Hey there,
Thank you for stopping by,
I have already been called stupid for writing this article and shed a few tears after realizing that people did not understand the bigger picture.
So here it is,
Where Did We Go Wrong?
Yesterday night in order to kill my time; I was indulging in one of my biggest guilty pleasures: YouTube. I clicked on this one video where three women were discussing books related to female sexuality (don’t you run away and accept the fact it exists; repeat after me, “Female Sexuality Exists”). One of them suggested an essay written by the famous Nigerian Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Promise me, you won’t run away after knowing the name of the essay because it has the eternal “F” word in it: We Should All Be Feminists. If you are too lazy to read, you can watch her TedTalk by the same title. What an amazing read it was! If you really want to know the arguments put forward, do read/watch them. She has given examples of gender bias that exists (although she mostly talks about Nigerian Society, conditions are very similar throughout). Do read it at least for the sake of arguments. Hardly twenty five pages, won’t take more than an hour.
In her essay, though she has mentioned many instances and examples, one caught my special attention but she did not elaborate it much. So I decided to take it further.
Sitting in one part of the world, in a tiny room, with a very limited wisdom and experience I am taking the liberty of saying this, “At some point in the past or present across all the civilizations, cultures, ethnicities, tribes and races; people (more specifically women) were told that women of the family will cook. Cook for her family, for her children, for her relatives, for his relatives, for her children’s friends, for her friends and lastly for herself”. No don’t worry; I am not that shallow that I would get offended only because women have been asked to cook. Personally I think everyone should cook (irrespective of their gender), because we are humans, we have stomachs to feed and we do not eat raw food very often. My limited world view has also made me to understand that men were held responsible for collection of food items; hunting, gathering and eventually earning. With time as we evolved, men got used to working outside, bringing or rather earning resources to cook. And women got used to cooking (exceptions did exist, but negligible). Everything was hunky-dory, yeah!!
But then, Industrial Revolution happened. Society witnessed never foreseen changes in the history of the living world. Now not just men, even women and children were forced to work for innumerable hours under the worst possible working conditions. But then many things followed, all of it that we have studied in our history textbooks, for instance; expeditions, colonization, small battles, two World Wars, feminists’ moments, human rights moments, establishments of various new institutions, liberty of many nations, etc. But we survived through all of it and made this world a better place to live for men, women and children. We now have so many rights, right? But, after all this, something remarkable happened. Men continued with their duties of earning a living and earning resources to cook. But women said, “No, we have survived the worst which means, we can earn on our own”. But society asked, “Then who will cook? You will have to do both”. We said okay, we will do both. Again times changed, some men, I repeat, some men started helping women in cooking while some women, I repeat, some women continued to cook and earn.
So all in all, men have been earning and making a living in the outside world (apart from assisting women in cooking) and went on to achieve extremely great positions as Leaders, CEOs, Scientists, Economists, Ministers, Freedom Fighters, etc. (up here there are negligible exceptions of women, hence I conclude only men dominate these successful positions), please go ahead and think of successful men from the fields mentioned above, I am sure you will name many. And women who have been cooking since forever (apart from earning as well) went on to become very successful and extremely renowned “CHEFS” across the globe. Please go ahead and think of successful women Chefs; I am sure you will be having many names coming up in your heads, right? Dig deeper into your minds, think of all the renowned chefs you have seen on television shows, ever heard of, ever seen in Five Star Hotels, think very hard. Just remember faces, no names are needed. Tell me; are upper positions in this field dominated by women? Do you want me to answer it for you? I don’t think it’s needed. Evolutionary speaking, women should have dominated top positions at least here.
Some of you may say, “Reshma, it’s a matter of career choice. One person chooses a field (or multiple fields) and decides to work hard and excel in it and all of it is driven by passion, because passion is one common trait among all the people who are up there”. Try and understand, I am not saying that men should not take up cooking as a career or women should keep cooking for all their lives and make a career out of it. All I am trying, is to make you question yourselves that why there are so less number of women at the top? Science- no, commerce- no, humanities- no, leadership- no, parliament- no, politics- no, literature- no, entrepreneurs- no, presidents- no, queens without kings- no, journalism- no. These are the jobs which need intelligence, creativity and innovation and a decent amount of physical fitness which I believe any person with normal basic diet can have. If you say that it is because in general their are more men in this world, then let me tell you the population divide is not very wide globally- women comprise around 49% of the world population. Are women not passionate about their careers and choices? I don’t think so; I know a plenty of women who have passion for something or the other. Now that the world is a better place to live, this unhealthy sex ratio at the top should decline. But it doesn’t seem to be declining.
I am not blaming women for it and I am not blaming men either. Personally, I am blaming this society which had made gender defining rules in the beginning itself- all the mighty men, must go out and bring home resources of survival, pay the bills, make women happy, pay for every meal that both will enjoy, be masculine, become successful, do not express emotions, you have to earn more than woman, head your families, always put up a strong face; and for women- well, you must cook, take care of your house, take care of your children, aspire to marry someone some day and make sure all your decisions revolve around that aspiration, be successful but not too much because one day you have to bear children, be ambitious but not too much because one day you may have to leave your job as your husband is getting transferred for a better pay (I have seen a lot of these), you have freedom but then some T&C are attached to them (make sure you read them before planning your career and you can be anything you want).
I wonder, did we come in the way of evolution or did evolution come in the way of our progress? What if, instead of saying men to look for food they would have said whoever is stronger physically or more interested should take up this job? What if we taught our children that when a man and a woman walk into a cafe, both should pay for their own meals, it won’t hinder the conversation (or business or romance) in anyway? What if we had taught our sons to have similar aspirations about marriage as we teach to our daughters, lesser dreams would have died and maybe more women would be sitting at the top, with men. May be in the famous picture of greatest minds, more women would have joined Madam Marie Curie.
Thank you for reading.
Books and Videos mentioned:
TedTalk Mentioned: We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |TEDxEuston
Get a copy of the book: We Should All Be Feminists
YouTube video mentioned: Valentine’s Day Special: Books that explore female sexuality ft. Leeza Mangaldas
YouTube Channel (This is where I am getting my reading recommendations from these days): Books on Toast
Additional Readings: Why is Reading Important
Disclaimer:
All the rights of this blog is owned by Reshma Maurya. Please seek permission before using. Views expressed are completely personal.
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Reshma Maurya 