Identity Crisis in Housewives

Women possess some magical power in themselves and it starts from bed. I felt a little awkward when I met this person sometime back who was when asked, what his wife does, answered, that she doesn’t do anything and she is a housewife. In just one statement he degraded the concept of housewives as well as the status of his wife. Is this the reason for the strong sense of identity crisis in the housewives who don’t seem to get a sense of credit for the work they do? Or shall we say they don’t do any work at all? According to some husbands who work whole day in the office and come back home, housewives is the best job as the female gets to stay in the comfort and luxury of the four walls of the house whereas the man slogs whole day in the office. But can we forget the 24x7 job of the poor female which starts from the morning chores of sending the kids off to school to making food for the house, cleaning the house, taking care of the other household chores to preparing dinner for her chauvinist husband who would come back home in the evening and expect his wife to serve him, to the role of a bedroom queen which she has to play no matter whether she wants it or not. In a recent survey it was noted that if we start adding the work done by housewives in the National Income of our country then our GDP would rise by 4 times maybe.

Sometime back there was this piece of news which I was going through wherein around 100 women who were housewives were interviewed and it was found that all these women suffered from depression, anxiety, of being unable to focus on things, of bursting into tears without reason and many other issues which disturbed them from time to time. They just felt unhappy for some reason or the other. Yet, when I analyze the issue I feel there was no reason for many of the women to feel this way. They had secure marriages, had children, and had financial security and a good education background before they decided to settle down. Then what can we say was the problem? In the Indian society a women is considered really lucky and happy if she has a good marriage, children and financial security. People look at her with awe in their eye thinking what else can she ask for? They characterize the lives of the women with the salary of her husband, her kids and her house. No one would try and think deep down what that women is going through. Whether she is happy with the traditional roles that she has been assigned? Whether she is happy in carrying the burden of her family without making any hue and cry about it?

I have been thinking over this issue for a long time now. Can we say that this depression that is marking the women folk who prefer to stay home is a sense of identity crisis? On the one hand, women from girlhood were told that they would find fulfillment and happiness as wife and mother, in traditional feminine roles. On the other hand, the reality was that as women spent more and more of their energy in being that, they felt more and more unhappy. I spoke to a senior of mine who got married a few years ago. According to her she has tried to do everything that a woman should do, starting from cooking to gardening to knitting but still she feels desperate. She questions herself everyday that whether she has a personality of her own of not? She has a lovely life, a husband who is doing very well in his career, two lovely kids and a beautiful house but still every morning when she wakes up she feels she has nothing to look forward to. Why do a lot of women today are marked by this feeling in them? Why do all the women today have just one question that summed up their feelings: Is this all there is in life?

Tradition has always been a very staunch tool in Indian society. From the very beginning the conventional roles are assigned to boys and girls. It is very unlikely that you would find a boy doing household chores, whereas a girl is taught everything from cooking to cleaning the house, from stitching to knitting and so on. Why are we hell-bent on proving ourselves to be a hypocrite? When on one hand we say that there is no difference between a boy and a girl. They are both equal and then on the other hand we keep on differentiating for every little thing. Why are girls from the very beginning taught what to wear, how to talk with men, how to behave in front of other people and other etiquettes whereas one would never find a boy’s parents bothered even if he talks in the worst of the language possible. If this is not hypocrisy then what do we call it?

The root to identity crisis in women can be traced to their girlhood since when they are taught every little thing so that they may become what they call a “Kushal Grihini” – a perfect homemaker. But in all this we forget that we are readying her someone else. We are changing her own self for someone else. Is that justified? Do we as girls ever expect whether our husband would know how to cook? Or to manage kids? Or stitching, knitting and so on? Women just go by the fact that their parents have selected the boy for them who is earning a good salary. Rest is not important. And mind it, in major sections of the society this is what is happening. A lot of my friends may raise a point here that things are changing and women are now choosing their own life partners. But when we talk of women as a class then we should adopt a holistic approach and look at women all over the country. It is only in the metropolitan cities that women are empowered and independent. But here also complete emancipation is not there. A complete emancipation of women would be when each and every woman in this country would be able to speak for herself. She would be proud of the fact that she is a housewife. The husband would respect her work and accord her a sense of identity. All this may sound utopian at the moment. But optimism leads to achievement of utopianism.

A woman may be empowered but she is everywhere in chains. Yes, I bring out a similarity with Rousseau’s statement here because I completely feel that women may look empowered and independent but she is till not free. She is still tied to that “Iron Chains of Patriarchy” which seem never ending. When would a day come when the so called patriarchal system would realize that it is the women who are also a human being as equal as them whom they maltreat? When would they realize that they cannot survive without women and thus they should respect each and every aspect of womanhood? When would they realize that being a housewife is just not being at home but taking care of a bigger responsibility which they simply leave at home to go and sit in their beautiful air conditioned offices? Are we justifying Marxian concept of class struggle here? Are we the women the “have nots” and the Men the “haves”? And thus it is the exploitation of the dominant on the oppressed? Then let me warn you my dear patriarchs that Marx talks of something called “revolution”, when the exploited class rises up in revolt to overthrow the dominant class. Is it then that this brutal system of patriarchy would realize the pain and agony that they have inflicted upon the women since time immemorial? Let us just hope that this society brings about a change in itself without a sort of revolution. Let us be optimistic and work towards the achievement of a society that is marked by gender equality, where women are free to speak for themselves. It is then can we expect our country to progress. Only then can we feel secured about this country being a better place for our future generation of daughters to come. It is then can a woman proudly say that she is a housewife without a sort of hesitation or a sense of identity crisis and receiving full respect from her husband. My eyes are already waiting to experience such a society. Let us just hope I am fortunate enough to experience it before the doors of heaven open up to receive me in the world where there is no state, no society and thus no inequality.