If you are passionate about teaching, then Hackberry offers you franchise opportunities to turn this passion into your profession. Fill out the form now!
Should women try to be super-women? Is it okay to ask for help? This post has some useful insights!
Remember the MTR Ad for Instant Breakfast, comprising of Idli, Dosa, Uttapam and many more delicacies? The very smart lady, so fresh and positively blooming quite early in the morning, and cooking up a storm. It’s not just me, many women would agree that they feel the need for more than two arms and more than 24 hours in a day.
Who tells us to do everything, to ensure each thing is done on time, and each demand met as it is uttered? Sure, our families are demanding but then have you ever stopped and asked yourself, why do we need to accomplish and achieve everything? How many of us actually make more than one dish for breakfast or more than oats or something simple and similar? Are the ads like the MTR one encouraging stereotypes of a multi-tasking lady totally capable of handling anything that comes her way?
I am not that great at multi-tasking. In fact I am usually running late for things and running out of stuff. I forget to carry a change of clothes for my kid, I over heat the baby food and I borrow clothes and food from considerate friends whenever I forget things. Luckily, I have efficient friends who help me out in a pinch.
How do we women perceive ourselves?
How do we women perceive ourselves? Are we being influenced by the media to be super women, doing everything, and believing this is the road to happiness? Are we women not making our lives more difficult by following these stereotypes and encouraging the younger lot to be in similar trouble?
Trying to be the perfect home maker and perfect office colleague too…is it not a challenge for any super woman or super man? I am sure if a man had to do all this and more he too would choose to prioritize and stop sweating the small stuff.
Yes, I do have efficient friends who handle their home and office seamlessly. They manage it with a lot of help from the husband, children, in-laws or parents, and hired help.
Life is easy when we don’t make it a race.So, I think I do not want to be a diva like the MTR lady, I will be just simple old me and keep asking for help when I need it.
Have you ever felt like you need more hands and more hours in a day? How do you manage? Share your views and help me out too!
pic credit: djwtwo (Used under a CC license)
Freelance Fiction and non-fiction editor, author and book bee. Also a blogger and a Human Resource Management Lecturer. Juggling my precious worlds and trying to strike the right balance............ I may not be perfect read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, indivisual posts do not necessarily represent the platofrom's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
My house-help asked excitedly, “I am going for wedding. Can you let me wear your red & black saree? To be honest I was stumped for a moment; I didn’t know what to say but I still said yes.
I lent a gorgeous saree to my house-help for a wedding in her family. Soon I stated getting questions if I would wear that saree again or if I was okay to be seen wearing the same saree my house-help was wearing?
We are all so conditioned to give our used clothes to our house-helps but are we okay to wear the clothes they were wearing?
A few days ago she came excitedly to me, “I am going for a family wedding. I want to wear your red & black saree, Ill wash and give it to you after the function. Please can you let me wear it?”
Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum (SISP) is an ode to all of the lost women, who could have been sports stars, singers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, just... happy, if they hadn't been enslaved in matrimony, and then forgotten all about.
One of the cool things about my mother was that she was an ace athlete and a champion sculler as a young woman in the 1950s and 60s. I only found out about this side of her a few years ago. I imagine her in a paavaadai dhaavani, taking on the mighty Kaveri river so many decades ago.
I recently watched a Tamil film anthology on SonyLiv that she would have liked to watch – Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum, (SISP) that has 3 stories of 3 different women – Saraswathi, Devaki, and Shivaranjini.
Like all the heroines in the anthology, my mother’s talents were sacrificed at the altar of matrimony. She pawned her gold medals and silver cups one by one to pay for expensive textbooks for us or a gift for a niece on her wedding, money for which she didn’t dare ask my father, because it was her niece… I remember how she caressed the cups and how her face hardened as she shoved them into her bag to take to the jewellers.
It's ridiculous to still expect a Sanskari Sundar Silent Selfless Bahu in the 21st century. Women are people in their own right, and have a voice.
It’s ridiculous to still expect a Sanskari Sundar Silent Selfless Bahu in the 21st century. Women are people in their own right, and have a voice.
The ad said, “Urgently Needed. A fair, beautiful MBA educated girl of height 5’6 for a NRI boy of 12 lakhs package.” But the undertone said, need a Sanskari Sundar Silent Selfless Bahu urgently. The girl must be able to use her MBA skills to become a house maid in the USA and her beauty to become a trophy wife. Oh! Not to forget that I don’t think there is anything you need to know about our son, except he’s an NRI and earns a lakh per month.
Nope. The times have not changed. This is how it is even in the 21st century!
All around the world, women are busy multi-tasking and playing different roles. But are we doing enough for our true identity?
I recently read an article by Elizabeth Garner. She had written about competitiveness in women and how this causes needless stress in our sex life. An interesting point that she brought up was that, as a group, the modern woman who was now responsible for so many roles both at home and in the workplace have very few role models and tested frameworks to fall back on. It is only recently that women have been playing these diverse roles all together and while some of us can play the role of a working woman very well, others are good at being a stay-at-home mother while there is a whole other bunch who is good at hosting events and being social. The problem or the competitive problem here lies in the truth that we cannot simply be good at all these roles all together; hence, there is always a sense of disappointment, a sense of amiss in many of us. In her article, Elizabeth Garner advices women to learn to let go a little, make mistakes and basically not worry so much about each of our capabilities.
While reading this article, the thought that came to my mind was that this competitiveness could be between the various identities and the roles we want to play. As a recently married woman, the number of roles that I have to play now has increased; not only in number, but in delicacy as well. Earlier it was me, my immediate family, my friends and well, my work colleagues. Now, in addition there is my husband, his friends and his family. The roles I have to play are so many that at times I really am at sea trying to play them all.