Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Supporting a woman's career is not just about diversity programs at work. It has to start with men doing their bit at home.
Supporting a woman’s career is not just about diversity programs at work. It has to start with men doing their bit at home.
Household chores are assumed to be a woman’s duty. This is a universal fact, irrespective of the region or the culture.
In the 21st century, where we women are free to pursue our careers, we manage household as well as office work. This double burden is often cited as a barrier to women’s progress.
Research has shown that women work longer hours than men – an average of 30 minutes a day longer in developed countries and 50 minutes in developing countries. They devote 1 to 3 hours more per day to housework than men, 2 to 10 times the amount of time per day to care for children and dependent family members and 1 to 4 hours less per day to market activities.
Working mothers often feel anxious about neglecting their children or dependent family members, getting others in turn concerned over our work performance. This anxiety and stress is the mental labour that we have to deal with.
Fulfilling the career ambitions and dreams can be much easier if a woman has an understanding and cooperative spouse/partner. Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook COO, in her TED Talk says, “Make your partner a real partner”.
We working women need our respective partners to help us with the household work and childcare rather than doing it all by ourselves. What’s more – it’s not just upon us to ask. True male allies will step up to do their fair share of work at home.
We must decide on the distribution of our time and energy. Like when and how we want to devote more energy to the children and when to the pursuit of our dreams. Having a real partner would lessen the burden and reduce our anxiety. It would make us happy, confident and more efficient at work and household management.
I believe that a woman’s choice of partner greatly impacts her career and life. You deserve as much care, support and freedom as you afford to your partner. Balancing the household chores would help both of us to understand each other’s troubles and appreciate the abilities and strengths that you have.
It would truly empower you and also add harmony to your married life. Moreover, it would create a marriage where both partners are equal in the true sense of the word.
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Image of a 1950s US housewife via Pixabay
An engineer by profession but a writer at heart, I try to seek happiness through my writing. I am an avid reader, a blogger, and I like to write about books and my reflections on 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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