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When will the feminist belief of "equality" trickle down into the Indian households.
When will the feminist belief of “equality” trickle down into the Indian households.
During this lock-down, a question cropped up into my mind and it kept recurring to me again and again. Where does India stand in Feminism? We had our first woman Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi decades back in 1980, while countries like the USA which are developed than us had their first women presidential candidate in 2006.
Having said this, not even a week passes by without coming across a rape case in India. While the term “Feminism” is finding its place in all big pictures in recent times, isn’t it important to start it from our households. We all have been made to believe that the first thing every morning be it a Sunday or lock-down, is a woman who should serve a cup of coffee to all the family members.
When lock-down gave us all break from our routine life and take time to breathe and relax, it added more responsibility to every woman out there to make home a better place for the whole family who gathered at one place after years. Whenever a question is raised on why is that women should do it every single time, we have been convinced that every woman has to take care of household works irrespective of whether she chooses to work or be a homemaker.
Influences play an important role in establishing or breaking these stereotypes. Undoubtedly, the media tops the list. In recent times, there has been a prodigious change in the portrayal of men and household works in media, especially in advertisements. In 2015, Ariel launched the “Share The Load” campaign and it beautifully talked about gender equality at home. It brought the man questioning “Is laundry only a woman’s job.”
Platinum once aired an ad in which for the first time, a man asked three months leave to take care of his new born child.
Few years back, Airtel’s advertisement portrayed new age man in a very inspirational, but this inspirational man wasn’t very received by the viewers. A man had work extra hours at office and his wife who is his boss cooks feast for him.
Yet, there is a huge gap between messaging and reach. Sadly, these inspirational men on big screen still didn’t make up their way to reality. It keeps me wondering when these inspirational men that I see on screen are going to be men in my country!
Unlock 3 has begun and slowly things are getting back to normal and I have started my work with a bundle of unanswered questions.
Isn’t it high time to normalize the fact that “Men can be homemaker and women can be a breadwinner.”
Reference- The above mentioned advertisements were referred in Brand Equity of Economics Time.
Image source: Pexels
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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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