Do you ever find your self making statements like- ‘I am a working woman and working women are smarter and raise independent kids!’ …..Or………’I am a home maker and thank god for that because I wouldn’t see my kids being raised by anybody but me!’ If yes then you might find this relevant. As harmless or personal these thoughts may seem, what we are unconsciously doing is seeking validation by stereotyping the roles that women ought to play, simply because we made certain life choices. Seeking validation and in turn giving rise to a need for general feminine validation. I shared these 2 examples because I have often heard these statements being made in my sphere of influence.
A long time ago I found myself at a party where as the conversation progressed, I realised I was the only woman who was a “home maker”. I wear many hats – I bake and decorate cakes commercially, I am a tutor, I have an online presence for selling my miniature works, etc” so I could introduce myself as any of them, but I dont feel the need to introduce myself as the “ so and so of the so and so world”. I am happy in just being me. And introducing myself as a homemaker just happens by chance. But the conversation at the party heavily shifted to how our kids need to see us as more than ‘just’ home makers.
Someone spoke about their kids defining them as “just a mother” and how they had to explain to the child as to their position in the corporate environment as well. If my daughter was to say that to me, I would see it as her beginning to typecast people around her. My answer to that would have been – if you see me as “just a mother”, I hope you can see how happy it makes me to just be a mother . Its important for me to help her break that habit so that if tomorrow she decides to be “just a mother” or a working woman who takes the support of helpers to nurture her kids , she doesn’t end up guilt-tripping herself or doesnt end up judging others who seem to chose a different path. Instead I would love to see my children finding their own balance and letting that define who they are. For the lady at the party, I am sure soon after she would have figured out her own beautiful version to that solution.
I however do understand her perspective here. The reason why she didn’t want her children to see her as just a mother could be to not deter them from the seamless possibilities in front of them. That’s a good thought but there might possibly be a more effective way of achieving a similar result.We’ll maybe explore that in another blog post.
My daughter is good at art & craft and self-nags herself into improvement, just short of an OCD. She recently got into the habit of waiting for my reaction to her art. I noticed a power shift. From being a self-confident and self-assured person, she started looking for my approval, a sort of a stamp on her happiness. So from the initial enthusiastic“ wow! This is so amazing. You are a great artist !” I changed the tone to a, loving “ This looks really nice, did you enjoy drawing this?” And further questioning her on the inspiration behind her work. The idea was to empower her back, by letting her be the judge of her own work and the master of her own enthusiasm. By seeking an approval from within ourselves, we attain an absolute versus the relative value that external validation could provides us – a validation that cannot slip from under our feet anytime the ground shakes.
If we could do that for each person that touches our lives, we would be doing ourselves and humanity a big service. Very often we do find ourselves being part of conversations where women are being judged for their respective roles in society. Seldom have I heard about men not earning enough, not being a good father, not helping out with laying the table and so on. It’s true that this lights the torch of patriarchy, and sometimes womenfolk are responsible for making it shine brighter.
In colleges this phenomenon is very common. Young girls are sometimes slut-shamed for being bold, young men would shame a woman if they think she’s playing hard to get and girls sometimes have the tendency to piggy back on that thought and encourage it. There is a difference between being bold and being brazen, with the latter having a more negative connotation. But in either case one cannot facilitate this behavior as you would be guilty of helping shine that patriarchal torch. My young readers (I hear from my son that I have a few) would identify with this example.
In one of the recent shows that I watched , a 16yr old with body image issues resorts to extreme surgeries to remove body fat. The doc, with an aim to dissuade her, tells her – “life doesn’t need to be hard to be worthwhile”. Now this kid was someone who got good grades but whose mum is shown to be super model and hence she saw herself from the eyes of the mother. But again this was just a show. In real life- one cant be perfect and maybe one doesn’t need to be!
Not going far , my own daughter , a 7 year old , was called ‘someone who asks for boys’ attention’, just because she plays with boys. Thankfully this statement was made to me and not to her, so I could correct the person on her choice of words. Since the person in question was a 9 year old, I understood that her judgement of my daughter was not hers alone. A lot of people might think of my daughter in a similar manner. But that shouldn’t deter her from achieving what she wants to.
One of my student’s mother broke down on phone recently when, after being repeatedly put on spot for not doing my job in the way she expects, I told her to keep track of her child’s homeworks and notes sent home in notebooks. It was followed by painful howling and sparking off further disrespect from the other side of the line. I ended the phone call a bit dumb founded. But after speaking to a couple of other teachers , I realised that this is a common reaction coming from mothers as they are otherwise subjected to a lot of societal judgement esp for being a working parent. And I had somehow inadvertently passed judgement on a mother for not being available for her child. She judged my words based on her bad experiences. Why are mothers put through so much pressure that they carry baggage to the next experience? How does that environment get created ? Lets explore that in another blog post later.
We as a society are conditioned from the beginning to believe that women have the soft skills to hold a family together, to raise children, to sacrifice, to ask after others amongst many other things. We forget that while those are beautiful things to do, we can’t stereotype people into roles. In a world of black & white, there are lots of greys and that’s where the majority of us lie. There are those who are not kind with their words and yet know how to help out people in need, there are those who won’t sacrifice on their peace and yet have your back. A lot of young girls are raised to believe that they are good and how they shall always be perceived as the ones doing good for others. Our reasons to be good or do good cannot be determined by another human. Rather good should be done in the name of basic humanity or what we have the capacity to go beyond.
A few years ago after I returned from a 10 day solo trip to Japan I was sitting at a multicultural gathering where a number of women told me how extraordinary my household was and how they could not ask their spouses to child-sit for even a day, leave aside 10 days. Later, the same evening, someone mentioned about another lady who travelled a lot for work and how lucky she was to have a husband who allowed her to do so. I was too speechless to respond.
Recently, during a deep conversation with a fellow passenger he told me how he always wanted a working woman as a partner. The reason he claimed sprouted from perceiving his mum’s housewife status as the reason for not being empowered in her marriage. Now looking at it from his mother’s perspective, it is highly likely that she would be tempted to raise a daughter who traverses that life path which she herself was devoid of – in this case encouraging her to be a working woman. So her deprivation strengthens her resolve to make her daughter’s life more fulfilling by driving her to be a working mother. But what if ,on the contrary the daughter wants to and has the means to be a happy homemaker and infact struggles to manage her life as a working woman. One woman’s solution could be another woman’s problem. Happiness is not linked to any of these roles defined by others for us. It depends on our life situations and how best we can deal with them and work towards our ultimate contentment.
Often I get questioned by people as to when I shall go back to “a Job” that justifies my qualifications, or get back full time to the cake business that I have worked so hard to nurture over the last decade. In the same breath there are those who justify my not going to work so that my kids can get better nurturing. One side points out the financial benefits I could attain and the other of how extra ordinary my kids will turn out – making it a battle between material benefits and self-sacrifice to nurture better. But my validation doesnt come from them, it comes from within. I don’t know what would happen in the next 24 hrs, leave alone 10 years down the line. I recently moved countries, and went through a load of upheaval, an experience that anybody else may not understand. This puts me into a unique situation of my own for which I need to figure out my own unique solution.
I believe that stereotyping and need for external validations are behavioral traits that go hand in hand, in a vicious cycle that we inadvertently end up facilitating.
We are all guilty of one or more of the crimes above. Maybe it would help to evolve our mindsets little by little, day by day.. And then we can start talking about shattering more glass ceilings ……..
Happy Women’s day to my lovely tribe!
ExpressionsBySu 