‘Oh, Kiran’s mom is such an ambitious lady. She has gone out
of town to set up an exhibition of her products during her daughter’s exams”,
complained my mom-in-law who is a private tutor to the eight year old Kiran. I
do not agree with her at all but do not express my disagreement in so many
words at the moment to avoid an unnecessary confrontation. What is wrong in
that I think to myself, especially when Kiran has a stay-at-home dad (well
almost, he is a bhajan singer). What pinched me personally was the use of the
word “ambitious” for Kiran’s mom. It sounded like such a negative attribute.
Why is it a bad thing for a woman to be ambitious,
especially in our Indian context (although we can see several shades of such
bias globally)? I have an equal or even better qualification than the man of
the house and have worked hard to reach wherever I am in terms of my career.
Why is it then me and not the man of the house who is expected to leave my
flourishing career to take care of the house or the kids? If someone’s not well
in the family, it is expected that I will take a leave. If there is a
puja/function at home, it is expected that I go to the office an hour (or two)
later. I am the one who is expected to toil in the kitchen before and after
work and I am the one who is responsible to keep the house in order.
My maasi is a case
in point – she got into a government bank job at the age of 23. She was
inducted as a clerk. She died at the age of 60, still a clerk. She rejected
numerous promotion opportunities during her forty decade career because each of
them required her to take a transfer. Before marriage she had the
responsibility of her mother, then her husband, house and finally kids.
Ambition surely didn’t figure even distantly in her life.
How am I supposed to maintain my competitive edge at the
workplace when there are a bucket full of biased responsibilities and
expectations waiting for me at home? The writing is on the wall - If you are
married woman (even worse if you have a kid), you can’t be ambitious. It is
unacceptable for a woman with a family to have ambitions of her own. The only
way left out for a woman in such a situation is to develop the super powers to
manage it all (both at home and work) and excel at everything. I am a work in
progress in this direction. Are you?
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