Women, childbirth and their careers

After having a kid, were you advised that now it would be good if you let go of your job and focus on the family, marriage and child?

And some stupid comments like – the one who earns lesser should leave the job to take care of a child.

Due to historical advantages men obviously have more, they earn more. 

Till today the notion is it is women who need to sacrifice their ambition, dream, career and their financial independence. 

It is always a woman who takes a backseat after having children. Well, women scale back their career ambitions in order to focus on domestic matters – this inequality at home perpetuates inequality at work and also their salary. 

A man once said to me after watching my video 'the cooking chromosome' that - “men don’t cook because the one who earns less should take care of all house chores...” 

But Salaries are based on a bunch of factors.

Maybe the man is a doctor and the woman is a nurse, they both work equal hours, the doctor is obviously going to earn more but how do you define who worked more?

If you were hospitalized for a couple of days after your surgery then who would you remember when you go home? Doctor or nurse? I have always remembered the nurses…

They are the caregivers.

Maybe the man is a software engineer and his spouse is volunteering at an orphanage,

the man earns, the spouse doesn’t, but in the end who exactly has earned more? 

How do you define that? 

A person who earns more should not be responsible for the house chores - If you are saying that then you won’t stop there, this kind of person will also go on and say I will make all the decisions in this house because I earn more. 

That being said, sometimes bigger incomes are associated with more hours at work. In this case, I think the higher income earner should spend some of that money on a cleaning/ cooking service so there's less overall housekeeping to do for both of them.

And I feel every Working Mom Must Ask these questions Before Quitting their job -

Ask yourself, is this a choice I would make if I were the higher-earning partner whose career was prioritized? 

ask your partner: How can you equalize domestic labor and childcare?

Ask your employer for more support for caregiving employees or if you can take an unpaid leave of absence, or work part-time.

Don’t quit your aspirations due to societal pressures and the idiotic reasoning of who earns more gets to keep the job. If women quit jobs then the higher earning party will always be men!

Society is never happy, it doesn't matter what we do, and making them happy should not be our goal.

Roar - fresh perspectives on womanhood

 

Some More Movies...

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Liked it, I had a smile all along.

Banglore Days - A top notch simple ,smooth and sweet three hour drama dwelling in and out with emotions of love and friendship....

Moonrise kingdom - Strange, beautiful, innocent, funny, weird, and just an amazing amazing movie. Highly Recommended.

Shabdo - A very different Bengali movie which shows the trauma of a sound artist as he slowly gets disconnected from the humane sound to others......Great film, ambitious concept!!!

About Elly - What I like about Farhadi's films is he is not force feeding the audience with a set of preconceived notions, rather than asserting his own world vision he opens a space in which the audience get to be independent thinkers than being just consumers. About Elly is simple, elegant and yet incredibly complicated and tense. 

Katyar kalajat ghusali - This Marathi movie is all about, Music , FriendShip , Forgiveness , love , ego, Help , Anger , Hatred. This is a must watch movie and I hope it reaches an audience worldwide.

Bajirao mastani - Liked Bhansali's portrayal of the Peshwa reign. 

Women and Reservations

Is the 30% reservation (in universities/ politics) a favor to women?

It is not.

Right to education, right to inheritance, right to family name, right to performing the parents’ last rites, right to freedom, public spaces, traveling, right to self-reliance, right to second chances in life, remarriage, parental love, even right to be born have all been reserved for men for centuries. 
Politics, governance and law making is also reserved for men. 

Women even today, are discouraged from taking their careers too seriously, career for women is seen as an option (and Getting and Staying Married as the goal). So the playing field is not level.
The entire society benefits from a system where every member has the opportunity to realize their full potential and to contribute to the best of their ability.


We need a society where women are valued by their families and that is not possible until they stop being ‘liabilities’ – which is not possible until they are provided equal and fair opportunities. 


Is it stupid to demand equality where physical labor is involved? 

 One should be paid for the amount of work done not for one’s physical strength, because no two men (or women) are equally strong, and a stronger worker may or may not work more.

Equal pay for equal work is fair. Women are generally not paid as much for the same amount of work. Even today it is believed that a man has to support his family so he should be better paid.

If a woman demands equality, should she behave exactly like a male?

Being equal means having equal rights to justice, opportunities, and happiness.

Equality does not mean some people need to behave like other people. And all men (or all women) are not alike either. Equality would mean men and women being able to be themselves – sometimes they might want to do some things that were earlier ‘reserved for men’.

Equality also means men have an equal right to enjoy cooking, caring for family, raising children, crying or dancing. It does not mean they have to behave exactly like women to be treated as equals.
Also consider, does a Chinese, a Maharashtrian, a Malayali, a Canadian, an Ethiopian or a Goan man behave exactly alike? But everybody is and should be equal in the eyes of the law and society.