Marriage Should Not Mean The End Of A Woman’s Career

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Indian parents educate and bring up their daughters, only to make them quit their careers later to marry and settle down, because after all, that’s the purpose of a woman’s life, isn’t it? Daughters spend their entire life asking for permission from their parents to do things, thinking things will change as adults. But Indian parents control every aspect of a woman’s grown up life as well.

“Till you are in my house you will do as I say, then it’s your husband’s call”, is a sentence we hear too many times growing up thinking that a modern progressive husband will probably not interfere in our decision making, But that’s not how it works, does it?

“Will you allow me to work after marriage”, is then another question we seek answers from during the matchmaking process. Because guess what, Indians want a highly educated woman but not a working woman. She has to end her career to take up her roles as wife and daughter-in-law and having a full-time job won’t let her do that. Because then, who will take care of the house?

Ghar kaun Sambhalege? Who will take care of the house?

The reality is that Indian marriages seek more homemakers to run the house effectively so that a man can continue going about his everyday life smoothly. Basically, they need a support system for the man and the availability of free labour for all household work. Our society has put the pressure of livelihood earning on a man’s shoulders and made the woman the primary caregiver. Marriage then is less of a partnership and more a caretaker’s job. A woman may be a lawyer, a doctor but her cooking skill takes precedence over the endless nights she spent earning her degree.

Marriage is a very important milestone. As is followed in most cultures, the woman leaves home to join her husband and makes a new beginning in an entirely new space which may or may not involve more family members. A man moving in with his in-laws as a ghar jamai is frowned upon by society. Moving cities or homes and living with a new person, adapting to a new family, etc. is a very big adjustment. But ‘adjust and compromise’ are the keywords in a good marriage or so we are told and the onus is only on the woman to make these adjustments and compromises.

For an already working woman, this new lifestyle may seem overwhelming and many chose to take a break from their career to take out time for it. Many others however leave their jobs at the behest of their new husband or in-laws. And some feel that since they have a person now to take care of them financially, their job and career is no more important. “He is already earning well, why do you have to do a job”, is a question people ask.

A job means having an identity of her own beyond the role of a wife, daughter, and mother. It is the platform for her skill and creativity. Being a woman does not mean that cooking and needlework are the only skills to possess. And if a woman retains the job, motherhood becomes a milestone where she is expected to then give up her career because who will take care of the kids?

Don’t quit your job just for the sake of marriage

Marriage or pregnancy should not necessarily mean a stop in the career. Take a break if that is required to slip into marital life or motherhood, but let it not be a reason for quitting a career. But most Indian women know that this will only increase the pressure on them because our society has not trained men with life skills to run a house and has made this entirely a woman’s job. She knows that after slogging at work she has to rush to a home with hungry kids and husband, a home with dirty dishes and laundry and incomplete school work.

For a working woman, her job provides financial security, freedom, and independence. It earns her respect. This should not change. Financial independence is of utmost importance for any woman to fall back on in dire times. Not being monetarily dependent on the husband means that your relationship is not one of financial dependency. It’s more about companionship.

Having an income and being financially secure should earn you respect and can help to fall back on when times are bad. A husband should not be treated like an ATM machine. Those men who ‘disallow’ women to work after marriage are the result of the age-old patriarchy that is embedded in them and this behavior will extend to many other things after marriage. Indian households won’t even involve women in matters of finance and investments. Many a time women are left in the dark of family properties, assets, policies, and in case of divorce or widowhood, they are suddenly left to fend for themselves.

Men and women should be equal partners in every aspect, be it homemaking, parenting, or earning a livelihood. Though this is easier said than done, this should definitely be a strong factor while choosing a life partner. We need to change these narratives of seeing women only as homemakers and men as providers. Many young couples are identifying and waking up to the concept of equal work-sharing in marriage, realising that chores and financial burdens need to be shared. Though the final choice of picking up home over career remains a woman’s, the institution of marriage should not bind her to make this choice and should be her freewill. Support the women around you in making a respectful choice for themselves.

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Rhea was driving back with her husband on the way back from a party at their friend’s house a few kilometers away. Raj was sitting beside her and offering driving tips – “The traffic light is turning red. STOP!”,” Slow down; you are approaching the junction”. To top it all, when they neared home he said, “Straight and on the right”. For God’s sake, that’s been their home for the past five years and Rhea drives to work and back home alone almost every day.

Sapna was watching a cricket match with her boyfriend on a Saturday evening. In response to a target of 230 runs, our team was 205/8 in 48 overs. This was the opportunity that Anil took to explain to me how the game is poised right now and that we needed to make 25 runs in 12 balls to win. Sapna had been watching cricket since her childhood.In fact, Sapna and Anil had together watched many games in the past!

On a coffee break with the colleagues at work, the topic of conversation was about labour pains and child-birth. Saurav was telling Gunjan that child birth was not that difficult because women earlier used to work in their homes and fields right after child-birth. Gunjan had just joined back after her maternity leave and had gone through 18 hours of labour during child-birth, which left her exhausted for weeks.

The girl gang was discussing periods and menstrual cramps in the college canteen. Simran’s boyfriend announced that menstrual pain is all in the mind. If you do not think about it, it’s not going to hurt. Really? Simran twitches in pain every month.

These incidents or similar ones are very common among men and we have a term to describe it – Mansplaining.

A relatively new word, but has existed since ages

The term “Mansplaining” can be credited to Rebecca Solnit who in her 2008 essay called “Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn’t Get in Their Way”, recounted the time a man explained a book to her without acknowledging that she herself wrote it. Solnit did not use the word mansplaining in the essay, just explained the concept. Over the years the term was picked up and popularised by feminists across the world to explain the common frustrating occurrences in daily life that Solnit describes as “something every woman knows”.

Mansplaining is a combination of ‘man’ and ‘explaining’. The Oxford English Dictionary describes mansplaining as “(of a man) explain (something) to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing”. Mansplaining, in simple words, can be described as “the practice of a man explaining something to a woman in a way that shows he thinks he knows and understands more than she does.”

What causes men to “mansplain”?

Mansplaining may not appear to be a very big problem. It can easily be brushed off as funny, sometimes annoying and sometimes boring. But it points out a much deep-rooted problem in the society – the presumption that a woman will be less knowledgeable, less competent and somehow in need of a man to explain things to her. “Helping out” a woman comes naturally to men because our patriarchal society has embedded in them the feeling that they are superior to women and they need to care of them.

Does this affect a woman? Of course, it does. The constant interruptions and unsolicited suggestions, as Ms. Solnit notes, “crushes young women into silence” by telling them “that this is not their world.” She adds, “It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

Should Women react to Mansplaining?

Girls are taught since childhood to act pleasant, be polite and to not embarrass men. They are expected to be a pleasant audience when a man is talking and not to interrupt it. The reverse however, does not hold true. Women in several areas of life tend to play down their achievements or knowledge so that they do not hurt a man’s ego. When a woman objects to mansplaining, it is usually perceived as being rude and lacking appreciation. It is unacceptable because it is seen as an attempt to change the society hierarchy which confers the man as the default authority in a conversation. This society hierarchy has to change. Women should proudly accept and celebrate their success and achievements, just like men. Women should be able to voice their thoughts and opinions, likes and dislikes, just like men. Women should be treated and accepted as equals. So, women definitely need to speak up against unwarranted mansplaining, because as they say,

“You can forgive them for their ignorance, you can’t for their arrogance.”

They do not even know they are mansplaining

Many times, men do not even realize that they are “mansplaining” and do not do it on purpose. Their intention, in many cases, may not be to demean a woman. A tweet by Kim Goodwin went viral a couple of years back, where she created a simple flow chart for her male colleagues who wished to understand if their behaviour could be classified as mansplaining. This can also be a handy reference to women who are told by men that their intention was only to “help” and “improve” them in an attempt to defend mansplaining and to men who just do not realize it.

(Credit: Kim Goodwin)

I have had more than one male colleague sincerely ask whether a certain behavior is mansplaining. Since apparently this is hard to figure out, I made one of them a chart. pic.twitter.com/7DZ1RTrB3R
— Kim Goodwin (@kimgoodwin) July 19, 2018

Is this too trivial to address?

Compared to the many other issues prevalent in the society, Mansplaining might seem not too serious. But it’s the small changes in our outlook that will help create a gender-equal society in the future. That’s our hope and dream, isn’t it?