The cultural conditioning of a family tends to treat its girl and boy offspring differently. It is easy for anyone to notice.It is the norm. If you visit a family with boy and girl offsprings, the girl child is mostly always asked to do household chores . There might be progressive families that , in an effort to bring up independent sons , encourage them to do household chores but the default responsibility falls upon the girl. As a young girl, whenever we visited my dad's paternal home, my sister used to spend most of her time helping my mother in the Kitchen even when the house used to be filled with boys of her age who spent time vacationing or playing.This was the expectation. Even though women spent all day cooking and cleaning, they got the opportunity to have food only after all the men royally finished their lunch/dinner. In some houses ,I have seen a grand dinner table in the dinning hall for the men and a small table inside the kitchen for the women.
As girls reach their teenage years, parents esp. mothers start publicizing their culinary skills. As kids and adolescents, even though girls are asked to focus on studies and be competent , as they get out of school and finish their graduation, they are often asked to improve their cleaning /culinary and arts&crafts skills so that they turn as favorites in the marriage market.It is that phase of life ,when she gets confused about everything she was taught and made to believe.The focus starts to change abruptly and from a competent career/academic focused person , she is moulded into a women who is forgiving, ready to sacrifice and let go.These , obviously leads to family conflicts.On one hand you are brought up to be an independent decision maker and on the other hand you are asked to compromise and give up on your the choices you value and the identity you have earned. So you now have a daughter brought up in liberal circumstances, whom you want to behave conservatively so that she fits in . This idea has been beautifully discussed in http://apusworld.com/blog/2008/06/raising-liberal-daughters/ as well.
Whether most parents like to admit it or not, equality starts at home.The world has progressed further from hunter men and berry gathering women. The ship of conservative ideas has started to sink. If you are not sailing in the ship of liberal ideas, high chances are that you are left back.
(If you have read this blog, please do leave your comments)
I agree Divya. Parents are in a dilemma, they have no clue on what to do in these matters. Its like they want to have the cake & eat it too.
ReplyDeleteIf they have raised their daughter on liberal views she is going to apply those ideas on all spheres in life, not just academics. Parents have to be willing to understand that. They can't have it both ways.
Loved this part : Whether most parents like to admit it or not, equality starts at home.
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