Ki & Ka, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Arjun Kapoor is all set to release tomorrow and we’re super excited. The movie is about a role reversal of sorts where the woman goes out and earns and the man stays home to be a house husband. We love how the movie aims to break a gender norm/stereotype. Here are a few more gender barriers we wish to overcome in the coming few years.
1. Home = Woman’s Responsibility ONLY
While this point may be heard and discussed to death by now, it unfortunately still holds true. In several households, even today, where both men and women work, the onus of household work is still on the woman. In fact, a few days back, a post by ‘Humans of Bombay’ went viral where in a woman spoke about this difference as a part of her daily life.
(Pic & Quote Credit: Humans Of Bombay)
The post reads: “I’m thinking about what to cook for dinner once I get home. I’ve had an exhausting week, working long hours — I wish just once, I could go home and not have work; that someone would cook for me and pamper me. Why is it that our house work isn’t counted as proper ‘work’? Men work 8 hours a day in the office and every minute is accounted for but most of us middle class women work those 8 hour shifts and many hours after and before at home…but that’s completely undermined. I don’t understand why.”
2. The Concept of “Paraya Dhan”
“Paraya dhan” or “Someone else’s property” is easily the worst way to refer to a daughter. While it may have fit in with the times decades ago, in today’s times, most women don’t agree with the concept for primarily two reasons: One, we aren’t anyone’s property, and two, our own family will always be family, no matter what and marriage doesn’t and shouldn’t change that.
“I went for a wedding where in, after the bidaai, one of the bride’s sister came to read out a poem for the bride. One of the lines in the poem was to forget her marital home like it was a sweet dream for she belonged to a different home now,” shares Priyanka, an IT professional from Pune. “I don’t understand the concept of having to let go of your family, just because you’re married.”
3. The Marriageable Age Hypocrisy
“When I was 24, my elder cousin brother was about to turn 26. My family started to pressurize me into marriage and when I would ask them about why they aren’t pressurizing my cousin, they would flat out tell me he’s a boy and is still young,” says Sonia, an HR professional.
For some strange reason, 25 is the last “good” marriageable age for women while the same is still too young for men. Why the double standards?
4. The Arranged Marriage Questionnaire For Girls
Even now, the kind of questions women are asked during an arranged marriage set up are down right demeaning. Here’s a video Youtuber RGV Love did on this topic. We don’t even need to say more.
5. The Happiness Comparison
Notice how happy people around a girl get when she’s about to get married or have a kid and compare that to the happiness people show when a woman does well in her career or in other areas of her life not related to getting married or having kids.
“I set up my own fashion company a few years back (I was engaged at that point, married now) and within a few months, we were doing so well that we were able to generate enough revenue to open a store in a really central area. I had a big opening and a lot of my relatives dropped by. They were decently happy about my professional life, but a few minutes in and a few congratulations later, the focus was on my upcoming marriage. It seemed to be the most talked about thing on my biggest professional night yet! And what was sad was that there was a world of a difference in the happiness when they spoke about my business, when compared to my upcoming marriage,” shares Riya, a fashion designer from Bangalore.
6. Kids
First it’s the topic of marriage, then it’s the topic of kids. Society expects the “good news” within one to two years of a marriage and god forbid if you don’t want kids at all! A woman is looked upon as incomplete if she hasn’t experienced motherhood and asked multiple questions and constantly reminded of her biological clock if she wants to have them later on. Can we let the decision of having kids be between the parents only please?