Shuffling the roles of family breadwinner and homemaker
Women are becoming more and more successful and are occupying headlines almost everyday. Though there have been huge changes for women in terms of employment in the past decades, they are still far from being equal with men. The statistics show that the participation of Indian women in the labour force fell 10 percent in the past decade and India has one of the lowest female labour force participation rate in the world. Though access to education and employment for women has increased, there was still a decline in their participation in labour force from over 35% to 25%. [1] The New York Times analysis show that the primary reason for this decline could be due to the age old gender norms in the society. In a patriarchal society, women are rarely encouraged to seek jobs outside their homes. Hence staying at home, taking care of their children and husband becomes their preferred household choice. Men on the other hand are expected to be the family breadwinners.
Philanthropist Melinda Gates claims that all over the world, women are doing work they’re not getting paid for. According to her, “in India, women spend about six hours and men spend less than one hour on unpaid work”. The work the homemaker does at home has to have a value, though it doesn’t have a designation, it is still a job that needs recognition and the time has come to put a value to the unpaid work that women do.
In Britain, according to the thinktank IPPR report, more than two million women are the breadwinners in their families while men stay at home and take care of their children and household chores. [2] In a society where there is a stigma that men are the primary earners of the households, is India ready for changing its traditional and outdated way of thinking is a question to be put to the people in the society. The concept of women as breadwinners and men as stay-at-home dads needs a lot of preparation in India. Due to the expectations of the society, men are not willing to stay at home since they are trained to respond in a way generally approved by the society. Most women as a result of social conditioning are also not comfortable with the idea that the men they are with stay at home. Though the wife and the husband do not have a problem in reversing their roles at home, social conditioning aggravates the situation.
According to Times of India, men prefer women with “safe professions” like teacher, librarian and look out for women who can spend more time at home taking care of children and elderly. [3] Most men are not used to staying with women who are financially independent and professionally more superior to them, which makes it difficult for them to accept the change in the gender roles. It is perfectly respectable for woman to say that “I’m a housewife/homemaker”, while it is not the same for a man. Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift, suggests that most men simply don’t see housework and child care as a vocation that could give them a sense of identity and pride, as many women do.
The gender clichés define how marriages and households should run. Any change in the gender role may make the marriage dysfunctional. According to a survey done by shaadi.com, only 32% men are ok with their wife earning more than them. Many times it hurts the male ego and they feel emasculated when women become more successful than their husbands. They tend to see them as their competitors. Some men even feel that it is their right to dominate their wives. However there are also men who are very supportive of the fact that their wives are earning and encourage them.
Social conditioning reinforces the gender identities, which makes women stay at home, and take care of their husband and children, while men go out to work. These gender identities stemmed from the innate physical differences between male and female body. In the traditional hunter-gatherer society, males, with their more developed physique, were expected to hunt for food, and defend the family, while females, with their gentler disposition, and a maternal instinct, were expected to take care of the children back at home. [4] The masculinity helped males to dominate the society and women who grew up in a society where more females are homemakers, therefore consciously or sub consciously see it as a norm. The expectations from the society and/or family to be a homemaker puts pressure on women to stay at home and men to be the breadwinner. Though househusbands are enjoy with what they are doing, the society saying caregiving makes a man “less of a man” and treating them like losers affects them. Often their masculinity is questioned and they are criticized for their inability to provide for the family. Men are expected to behave in a certain way to prove their masculinity and ridiculed if they don’t.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Claudius makes Hamlet appear weak and unreasonable for grieving about his father’s death. He says Hamlet’s excessive grief for his father is “unmanly”.
('Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
[…]
But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief. )
(Act 1, Scene 2, Page 4)
Women often do not go out to work after marriage or after parenthood. In the recent times more lower caste people in order to improve their status have entered the middle class (Sanskritisation) and they feel that there isn’t any need for their wives to go out and work since they are financially stable. It becomes a prestige issue for them that man’s earnings are sufficient for the family to run.
Recent census data revealed that among those currently married, women head barely 4% of all households. [5] Women who are ambitious and feel that homemaking is not maximum utilization of their potential tend to go out and work. Unfortunately women are judged for being ambitious and it is often seen as a negative characteristic. Statistics show that women feel guilty about the work-life balance more than men. Society drives guilt through women who don’t play a stereotypical role. No matter how empowered women are, they find themselves slipping into stereotypes and that tends to make them do more at home. On the other hand, men are excused from this guilt and feel less stressed out about having a work-life balance. Men have been trained over centuries to draw a line between work and home.
Women are being called as “super moms” for their capability to have work-life balance, which gives men a chance to not participate in taking care of the household activities. Most men think that it is the responsibility of women to take care of home and children. Women who are not homemakers out of choice, do not work because of the social conditioning, pressure on them to look after their kids, elderly or perhaps due to less pressure on them to take up something and use their skills unlike the pressure on a man’s head to go out and work.
Conclusion
Women now have become more independent, gained more power and have started to question the norms of the society, which helps in redefining the gender roles in the society. Gender roles were once defined by the society to help people accept and realize the duties and responsibilities that each gender is bound to. But today the social statuses have changed and both parents earn for the family due to economic needs or passion they have for it. People irrespective of their gender should do what makes them comfortable. Hence taking care of household chores and children becomes the responsibility of both the partners. Understanding and adjusting can help the family run smoothly. Decisions are to be made by both the partners based on understanding their strengths. Families would benefit when there is a flexible approach to family life and no assigning of roles to genders. A day would come when men would love to be called as homemakers. With certain amount of time, people would accept this new change and masculine role would be seen as genderless. Kids need to be trained by their parents to deal with the modern lifestyle and parenting.
References
[1] Suchetana Ray. “As India economy grows, female participation in work force declines: ILO.” Hindustan Times, March 08, 2016.
[2] Daniel Boffey. “Huge rise in number of women who are family breadwinners.” The Guardian. August 04, 2013.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/aug/04/mothers-breadwinners-in-family-report-says
[3] Meghna Mukherjee. “Are husbands threatened by successful wives?” Times of India, July 23, 2015.
[4] Random Musings. “Gender identity is a result of social conditioning.”
[5] Rema Nagarajan. “Married women head 4% of families” Apr 29, 2015.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Married-women-head-4-of-families/articleshow/47089480.cms
