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Love yourself first and never let anyone take you for granted. They don’t deserve you if they don’t treat you the way you treat them.
Recently I was invited by a relative for dinner. We first went to their place and then were supposed to go out together for dinner. Abruptly some guests arrived to their place. After few minutes of usual conversation, the two ladies (daughters-in-law) of the family went to the kitchen and started preparing dinner. While all the men were sitting outside discussing politics, weather conditions, demonetization and what not.
The ladies on the other hand were chopping, cooking, preparing, cleaning and arranging everything. The men, in-laws and elders, didn’t even take the pain to come inside and ask if they needed help. Children were served first, then all the elders and men. After so much of cooking and serving, the ladies hardly felt like eating anything. After cleaning when they sat to eat the left-overs, nobody served them or even asked if they wanted anything.
What happened that day disturbed me terribly. It happens almost in every second family in India. I have seen it many times before, but I think may be more sensitised to this unjustifiable behaviour towards women now as I grow older.
Why can’t we help women in the kitchen? Why can’t they wait to eat with them? Why can’t the in-laws ask them to sit together and eat? Even at the end, why can’t someone serve them hot food? How can people around them, their own family, even their husbands become so negligent towards them?
A woman can never be a guest, unless she is a mother-in-law or is at her mother’s house (as there is a daughter-in-law there to serve her). She is always expected to be in the kitchen, even if she is a guest. The same thing is never expected from a man. A woman is expected to do all the household chores like cooking, washing, cleaning even if she is coming after a hectic day from her job. She is asked to cook for everyone just because she is a daughter-in-law now. Where the hell on this earth is it engraved that on becoming a daughter-in-law she becomes a maid? She also would love to have hot tea with snacks on a rainy evening without cooking it herself. Why can’t someone else take the pain to cook at times?
Even if a man is willing to help his wife, he is interrupted by others in doing so. When my husband was helping me in the kitchen, his grandmother told him to sit as it is not a man’s work to do so. These things show the indigent mentality of Indian society.
When I speculated about why the things are the way they are, I realized that not the men, not the in-laws, not anyone in this world has the right to make you feel inferior, to take you for granted, to do any unjust to you. It is but, ‘YOU’ and yourself. You can’t change others but you can definitely make them treat you the way you want. Its high time now, we women need to change the things as they are. It’s high time this gender-biased society should change its parameters on which the women are judged and expected to serve.
I have seen women who happily do everything without complaining as they are raised and taught that it is their duty to put others before themselves, to sacrifice their wishes for their family, to work day and night to make others relaxed and enjoyable. But please stop doing it even if it doesn’t affect you. You have to stop it for the sake of other women who are fighting for equal rights and for the sake of position of women in Indian society.
Above all, you have to stop it for the sake of your own daughter. Don’t forget, she is watching you and you are her idol. Don’t teach her that she is born to sacrifice, compromise and to serve others. Don’t teach her that she is alive for others’ sake. Don’t teach her that she can’t live according to her wishes and she has to take others’ wishes above hers. Raise a confident, self-assured and self-dependent daughter. The only way you can do it is to become an example to her yourself. There are few things you need to change right now:
When you visit someone, let them host you. Don’t rush into the kitchen immediately. However, you can help them in serving. Insist the ladies to join you at dining. Ask your husband to take equal role in whatever you do. Also, be a great host when guests arrive at your place. Let those ladies be your guests as well.
Always eat together with your family at your home. When you live in a joint family, hire a helping hand or ask everyone for equal participation in cooking and serving. Stop following the trend- ‘Men first’.
It’s good to be nice to people but, you needn’t have to adjust to every situation. It’s very easy for people to play with the emotions of an adjusting person.
It’s not a crime to ask your husband to make a cup of coffee when you come from your job. It’s not particularly a woman’s job always to make tea/coffee, special dish at a special occasion. You also have a right to sit and enjoy hot snacks without cooking them yourself.
Work together with your family, divide everyone’s role or take turns. After a day of shopping or a movie don’t trouble yourself by preparing food at home. Sometimes eating outside is refreshing and you will also get quality time with your family.
When you don’t feel well, tell others immediately. You don’t have to make yourself suffer and work. You are not a slave. A family is meant to help each other when needed. Also split the daily chores among your family members. A man sitting and watching television while a woman finishing the household work is inequitable.
If you don’t take much time to forgive everything, your loved ones won’t mind every time they make a mistake, they’ll keep on hurting you and take you for granted just because you enable them to. That’s not a way to be loved and respected. Never lose your dignity.
Don’t seek approval for everything. Decide things yourself and don’t postpone decisions. When others understand your inability to take decisions they will make it for you and take you for granted.
Don’t let anyone make you feel inferior by saying anything they like. If you don’t like someone’s behaviour tell them directly and make them feel that you are a person with self-respect. Don’t over-respect others or respect others more than yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, no one is going to respect you ever. The most important thing you can do is to value yourself. Only those who undervalue themselves are undervalued by others.
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Published here earlier.
Image source: flickr
I love to sing, cook, travel and read. I worked as a music teacher for more than 5 years. Now working as a blogger. My interest areas are food blogging & social issues blogging. I wish read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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