DAY 323 (Empowered... Are you?)

This one is going to sting because many people are not going to like what I have to say. While we talk about equality, empowerment, progress, and what not I want to know how are you doing at your roots/basics/fundamentals?

You might be a leader at your workplace, doing well with financial independence but do you still face these root challenges?

• Not having the surname you were born with and even if you managed to keep one, there is no one to carry it forward for you. Basically your lineage ends here. (Not that it matters... duh!).
• You have no home. Yes maybe you have paid for it and even have the legal papers for it but as per the society you were earlier living in your father's home and now living in your husband's home. Your future maybe your son's home or an old age home. 
• You brag your ability to have a career as independence. Isn't it supposed to be a basic right as for the other gender? You are "supported" to work and you are so grateful for it.
• Your "time-management" to be able to give yourself a break is an extended task. You are blessed with the right support where once you complete all your duties, you are "supported" to go out and do what you like.
• Forget about the world, you are 100% convinced in your gut that cooking and cleaning are your primary responsibilities. Anyone else doing it is favoring you by helping you out.
• You were born to be an obedient, good-cultured daughter, then a good wife who is supposed to bear child(ren), and then a responsible mother. You carry that child inside you but the child's family lineage is only his father's. Basically, in your childhood your family tree told you that you were born out of your parents and your "both" parents were born out of your father's parents. And now once you are a mother, you are born from your parents in-laws too (which does not make any sense but it is what seems natural to everyone including you) ! :-D
• I read a quote which so resonates with all of you "The whole world worked to empower women but forgot to teach themselves how to live with empowered women".
• While at work or leisure, your brain is 90% occupied with lunch/dinner menu planning, laundry, pending homework of your child and househelp arrangements.

If you all go through this everyday, where is the empowerment? I believe in looking at the positives but how long are we going to call the same positives as consistent growth? Can we agree that we are stuck?

I am a part of a cricket team where all of us are either working women and/or mothers or housewives. This is not our career but we are really passionate for the sport. However, whenever we have to play a match or even have to practice, more than half of us are trying to do arrangements like who will take care of their kid(s) and/or cook at 5 am for the house duties and then go to play. Do you see the same challenge when your sons/husbands have to go out to play?

Today morning when I reached office and was waiting for the lift to come at basement, there was a male employee who was also waiting with me. While the lift button is already pressed and it took hardly 2-3 minutes for the lift to arrive, he re-pressed the button more than 15 times (I counted and smirked) as if that would bring down the lift faster. This is the amount of patience that men have (usually). While they preach you and expect you to be calm and composed while multitasking with all your body parts, a wait of 2-3 minutes get to their nerves.

Believe it or not, there is no progress and there never will be and I am a little tired today to motivate anyone and speak the positives. Your sons are also growing up with same beliefs. While their jaw will not drop if their father is in kitchen (unlike the boys of your generation), but they would also expect the same things from their partner what is expected of you today. And a big credit to that goes to us only. Empowerment is only theory. We cannot change, our mindset cannot change. 

I would say let's divert from empowerment and work on our safety. That is something that we really think we deserve but unfortunately not getting it. So working on something that might actually show some results is better than self-patting ourselves over nothing.

Happy Friday ladies!