When I was growing up, I used to be a nerd who always carried her coursebooks with her. I didn't give time to anything but studies. I wanted to be the attention of the class because of my intelligence, knowledge, and high scores. My parents wanted that too. I remember getting scolded by my mother for scoring 'just' 90 in English. But, on the other hand, my mother also reminded me to do the housework. She used to give examples of girls living next door who studied and yet helped their mothers in the kitchen. But my brother was never asked to learn how to make tea or even pour his own glass of milk. Why are women expected to do everything? How is it possible to prioritise family and housework along with a career and hobbies?
Recently, Indra Nooyi talked about how being a stay-at-home mom and CEO of PepsiCo made it really hard for her to prioritise things in life. "The biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict with each other. When you have to have kids, you have to build a career. Just as you are rising to middle management, your kids need you because they are teenagers. And that's when your husband becomes a teenager too. He, too, needs you. And as you grow even more, your parents need you because they are ageing. So we are screwed. We cannot have it all," she says, posing a daunting question: How can a woman do justice to all these roles at once?
Why do we expect women to maintain work-life balance with so much on the plate?
Scientifically, women have more brain cells than men, so they are able to multitask. But still, women are humans. It is just not fair to expect them to be good at everything. It is good that society is now accepting women who pursue their passion and earn money. However, this acceptance needs to broaden to accommodate the idea that women cannot manage work and home efficiently without faltering or needing anyone's help. Expecting women to handle the house and family as well as their careers and education is like applying such conditions to women's empowerment that women are forced to refuse it.
In an interview with SheThePeople, Tara Singh Vachani, Executive Chairperson of Antara Senior Care and Vice-Chairperson of Max India Limited, said that there is no such thing as work-life balance for women. Asking women to attain balance only imposes unrealistic expectations on them. "Balance is only a spiritual state of mind that is achieved after a lot of spiritual practice. Managing all the different elements of your life, there's no such thing as balance; there will always be more of one thing and less of one thing at different stages of life. And that's true for men, women, and children, for that matter," Vachani said.
Every woman in our society lives in fear that they might be shamed and deserted by society, which is very quick at judging women and labelling them 'deviant'. So women have to manage the family and housework along with their careers. Moreover, men in our society are not taught to maintain a work-life balance. They are expected to do the work part and leave the life part to women. Consequently, women feel as if the house and family will be a mess if left for men to manage. Call it love or humanity, women are bound to take up the entire family duties on their shoulders, which are already burdened with career, patriarchy and other issues related to women.
Share the load and let women breathe
We need to normalise the idea that women who stay at home have a life beyond it and women who stay at work have a family to look after. We cannot expect women to cook as if there is no meeting pending or work as if there is no child cribbing. The workforce needs to inculcate policies that help working women manage the house as well. Policies like maternity leave, flexible work hours, affordable child care, and more should be adopted by companies to help their female employees. Rather than rejecting women on the basis of their marital status, companies need to be more supportive of women.
As far as the work at home is concerned, it is never-ending work. So we need to stop expecting women to be perfect at it. No woman was born with perfection in managing everything at once. Rather, she learns to multitask so that she doesn't end up losing family or work. If women can learn to maintain balance, why can't men? Why can't men share the load at home and give women time to breathe?
Either ask men to help women grow a family or stop expecting women to work 24/7. Both are raising themselves and the family. Then why should women alone stay awake late at night for a child despite an early morning errand?
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