Dear Society, You may be calling women dependents but sorry to say your men are more dependent on women!
It is quite shocking how without even knowing the basic survival skills like cooking or cleaning, men have been given the title of ‘head of the family’. On the other hand, women are labelled as dependants?
Without knowing even basic life skills, men are equally dependent on women as kids. Even after taking care of men, their kids and their parents, women are still labelled as dependents! But, if women are expected to have great decision-making skills in every arena of family and home, then shouldn’t they be called heads of the family?
It’s a trademark of our regressive society, that labels woman taking care of everyone as dependent!
More often than not, we have seen men bragging about how they don’t know how to cook or clean. It is disgusting how our society promotes men’s lack of life skills as a sign of manhood! Rather than labelling men, who are dependent on women for their survival, as dependents, we celebrate them as the family heads!
The reality of many Indian households – where women make endless sacrifices to take care of family every day – makes you wonder who is actually dependent on whom? How often, have you seen women cooking, cleaning, serving, doing laundry for their husbands, who are grown-up men!
How could the person on whom everyone is dependent, rather than being called dependable is labelled as a dependent!
It is heartbreaking how even after being an equal contributor to a family’s survival and well-being, women are hardly seen as equal partners in marriage! They are expected to do things as others expect them to. They hardly have any voice or power in family matters! This is irrespective of whether women are working or not!
Even though home labour is the foundation of the economy and human’s existence, it hardly gets its due. The time and efforts put under home labour are so conveniently ignored or taken for granted.
What is even more heartbreaking is how women – whether earning or not – are expected to be the only one in the kitchen. While men are expected to just take care of their jobs, women are expected to take care of jobs, home and family!
As per UN’s The World’s Women 2015 report, women spend an average of 30 minutes more than men on paid and unpaid daily work in developed countries and 50 minutes longer in developing countries.
Even after playing such an active role in serving others and managing home and family, women are still deprived of equal status in marriage; They are still labelled as dependents!
If you observe your homes closely, you would realize who is actually dependent on whom. Men depend on women for food, clothes, home, love, affection, desires, stability and much more. In return, even women depend on men! Then why a woman is called dependent and a man dependable!
With changing times, don’t you think our mindset needs to change? Our society should start giving women their due share, and start treating them as equal.
To make a marriage successful, a woman needs to depend on a man and a man needs to depend on a woman! And, if as a society we can’t respect these inter-dependencies in marriage, we should be ready to witness the failure of marriage as an institution soon!