I get subjected to the complaints of a lot of middleclass women, whose faithful husbands bring in salaries on the first of every month. They complain about the amount of work they do, the amount of money that their husbands spend on others, and how they also need a “Sunday” off. And that their husbands work late and don’t share housework and so on.
They subject me to these complaints.
My husband has not come home in 14 years! I have no sympathy for those whose husbands come home at 9 pm instead of 7 pm. May be their husband thinks another woman is pretty. Mine lives with another wife and family. Who are they complaining to?
For these women, their earnings are their pocket money. For me, my earnings run the household. I have worked night and day in the house and in the office, without break since 1987.
They deal with one protective, loving man, whose duty it is to care for them. I have dealt with hordes of aggressive, highly competitive, dominating men, who think it is their duty to care for other women and children – not me or my son.
Men who will happily let the work fall in my plate and the credit in their plate. Who use their time inefficiently and politically and point out that I ‘leave the office on time’ in the evening, not seeing how early I come in.
And their wives complain to me about how hard their husbands work and how neglected they are, even as they spend the bonus and promotion money that their husbands give them.
I am upto my ears with the compaints of sheltered and protected women and their lack of sympathy for their maid servants.
Incidentally, I identify very strongly with maid servants etc, because they, like me are working class women, with no Sundays, with unprotective, dependent, errant husbands, women who work to feed their children and not to decorate their bodies with sarees, accessories and jewelry.
All women are not wives. Some are mothers, some are daughters and some are destitute. Their problems constitute women’s problems too.
Wednesday July 18, 2007 – 08:09am (IST)
