Household chores - a woman’s KRA?

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Divya Joshi

Work life balance is not only imperative but an unquestionable requirement to lead a normal life. In today’s scenario when every single girl in large or small metro cities is financially independent, then it shouldn’t be restricted to only women. It shouldn’t always be a female who is juggling herself in maintaining a work life balance; even guys should hold the responsibility equally. Time has changed totally; a house can’t run effectively with just one person’s earning, and moreover it’s a necessity for a woman to be economically independent. It not only helps her to be self-dependent but gives her an individuality of her own. A married lady has to give equal amount of time to her job as she competes with her counterparts and then she has to give attention to home including spouse and kids. While married man has the liberty to just go to office and come back home, life of a lady totally varies. In old times women used to only do household chores because of the traditional thinking and higher illiteracy rate, old times had transformed into the current era of the 21st century with globalization but shockingly thoughts haven’t transformed with that speed. Old stereotypes attached to women when it comes to household chores, sadly, remain unchanged.

Regardless of the fact that a wife is spending equal or more number of hours in her professional career than her spouse, still she is expected to perform well inside the kitchen. Even if she’s supporting her better half financially, her career always takes a back seat. At times she isn’t even permitted to spend her own money the way she wishes. At the point, when both women and men are working equally hard to grow in their professional fields, why a female’s job isn’t considered important. When there isn’t any leniency bestowed to the female professionals inside the office premises, why can’t they be treated equally inside their homes? Definitely it’s an errand to change an old mentally but even boys of this age are sailing in the same boat. Barring few, a large portion of the men feel ashamed of helping their wives in the daily task; forget about helping, few of them can’t even fetch a glass of water on their own, how heartless is this. And old individuals inside the house encourage this and if they are to be believed than as per them a man is meant to simply unwind after office as he works really hard and a woman who works equally hard is expected to take care of her home and family with sheer dedication. According to the researchers women spent three times as long on domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning and washing, as their husbands. According to the Nielsen-Ariel study, 87% of working Indian women said while they are equal bread winners, they contribute more towards household chores than their husbands. Women, both married and working, want men to help out with the household chores including laundry. While 77% of Indian men feel, laundry is a woman's job, 70% of Indian men prefer to watch TV than to do the laundry. How insane and harsh is this.

As specified earlier a woman’s first job is her family and after that comes her career. Guess, this is one of the reasons why at times a woman gets so much frustrated because of nil support, that she decides to choose her family instead of her job no matter how brilliant professional she is. How agonizing is it, owing to all this we are losing out on such bright workers. Major problem is with the thought; time has changed, needs have changed, requirements have changed yet unaltered is the mindset.

What’s wrong if a man goes inside the kitchen and makes chapattis? When a woman is dividing the responsibilities and is earning to support her husband why can’t a man do that? Why can’t he divide the household responsibilities equally? I wonder what is so shameful about it. Will the time ever come when MIL (mother-in-law) will understand the pressure and stress their DIL (daughter-in law)goes through in office? I know numerous such working women who come to their respective offices after finishing everything at home starting from morning tea, to breakfast, to lunch and eventually to packing lunch boxes and please note no mercy is being provided to them once they enter the office premises, there they are professionals and owing to the level of competition they are expected to give their best shot each day. No one thinks about them, being a female their body also goes for a toss with the pressure they bear every day and still household chores is their KRA strange it is!!Isn’t it????

I’ve been pondering on this since quite a while now, but lamentably haven’t seen any difference till date. I’m not a feminist but I’m being sensible here as I desperately want to see the change. Let’s be humans and think from a woman’s perspective as to how difficult it is as it isn’t a cake walk. DIVIDE responsibilities, help your better halves and be proud of that. She has her own dreams just like you have, she wants to fly high and accomplish her desires. She is a progressive lady and with your support even sky isn’t the limit for her. This one change can do miracles to millions.