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Normalise a man doing his duties as a dad/husband. Or at the very least, go nuts over a woman mothering her own child! Only fair, isn't it?
Normalise a man doing his duties as a dad/husband. Or at the very least, go nuts over a woman mothering her own child! Only fair, isn’t it?
Recently, two news articles, which have been doing the rounds on social media, caught my eye. One went gaga over how cricketer Virat Kohli was doing his daddy duties, as he was photographed with his daughter’s burp cloth on his shoulder.
Another gushed over British actor Riz Ahmed fixing his wife’s hair at an awards function. Were both these actions really that extraordinary? Not at all!
As much as people take a woman’s duties for granted, so too should a man doing his duties to his family be normalised. After all, women fix their husband’s wardrobes, socks, underwear, handkerchiefs all the time in regular homes, without creating a fuss or even being appreciated!
I have a calm and equal partner, and throughout my married life, I have always heard how “lucky” I am to have a man who is a good husband and father. Even the success of our happy marriage is credited to him most of the times. Well, I have been a good wife and mother too! How many people, including my own relatives, will credit me with the success of our marriage?
This is because of the conditioning where men doing what is supposed to be normal, is considered worth gushing over.
I am sure Anushka Sharma being photographed with the same burp cloth wouldn’t be fussed over as much as Virat Kohli’s photo, since a mother’s duties are taken for granted; it is normal, nothing great. But doing fatherly or husband duties, showing normal affection are ‘out of the world’ gestures! Hypocritical, isn’t it?
Men ‘babysitting’ their own kids are made out to be great fathers. Media, society, families place men, who ‘help’ their wives in household chores or cooking (during lockdown or otherwise) on a pedestal.
It’s high time we normalise being a hands-on father or a caring husband. That’s how men should be, as women are, all the time!
Normalise men as being equal partners, parents, good humans rather than going gaga over them. If not, then at least photograph a mother doing her motherly duties and go gaga over that too!
Image by Sonam Prajapati from Pixabay
I am a travel expert by profession and an avid blogger by passion. Parenting and women's issues are something that are close to my heart and I blog a lot about them. read more...
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After some time, unable to bear it any longer, I signed off from the home lunch. My MIL must've heaved a sigh of relief because my portion of groceries would be saved!
Until I married I had never imagined even in my wildest dreams that my diet/ food intake could assume such alarming proportions and affect conjugal harmony. Having stepped into my marital home I discovered to my bewilderment that the four female inmates were frugal eaters. My spouse and his dad ate moderately well.
The family faced a dilemma: my requirement surpassed those of the ladies but most certainly couldn’t be clubbed with the men’s. Why? Simply because they were MEN. “How could you even think of it”? They snubbed me often. (Incidentally, the parents-in-law refused to accept contributions from either of us). They probably expected me to be demure and submissive since I was ‘‘eating off” their money.
So each morning as I left for work I was served three chapattis with a few spoonfuls of curry. Can you believe this curry catered to the ladies’ lunch the previous day, and dinner for all six inmates? The horror of horrors, it crept into my lunch box too. The chapattis made at the crack of dawn were fine till breakfast but by lunch, they turned leathery; the accompanying curry insipid, tasteless.
We can’t bombard impressionable young women in the name of enlightened entertainment to feed them the same drivel. At least let us not label misogynist movies as helping the cause of women.
I have watched at least 2 ‘purported’ trailblazing Bollywood movies in the recent past that left me with a feeling that I had taken part in the ice-bucket challenge all over again. This time around, however, without even the satisfaction of having supported a worthy cause.
Both the movies have about a 90% liking rate on IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes. Both are touted to ‘sensitively’ portray the taboo topics that seem to be mostly hidden underneath a layer of banana peels – dangerous to even tread nearby.
While we push for women's equality so that working or being a homemaker should be choice, we need to push for a similar choice for men too. That's true feminism.
While we push for women’s equality so that working or being a homemaker should be choice, we need to push for a similar choice for men too. That’s true feminism.
There is a narrative that has been quite prominent recently and has gained a lot of understandable support. It is on what feminism is intended to provide – a freedom to choose for women between working, or not. To choose between being a full-time mother and homemaker, or having an earning. How it should be a viable choice for women to not work and they shouldn’t be made to feel bad about that
I want to clarify right here itself, that the emphasis here is on choice. For many women everywhere in this world, it’s not a choice to work, and I fully recognize this fact. I am speaking here for them – not to them.
Gauri Mahadik lost her husband Prasad Mahadik just 2 years after their wedding in a cross border conflict in December 2017. She has since joined the army herself, following in his footsteps, doing what he loved most. A fitting tribute.
War can devastate. War can break up loving families. War is not a game to be played on a screen, because unlike in a game, those who are killed, those who are martyred, are lost to their families forever. War should not be just a reaction to inflamed passions. I’d like you to look at this one case of an un-fillable gap created in this young woman’s life. Of course, the young woman being Gauri Mahadik, she has coped with the one way she knew best – to live her husband’s dream.
In December 2017, Gauri Mahadik got the dreaded call that completely changed her life. Her husband, Prasad Mahadik, had been martyred in a cross border conflict, that had been going on since October 2017, and carried on till late 2018.