Almost two decades ago, I met a well-qualified man as my
prospective groom. A suave, MNC-paid, passport-stamped groom ‘allowing girl to
work after marriage’ was a priced catch for middle-class families. We were left
in a room with our respective siblings for a ‘bhalo kore chenashona kore nao’
(know each other better) session and I was jittery inside, for I did not want
to be here in the first place. As we stumbled through the ‘conversation’, he
made a move that was obvious on his part, and fatal on mine – he asked me if I
have any question. Unwittingly, it fanned the ‘khurafat’, as my sister defines
it, in me. “Since you wish to marry a working lady, there can be days when she
comes home later than you. Will you be comfortable making her a cup of tea?”
I could hear my heartbeat as I uttered those words, but the
few second silence after the question was more deafening. “I stay alone in
Bangalore and I cook for myself.” More than satisfying me, it pricked. “But
there is a difference between cooking for yourself and making tea for your
wife, don’t you think so?” Is silence always golden? “I knew this question will
arise, but I don’t have an answer to this.” Though his answer was inadequate, I
appreciate his honesty. At the same time, it told me volumes about how we are fed
with certain stereotypes since birth – they become such deep-rooted beliefs
that even circumstances fail to shake them off. Just like the beliefs that
women are not fit to vote or not fit to work in formal environments which took years
of struggle to be where we are today. However, innumerable memes doing rounds
in social media saying that lockdown is likely to make more men learn cooking
than feminism tell the present is anything but the destination.
Looking back, we can see how industrialisation drew the man
out to the factories from their homes. This changed the traditional role of men
and women in an agrarian society where women shouldered a fair share of physical
labour. Industrialisation had upset that balance by attaching ‘wage’ as the
benchmark of the value the service provided. One may wonder why I am alluding
to ‘continental’ developments only. Well, because post-independence, with our
travails as an economy, the society began to consider that attaining a wage-based
employment opportunity is the mark of an ‘empowered’ woman. As we observe a
locked up ‘May Day’ this year to commemorate the thousands who took to streets in
the US and the UK more than a century ago, it is probably time to think through
this – why is that every act of ‘empowerment’ leads us outside home? And if
that outer world is so endearing or enchanting, then why is that men work hard
to ‘provide’ for those at home?
All our lives we struggled to achieve equality by trying to
get where men have already reached, and rarely has the world tried the other
way round. I wonder why are some spaces such as the kitchen and the human in
the cradle, still ‘meant for women’ and rearing, training, tending are
‘feminine’ qualities. Does the child doesn’t belong to the man or he doesn’t
feel hungry? Such are the times when I want to go back to the man and ask how
would people like him would feel if one fine morning, they find cooking and
childrearing have become ‘economic’ activities. I know answers like some women successfully
monetising these spaces and men are ‘voluntarily’ entering kitchens and rocking
cradles, but well, do they take pride in their actions? Do they flaunt their
nappy-changing skills as much as their negotiating acumen that their corporate
profile calls for? Will they leave jobs for their children like the mothers now
do, or will intersperse the client meetings with options for dinner and
breakfast menus?
On just another ‘May Day’, I would love to know, before we
all send out mayday calls to the outer space.
