Working woman of today’s world is a miracle. She has to work outside in a professional environment and is supposed to be equally competent as men and on returning home, has to be a wonder mom and a super wife and in some cases a picture perfect daughter-in-law too. All in a day’s work!

Does that sound impossible? Well, on the contrary, it is a stark reality for many a metropolitan working woman. Often times a question keeps peeping in the mind – is it so important for a working woman to perennially juggle her duties as an office worker, a mother, a wife, and a daughter-in-law? The mind does not get a clear answer, but looking near and far, it concludes that maybe it is so to the desperate woman herself. Otherwise, why should she carry on playing so many roles together and yet not feel exhausted.

Mother Nature has clearly demarcated the roles of a man and woman. A woman has been endowed with that miraculous power of procreation. She is the source of all human life. So, it is inherent in her psyche to rear a family and bring up the children.

In the by gone days, women did just that. They rarely ventured out of their houses and spent their entire life looking after the family and running the households. Initially, when they stayed in their parents’ house and later, when they moved on to their husbands’ homes. It was not an easy task at all. Have you ever asked your mother for a snack and been refused because there aren’t any available in the house? Did you ever marvel at the brilliant maintenance of inventory? Most likely, you didn’t even bother to spare a second thought on it, busy as you were munching the cookie you just now had!

By now you must have guessed the point I am trying to drive you at. Yes, there was nothing ever called “idle” women. They had all along slogged. Earlier they used to do it in their kitchens, store rooms and households, now they have to do it in another additional arena – the outside world.

But why are they venturing out and taking additional responsibilities when they are already so busy. Well, there are quite a few reasons for it. Let us take them up one after the other.

The women had been deprived of education and exposure to the outside world through the ages. They were allotted a specific area and were prevented from crossing that proverbial circle which Lakshman had drawn around Sita lest they be kidnapped by vicious devils and demons like Ravana ( according to Hindu's Epic Ramayana) This had happened all over the world. The Victorian prudery or the brutalities women faced (in fact, they face it to this day) in Afghanistan are all too known to us. So, the society gradually started overlooking the more than equal contribution which the women made in running the day to day world. They were considered as extras and trophies to be won and later conveniently stowed in the kitchens and safely forgotten. The women never got their due, and ages of lack of education and incessant brainwashing led them also to believe that their salvation lay in being subservient to the men folk. They were not given the opportunity to develop themselves as their brothers were and
were castigated and looked down upon because of their lack of exposure. The predominantly agrarian societies provided the perfect the perfect environment for such a prolonged, well orchestrated cheating to be perpetrated on the women.

But with the industrial revolution and the consequent competition gradually taking over the economies of the world, things began to change. Agrarian economies and their laid back life styles began to disappear and a fierce town life began to emerge. Now every hand needed to earn and nuclear families rendered the concept of elaborate joint family kitchen redundant.

Suddenly girls had also to go out and aid the boys in their battle for survival. For that, educating the girls became a necessity. Girls started tasting the outer world and got bolder and bolder. Starting with their fight for suffrage in France and much later in the USA they started began exerting themselves. Some of them become too excited and got somewhat carried away by the enthusiasm resulting in such mindless acts as bra burning and women’s’ lib movements that swept across the western world. In their excitement to be equal with the men they forgot that their main strength lay in their being different from the men. As all tsunamis recede; this hyperactivity also ceased after some time. But what it left in its wake was a greater responsibility for the women.

Now they became equal partners in earning for the family. But it was not possible for them to forsake their basic natural attachment towards anchoring a household. Some high flying career women shouted themselves hoarse proclaiming the importance of professional success in a woman’s life. Nobody argued with them or refuted their ideas, since most or practically all those careerists more sooner than later started adopting children to start a family since they couldn’t afford the time required to have a biological child. If you can’t afford scotch you have to manage with ale but life without drink is unimaginable!

The importance of family and children in a woman’s life can not be overemphasized. She goes out to work mainly for the family and very rarely for herself. Remember what Hillary did for Bill Clinton. She left her blossoming political career so that Bill could pursue his while she kept the pot boiling through her legal practice. Cher also did the same thing for Tony Blair. These are high profile examples but such sacrifices abound in almost every household. It is the natural tendency for a woman to give her family precedence over her career. Are you dying to blurt out the story of Jaya Bhaduri and Amitabh Bachchan?

With such a premium on her time, the working woman hardly finds any time for herself. At times she feels the need to create her own little island where she can unwind but the shrill giggle of the child quickly brings her out of the reverie to where she feels most comfortable to belong – the warm environs of her household.


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