I go to school. I go to college. I go to management institutes. I occupy the top positions in the corporate world. I am modern. I am independent and free. This I is nobody but the modern Indian woman. Or is it?
We all say that the times are changing. Has it really changed for women? No doubt there has been an improvement in the condition of women, overtime. There was a time when women were confined to their households, were illiterate and had no say in the decision making of the household. All this has definitely improved particularly in urban areas. But I still have my doubts about it. Even today when a woman gets married, she is expected to leave her home and go and stay with her husband’s family.
Are we talking about changing times? I don’t think so. I would like my husband to come and live with me after marriage. Why am I expected to make all the sacrifices? Why should I leave the house and the people with whom I have spent so many years of my life? Leave alone my husband and his family; will my own family be open to this idea? Is this so called “modern” society actually open to such an idea?
After marriage when I have kids, I will be expected to give up my career and look after them and bring them up. Another sacrifice! When will this society free me of sacrifices? A man will never be expected to give up his career and take care of his children. I study as much as a man put in the same efforts, get the same degree – but I am expected to give it all up. I can become a house wife but a man cannot become a house husband (at least 80% of the people will not be open to this idea). I do all this and the child is still known by the name of the father. The patriarchal Indian society never seems to change.
I am the modern woman living in this so called modern world. But when will people start becoming modern by their thinking and not just by their clothes? When will I be allowed to take my own decisions and do what I want to do rather than do what the society expects me to do? I spend my entire life in this modern world, being identified as someone’s daughter, someone’s wife and then someone’s mother. Through this entire journey I wonder where my identity lies? My identity of being a woman is lost somewhere between all these relationships and expectations.
All I want is some more freedom and a change in the way people perceive the roles of a man and a woman in society.
We all say that the times are changing. Has it really changed for women? No doubt there has been an improvement in the condition of women, overtime. There was a time when women were confined to their households, were illiterate and had no say in the decision making of the household. All this has definitely improved particularly in urban areas. But I still have my doubts about it. Even today when a woman gets married, she is expected to leave her home and go and stay with her husband’s family.
Are we talking about changing times? I don’t think so. I would like my husband to come and live with me after marriage. Why am I expected to make all the sacrifices? Why should I leave the house and the people with whom I have spent so many years of my life? Leave alone my husband and his family; will my own family be open to this idea? Is this so called “modern” society actually open to such an idea?
After marriage when I have kids, I will be expected to give up my career and look after them and bring them up. Another sacrifice! When will this society free me of sacrifices? A man will never be expected to give up his career and take care of his children. I study as much as a man put in the same efforts, get the same degree – but I am expected to give it all up. I can become a house wife but a man cannot become a house husband (at least 80% of the people will not be open to this idea). I do all this and the child is still known by the name of the father. The patriarchal Indian society never seems to change.
I am the modern woman living in this so called modern world. But when will people start becoming modern by their thinking and not just by their clothes? When will I be allowed to take my own decisions and do what I want to do rather than do what the society expects me to do? I spend my entire life in this modern world, being identified as someone’s daughter, someone’s wife and then someone’s mother. Through this entire journey I wonder where my identity lies? My identity of being a woman is lost somewhere between all these relationships and expectations.
All I want is some more freedom and a change in the way people perceive the roles of a man and a woman in society.
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The author is a IIyr Economics Honours student and a Core Team Member of DevelopmentChannel.org
