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The modern family need no longer play by arcane rules of gender roles. Every family should decide for themselves what role the individuals in it play.
Sometimes, in our enthusiasm to to extinguish patriarchy and gender bias, we lose sight of the important stuff and follow formulas and mantras. Do we forget, that is what got us here in the first place?
What does equal partners really mean in a marriage? Does it mean that each partner does exactly half of everything from child care, taking care of a multitude of tasks that are required for a functional family, to providing financially?
In my opinion, this is a simplistic definition. If we adhered to this definition, families would become quite inefficient and pointless. I believe, families are like a team. If everybody does what they are best at, contributes their fair share to all left over tasks and fills in for each other in times of illness or other crises, then families can be run in a smooth and efficient manner with much joy and happiness.
Does this sound like the traditional family where mom takes care of housework and dad of earning money? Possibly but not necessarily. The traditional family is but one of many possibilities.
Feminism has freed women from the shackles of house work and shown them endless possibilities of the world around. But feminism is most importantly about the freedom to make choices, and not have society dictate those choices for people, weather they are traditional, modern or fashionable.
Families work best if every one gets to choose.
Mom could prefer to work and dad prefer handle a bulk of the domestic duties.
Dad could prefer to work and mom could prefer to handle most of the domestic duties.
Mom and dad could both want to work and they could share their domestic duties.
Both partners in a couple could want to focus on their career and not have kids.
And then there could be couples where both want to focus on family life and they both work to earn just enough to have a comfortable family life.
There are a myriad of options and possibilities, and degrees to which husband and wife may want to invest in work and family. The important thing is that this be a discussion between them, where each gets to freely voice their opinions, so the couple can work out a fair compromise, making the most of their individual interests and abilities, taking into account what support systems they have available to them.
When each family member is contributing is a way that suits them best, then the family is as productive as can be and stress levels are low. It is quite unlikely that a couple can work out an arrangement that is perfect for them both, so compromises will have to be made.
The first is neither should feel cheated or taken advantage of. If that is the case they should voice their concern, because no matter how close and loving a couple is, one partner may not always be able to accurately read the mind of the other. And if resentment is allowed to fester it will eventually sour relations.
The second is, for each partner to learn to appreciate the complexities and to value of work put in by the other, whatever that work may be. Often, seeing someone else do work makes their work seem easy, because we only see the results and don’t experience the struggle. By contrast our own work seems far more worthy because we have intimate knowledge of all the difficulties involved.
Finally it is important to realise that each family is unique, and there are no set rules for who should do what. If one lived alone they would have to do everything, but the advantage of living in a family is each member can take on a greater share of the work they are most suited to, adding to the efficiency, productivity and happiness of the family unit.
It is not for either modern or traditional society to decide what the role of each member should be. Feminism endeavours to bring more choices for everyone, men included, so we can optimize productivity and happiness and minimize stress and resentment, in family life.
Let’s drop the labels and make the family the focus.
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Published here earlier.
Image source: By Bill Branson (Photographer) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Kanika G, a physicist by training and a mother of 2 girls, started writing to entertain her older daughter with stories, thus opening the flood gates on a suppressed passion. Today she has written over read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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