Let’s Be The Change Ladies

If we wish to change the patriarchal notions of the society, the change must begin from us.

Oh! C’mon it’s the twenty-first century. We can take a lead to remove this notion of girl thing and boy thing from our society. All of us have felt this at least once in a lifetime. I wish, I were a boy. Mostly, we feel this because we don’t sense that freedom of choosing what we want. So, why can’t we take a lead and choose the life we want. Do our organs stop us from doing so or we are just making excuses for not being able to come out of the girl zone. Often, we come out with the view that I am a girl so I can’t do this. Is the patriarchal society only to be blamed for all the differences between a girl and a boy? Many times we as women are not letting the society change. We have pre-defined ideas and assumptions in our head which leads to all the discriminations. Are we ready to allow our husband to put his plate on the sink after finishing the food? or sweep the floor or do all those household chores which we think that it’s our job. We often scream about patriarchal society, this and that but are we standing for ourselves?

Change starts when we change our mindset

Change is possible only if we can bring the changes in our thoughts. The change should start from scratch, from the way we think and consider the different elements of patriarchal society as ‘sanskar’. The change should start from the time we give birth to a girl or a boy child. Only then, we can reform society. In our country, the girl child is raised saying ‘Ladki Paraya Dhan Hoti Hai’. She hears this nonsense from childhood. She is referred to as outsider in her own house. No wonder we “the sanskari women” feed this to our daughter and we expect to be treated well and daughters to be treated well. The change should start from our home. A boy is raised saying, his wife will look after the family once he gets married. An outsider now enters her real house and has to adjust and take care of all the strangers. If she fails to do so she is cursed, judged and becomes a bad daughter in law. Here too she is an outsider. When son in law visits his wife’s place, he is treated with great love and respect because he is taking care of ‘paraya dhan,’ their daughter. No matter how bad their daughter is being treated in that family.

Are we self-sabotaging?

We as women are our own enemy. We indirectly promote patriarchy and get frustrated for not having our own identity. We need to be aware that we can be a nice person without supporting patriarchy too. We have the power to change society by not accepting male dominance in any form. If we need the change, we need to be the change too. We can change by standing for ourselves, by not tolerating anything which is not good for our mental and physical well-being. We can change our home and family culture by getting involved in decision making along with our husband and take their help when we need it in household chores. Let raise our standards at par with men, by holding the broom along with car and office keys together with our husband. The thinking that men should get out and earn for the entire family, their stress of doing so will get minimised if both equally share their responsibilities.

It’s high time that we accept that society can change only if we can change our minds. It’s high time we remove the predefined notion of marriage and in-laws. The whole society is struggling for reform but we as individuals are complicating it by our own ideas about it. In-laws are not always bad. Husband is not always bad we have this habit of finding flaw as we have a bad history in our mind which makes us insecure about the whole idea of marriage. We need to accept our own standards and keep it high in our society. We need not hide our face for small mistakes. We as human are prone to errors. We can own it and walk with pride. We need not always cover our head and feel shy if it does not make sense to us. Let society accept the weird us if they find it weird. We need not cover ourselves with heavy jewellery and walk around feeling uncomfortable if we don’t like it. Starting by changing these little things will definitely help us feel better.

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