Very heartening that you want to connect with women and hear their stories on this theme.
In my day, women who were “allowed” to have a career needed to show their “gratitude” by ensuring that the family was not “neglected”!! And we towed the line - the conditioning that we need to be an excellent wife/mother/DIL and last but not l…
Very heartening that you want to connect with women and hear their stories on this theme.
In my day, women who were “allowed” to have a career needed to show their “gratitude” by ensuring that the family was not “neglected”!! And we towed the line - the conditioning that we need to be an excellent wife/mother/DIL and last but not least housekeeper🙄 was soooo strong.
Saying no is not often an option when kids are young. I have been married for 31 years and have been able to lay down some boundaries only in the last few years. Another aspect is that women find it difficult to assert themselves after being submissive for decades and it takes a lot of guts to be assertive plus they need receptive family members who will at least listen with an open mind.
One recurring incident that comes to mind is when I would request my family to pack their own lunch boxes. I would cook the food, usually chapati plus subzi, and request them to just transfer it to their lunch boxes and take it with them - I was the first to leave home for work. 99 percent of the time I would come home in the evening and find the food lying on the kitchen platform. Any discussion on the topic usually ended in an argument without reaching any acceptable outcome. So I continued to cook lunch and it continued to lie on the kitchen platform. 😂
This is so depressing to even read, Sudha. Not enough is spoken about these tiny daily heartbreaks that really pile up into a constant resentment.
@Karan: Most men who are married to women who try to demand equality will stay at the stage Sudha described. The ones who "try to help out" will consciously or subconsciously force their partner back to status quo through weaponized incompetence at the tasks they are doing. More on that here: https://womaning.substack.com/p/weaponized-incompetence-in-indian
Yes Mahima, very depressing. I stayed angry and resentful for a long time. But now things are better - it’s taken nearly 3 decades and a pandemic to reset the Indian household status quo😕.
I always believed that the younger generation of men is better. But after reading your articles (especially on weaponised incompetence where I found myself constantly nodding in agreement), I realise that the change is perhaps not very deep.
I blame mothers for the way they bring up their sons - the detestable Raja beta syndrome.
@Karan,
Very heartening that you want to connect with women and hear their stories on this theme.
In my day, women who were “allowed” to have a career needed to show their “gratitude” by ensuring that the family was not “neglected”!! And we towed the line - the conditioning that we need to be an excellent wife/mother/DIL and last but not least housekeeper🙄 was soooo strong.
Saying no is not often an option when kids are young. I have been married for 31 years and have been able to lay down some boundaries only in the last few years. Another aspect is that women find it difficult to assert themselves after being submissive for decades and it takes a lot of guts to be assertive plus they need receptive family members who will at least listen with an open mind.
One recurring incident that comes to mind is when I would request my family to pack their own lunch boxes. I would cook the food, usually chapati plus subzi, and request them to just transfer it to their lunch boxes and take it with them - I was the first to leave home for work. 99 percent of the time I would come home in the evening and find the food lying on the kitchen platform. Any discussion on the topic usually ended in an argument without reaching any acceptable outcome. So I continued to cook lunch and it continued to lie on the kitchen platform. 😂
This is so depressing to even read, Sudha. Not enough is spoken about these tiny daily heartbreaks that really pile up into a constant resentment.
@Karan: Most men who are married to women who try to demand equality will stay at the stage Sudha described. The ones who "try to help out" will consciously or subconsciously force their partner back to status quo through weaponized incompetence at the tasks they are doing. More on that here: https://womaning.substack.com/p/weaponized-incompetence-in-indian
Yes Mahima, very depressing. I stayed angry and resentful for a long time. But now things are better - it’s taken nearly 3 decades and a pandemic to reset the Indian household status quo😕.
I always believed that the younger generation of men is better. But after reading your articles (especially on weaponised incompetence where I found myself constantly nodding in agreement), I realise that the change is perhaps not very deep.
I blame mothers for the way they bring up their sons - the detestable Raja beta syndrome.