Gentle Struggles of a Gentlewoman

GENTLE STRUGGLES OF A GENTLEWOMAN

by

MURALI MURTHY

It's 05:30 in the morning, the alarm irritatingly disturbs her sleep, she is still sleepy as she couldn't sleep properly the previous night. She has no choice but to drag herself out of the bed.

As the clock keeps ticking past 5:40, she knows that much harder it is to race against time. She forcefully gets up, quickly gets ready and runs to the kitchen.

After an hour of non stop work at the kitchen working like Goddess Durga having 8 hands preparing Breakfast, Coffee, Milk and Lunch for the entire family, she helps the kids get up, get them ready to school.

Husband gets up by now with a grumpy face expecting his wife to come to him with a bed coffee with a smiling face, morning kiss and his news paper.

And this is just the beginning of a day in a woman's life, filled with struggles in every step.

I see my wife, my sister, my mother, my aunts, my friends going through the same grind and wrestle with the daily chores without a day off. This unending struggle and monotony hasn't changed from the days of my mother running the show to my wife or my sister in present day. The problems have become more complex as the women now have a career to build as well.

The struggles didn't crop up only after she gets married. The societal, emotional, physical struggles starts the moment she attains puberty. A girl is prepared and trained by the society for what's in store for her for the rest of her life. The day she attains puberty, each day of her life becomes a Classroom and every single person she meets become her teacher, teaching her how to behave, what to wear, how to take care of people, how to cook, how to do household work, how to manage a house. She is groomed to be inferior to men.

She is always scared and concerned of the prying eyes all along. Every single boy, man she comes across is a potential threat to her.

She is judged constantly. Her father, brother, husband, friends, son all trying to be protective of her, giving her a feeling that she cannot protect herself and being felt dominated.

Expectations on her as a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a wife and as a mother, always makes her think on ways to up her game every day.

We men have exploited and silenced her all along. She suffers within all the humiliations, abuse, criticism and yet puts a smile on and takes life head on, because she is trained to be so.

And the most craziest turning point of her life - Marriage!
Get married, start living in a stranger's house and start calling some oldies as Mother and Father, treat them as your family and take care of them and their house.

She does all this with a smile and adapts to her new life as this is not strange to her, she is taught since her birth that she has to be prepared for this day.

When the husbands gets sick, or children gets sick, they all need her 100% attention, focus and care as they just rest on the bed. But when she gets sick, she doesn't have a choice but to take medication and push herself to carry on running the Kitchen and house.

She is expected to follow traditions, learn and follow all customs at In-laws places, most of the times unlearning what she has been following all her life till then.

Even if she is being abused and being troubled by husband and in-laws, her parents and brother will ask her to adjust and ask her to go through the struggle, as it is still a stigma to come out of a marriage.

One day I had a tiff with my wife when I was agitated to see her running to her relative's place everyday of her mother's stay in town for almost a week, when just last month she had been to her hometown and spent time with her mother. Her reply was an eye-opener "You stay with your parents all your life and you will never be able to understand my emotions. I have also lived with my parents for 28 years and all of a sudden I have left them, staying away from them for rest of my life".

I have seen women taking care of both parents and in-laws, juggling between 2 houses and still effectively taking care of parent's and in-law's financial, medical and emotional needs.

They sacrifice their dreams, their ambitions to help everyone else achieve theirs. She makes her husband's life hers, husband's dreams as hers, husband's problems hers.
She finds happiness in husband's success and son's success.

We husbands feel we are the only ones capable of handling problems, crisis. When all we do is worry about it, but most of the times the solution and a balm comes from the women of the house.

We Men have Male Ego that stops us from believing they are equally capable emotionally, mentally, intellectually. We take her for granted, impose our thought process and overlook her emotions and feelings

The struggles they have at work place just adds to their misery. The wage gap with fellow male employees, comparison of efficiency at work with a male.

Many families these days expect Women to work and help husband in sharing the financial burden. Be it by her own choice to work or husbands wanting her to work, she has to learn balancing work life and time at home. She has to continue doing all the morning chores at home, run to work, come back and continue her work in the kitchen, cleaning house without time to catch her breath.
If she gets back home late from work, she has to first cross the grumpy faced in-laws staring at the clock, making her realize she has sinned.

Despite all the struggles, running around, doing her best, she never gets to hear a "Thank you", "Good Job" or an appreciation for a well cooked food or a well kept home.

The indecent proposals many women get from random/known men is another silent struggle she goes through. It's a silent struggle she generally has to suffer alone. Most of the times solve it alone or take help from Husband, Brother, Father or friends to get rid of the proposers.

She realizes that Love has faded away within few years of marriage. She is made to feel that she is the reason for lessening of Love in the marriage. The same woman whom his man found charm, beauty and attraction before and in few years of marriage, has started finding her not attractive, boring and out of shape.
She is always compared with other Women, as every man finds other women always attractive.

We Men will never be able to understand the other physical pains they go through...Be it waxing, threading, facials, shampooing and drying their hairs, hair styling, pedicure and those tight Bras and the discomforts.

And those days of the month...their mood swings, cramps, stomach aches, discomfort, and running to Restroom regularly, yet hiding the Pads. Period related problems are still a stigma in our society.

A Man can smoke and occasionally drink and yet considered normal, but when a woman is found smoking in a corner, the same Men give a stare at her with eyes wide open. And the moment a group of women get into a Pub just to have a good time, men at all other tables will always have an eye on this table.

She compromises and adjusts all her life. She adapts to every situation and problem.

Having written so much about women and their problem, loving my wife, mother and sister, I am still the reason for many of their struggles.

Women are the reason for our existence, not just biologically. They guide us, make us humans, and help us emotionally as a mother, sister, friend, lover, wife, daughter, aunt or as a grand mother.

The least we men can do is let them help win their battles and struggles each day.

I believe that God created Men first, and quickly realized that Men are A$$holes. God had to then design and create Women to balance life - with a woman's composure, forgiveness, ability to take men out of any mess, give them Love and ability to provide emotional support and become their strength.

The saying "Behind every successful Man, there is a Woman" wasn't said just like that.

I have seen my own sister rise above all her struggles, make a mark for herself in the family, society. Many women like my sister have taken up post graduation much later after marriage and started a career afresh and emerged successful, continuing to fulfill all the domestic needs and duties.

What will we do with all the Men, if all Women are Empowered!

This write-up is not to talk about feminism or women empowerment. This is to salute and acknowledge the struggle women go through each day.

Some of the women whose pain, struggle and compromises that I have seen and felt personally: