“Nobody can take care of the house like a woman can.”
“You are the lady of the house now – you’ve to hold the family together and take care of everything. Without a woman it all falls apart, men simply cannot.”
What a tragedy that on that day – I wasn’t a human grieving the loss of the most important person in my life, I wasn’t a child who had lost her mother. I was a woman. A girl. A female.
I was stripped off the comfort I needed and cladded in the heavy duties and responsibilities. In that moment I didn’t seethe at the advice the way I do now. In fact I almost felt grateful. This was said to be by a group of well-intentioned women the day my mother died.
They let me believe that I at 17 was more capable of managing the household than my 46 year old father and my 19 year old brother.
Her sacrifices were carried onto me as duties and responsibilities – an off handed remark was another thing added to my to do list “your mother used to always call everyone on birthdays”.
There I was adding reminders for people I didn’t like or remember on most days.
I drove myself crazy – asking what’s being cooked today? Papa, what all needs to be packed for your trip ? I should do this and that. The funny thing – the list of things that are to be done isendless ! You do everything and then someone would come and say – you missed this, you should calm down sweetie. You cannot please everyone. Whether I managed to do everything is irrelevant because I carried the weight of tasks both I did and didn’t do. These weren’t things I wanted to do, how from compulsion could spring joy that was free? Conditional temporary moments of satisfaction till the next task materialised.
Most women as they grow up end up doing or becoming one of the three. For such problematic statements and advices are abundant.
One being passive at problematic remarks for we hear them often enough and to some extent unknowingly internalise them.
Then there are those who grow immune to them – it hurts each time but the pain goes from a piercing wound to a dull ache. They know it’s wrong but are tired of fighting. Finally there are those who want to set the world on fire, who burn every time they hear statements that belittle your entire personhood because of one’s sex. All the pain is a fuel to the fire.
Correction – they swing between all three or at least I do.
How strange having two letters (‘fe’) prior to your gender puts you infinitely behind the other (‘male’). To any and every woman reading this – all three are fine, you are fine. The system is not. Burn back what burns you, burn down the system. Don’t slowly get extinguished, the most heartbreaking thing to me is seeing women carrying the weight of the world and questioning their strength.
Taylor Swift words it brilliantly in Mad Woman – “nobody likes a Mad Woman, Oh they made her like that.” I am trying to be unmade, let go of the anger. Not because I am apologetic about it – but I want to climb the mountains that I have carried for so long. (Najwa Zebian). Become yourself, free of the words in your head that are in voices that aren’t yours.
Don’t accept what is said to you – ask yourself “is this a fair ask? Do I want to do this? Why it came into being – is this relevant ?”
When your mother tells you as an example, how she cooked even on days that she was sick.
Ask her – why?
When she tells you if not her then who would have?
Let her see it as lack of support, problematic.
Acknowledge her pain, label it as pain. It has been a norm for far too long.
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Bhavna Chaudhary, Author & Wellness Enthusiast |
