In the process of meeting new people and seeing various homes, I have come across two distinct types of households. One is a very typical and orthodox home where you have the man who does the outside work and the woman who does the inside work. The man’s job is to do a job and get money inside the home and the job of the woman is to take care of the house and ensure that the house becomes a home. I guess one does not actually need to talk much about such households and what happens in them on a typical day because these are pretty well known in our part of the world.
But I guess I should specify some common features of these households. You have the man and generally he does not do any of the household chores. He does not do the dishes, the laundry or cook the food and other household activities. Why? Because, he is working terribly hard and is the sole man in the house to bring in the money that is needed to run it in the first place! And then you have the woman, who does all the household work and then helps the man out of the bed, make his meals, button his shirt, so on and so forth. I guess you get the general idea of what I am trying to say.
There is a new kind of household that is evolving in recent times. It has been around for some time but the number of such households has been rising because of the changing trends in the society. In this type of household, both the man and the woman are working. Both are bringing the money into the home but the one thing I find really sad in most of such households is that they retain all the features of the previous type of households I just described. The man still enjoys the privileges that come with being the sole money bringer and woman still continues to do all the jobs without help as if she is not bringing in any money at all.
And this picture really bothers me. Of course, these are my thoughts and if you disagree with them, pray do not argue or fight with me for that will be completely useless. If the woman has evolved and is now able to do what a man can do, why has the man not evolved and is doing what a woman can do? Why is it that the woman has doubled her responsibilities and the man is still sitting around at the same level? If a woman has learnt to pay the taxes, has the man learnt to make his own tea? If a woman has become the money earning machine, why has the man not taken a single step to being a home maker? If a woman has become financially self-reliant, why does the man still need the woman to dress him up and help him find his slippers, coat, shirt, etc?
Do the simple math. Earlier, a man would do some X amount of work and the woman would do Y amount of work. The magnitudes of both X and Y would be pretty close to each other. Today, the woman is doing Z amount of work and this Z is almost double that of Y. So, simple math tells us that this Z is definitely greater in magnitude than the X. So, in other words the math tells us that man has kept himself behind. I personally believe that a man has to evolve and adapt to the change and bring about the equalization of the magnitudes of responsibilities that once existed.
I have so far been unfair in my writing. I have not acknowledged that there are indeed men who have brought about the equalization. But I should ask the question – how many? I have not found too many! Again, I will admit that this analysis could be something unique to my part of the world. But I believe the purpose of my writing this post down is not to conclude or prove. Nor is the purpose of my writing to state what equalization means and how it should be brought about. Equalization is relative, each man defines his own meaning of equalization. The purpose is to induce a rethinking! We all have to rethink and introspect and see if there is a need to bring about the equalization if it has been lost. Are we being fair in sharing responsibilities? Or are we being left behind?