
On the job front, women are becoming active participants yet disparity still exists. In the political arena women are occupying positions of significant authority but they still remain under-represented. And in society the position of women is seeing forward transformation and change but that transformation is still miniscule.
However, one would like to state that a woman fulfils great responsibility as the nurturer in her allows her to shape the moral and emotional foundation of the society. A mother’s patience, a grandmother’s stories, a sister’s protection are not small gestures but powerful acts of giving that help shape future citizens, leaders, and thinkers. A child taught compassion grows into an adult who is empathetic towards others. A daughter raised with confidence carries that strength into her workplace and community.
Through the act of giving guidance and care, women gain the profound satisfaction of seeing their values reflected in the world around them. No matter what women will continue to hold an important place in the home, at work and in the society at large. Let me conclude with the words of Maya Angelou from her poem, Still I Rise:
You may shoot me with your words/You may cut me with your eyes/You may kill me with your hatefulness/ But still, like air, I’ll rise.
