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Working women often face the 'double-burden syndrome' where they are the only ones responsible for the housework. Here are five ways to deal with it.
Working women often face the ‘double-burden syndrome’ where they are the only ones responsible for the housework. Here are five ways to deal with it.
The traditional view asks for a division of responsibility between the hunter-gatherer-man and the caregiver-nurturer-woman. An economic dependence that this framework builds has come with several personal and social outcomes. But women have moved beyond these traditional frames, and have chosen to work for themselves as well as for their families.
The term “double burden” is often used to characterise the challenges a woman faces when balancing employment and household responsibilities. As any working woman will testify, the responsibilities towards the home and children disproportionately fall on the woman. Women around the world shoulder greater responsibilities for caregiving and housework in general, giving rise to the “double burden syndrome.”
This involves a lot of adjustments, struggles and compromises which are not as easy as thought of. A complete circle of all these can be termed as challenges. Some of which are as mentioned below:
Compartmentalisation
Keeping personal and professional lives apart during working hours is, perhaps, the biggest challenge. Lack of proper categorisation between household hustle and professional/entrepreneurial work, results into a setback.
Resources
Identification and consolidation of all the necessary resources required to manage are resilient and tough. Focusing on “maximum utilisation with minimum availability” is quite imperative.
Work life balance
A woman’s life can be segregated into different buckets i.e. work, family, chores and fun. Working around the clock causes stress, poor health and burnout. A continuous stressful situation crops up if an equilibrium is not maintained between the various tasks.
Desperation for perfection
A life full of impeccable family, friends, food and fun is indeed a figment of imagination. Seeking total perfection in any area of life, takes the time away from other things, leading to greater imbalance and unevenness. It may even leave you feeling dejected.
Societal expectations
Society sets unrealistic targets for us and despite being aware, we still strive to fulfil those expectations. Many times, before initiating something we might feel perturbed as the fear of non-fulfilment captures us. Secondly, it is likely to happen that we dip ourselves in such issues to such an extent, thereby causing us unnecessary stress.
These challenges should not be a hurdle, rather we should find paths to overcome them. Some of the possible ways are:
Planning and discipline
Meticulous planning and discipline are subtle approach in curbing these challenges. Being organised and structured is essential to one’s development. This can dramatically reduce stress and improve outcomes at work and in our personal life.
Create timelines
Creating timeline for our activities is a must do job. Setting working hours for ourselves and sticking to them is a lesson to be learnt in the early stages.
Differentiate between urgent and important
Learning to differentiate between urgent and important is yet another way you can help yourself. Urgent tasks have to be taken care of on an immediate basis. However, important chores are not always immediate but need our attention time and again. Likewise, we need to distinguish between social conditioning and our priorities.
Make a to-do list
Define the parameters of success in each area you choose and consciously distribute time among multiple goals. Maintaining a to-do list is one of the ways of befittingly doing it as it will help us to become efficient and doing work more quickly.
Have some Me time!
Having some ‘Me Time’ will definitely serve as a medicine in such a situation. Me time means making time for your personal life, including your family and health. Physical and mental well-being plays a pivotal role in maintaining a work life balance. Having some daily down time will help recharge and restore balance.
Challenges are an opportunity to test us and rise to the next level. Take up the challenges and explore further new avenues.
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations!
Picture credits: Pexels
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People say that women are the greatest enemies of women. I vehemently disagree. It is the patriarchal mindset that makes women believe in the wrong ideology.
The entire world celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. It should be a joyful day, but unfortunately, not all women are entitled to this privilege, as violence against women is at its peak. The experience of oppression pushes many women to choose freedom. As far as patriotism is concerned, feminism is not a cup of tea in this society.
What happens when a woman decides to stand up for herself? Does this world easily accept the decisions of women in this society? What inspires them to be free of the clutches of the oppression that women have faced for ages? Most of the time, women do not get the chance to decide for themselves. Their lives are always at the mercy of someone, which can be their parents, siblings, husband, or children.
In some cases, women do not feel the need to make any decisions. They are taught to obey the patriarchal system, which makes them believe that they are right. In my family, I was never taught to make decisions on my own. It was always my parents who bought dresses and all that I needed.
14 years after her last feature film Dhobi Ghat, storyteller extraordinaire comes up with her new film, Laapataa Ladies, a must watch.
*Some spoilers alert*
Every religion around the world dictates terms to women. The onus is always on women to be ‘modest’ and cover their faces and bodies so men can’t be “tempted”, rather than on men to keep their eyes where they belong and behave like civilized beings. So much so that even rape has been excused on the grounds of women eating chowmein or ‘men will be men’. I think the best Hindi movie retort to this unwanted advice on ‘akeli ladki khuli tijori ki tarah hoti hai’ (an alone woman is like an open jewellery box) came from Geet in Jab We Met – Kya aap gyan dene ke paise lete hain kyonki chillar nahin hain mere paas.
The premise of Laapataa Ladies is beautifully simple – two brides clad in the ghunghat that covers their identity get mixed up on a train. Within this Russian Doll, you get a comedy of errors, a story of getting lost, a commentary on patriarchy’s attitude towards women, a mystery, and a tale of finding oneself, all in one. Done with a mostly light touch that has you laughing and nodding along.
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