It has officially been a full week since I last put my foot out of the house. Clearly, I am following the government’s orders of social-distancing. Are you? People, it is not a scam. All we need to do is stay indoors to save lives. Please be home, be safe.

Okay so, I’m self-quarantined with my parents and my sister. Not much is expected out of me since everybody knows I am the queen of procrastination and lazing around. With all this free time in hand, I have been observing every nook and cranny in my household. 

Since my sister has been in the real world, she appreciates the ironed clothes, clean rooms, cooked meals more than before. So, in the past week I’ve noticed her wash the dishes, mop the floor, help in the kitchen since the house help is absent due to obvious reasons. Since dad is home, he cooks and mother looks after the other chores and she gets exhausted by the end of the day. So Sakshi came up with a new rule- everybody does their own dishes.

This was clearly to help mom out a little but she disapproved of it. She was fine with us doing our dishes but not dad. Weird, but I didn’t question this because I know where this is coming from.

Let me explain, 

My sister and I weren’t ever taught to do household chores, we were never expected to suffice by stereotypical gender norms like ‘ladkiyaan kabhi paan ke galle pe nahi jaati’, we weren’t allowed to play any sort of woman card when given a task.

We were given space to grow and make our own decisions. I would say that we were given the freedom to be who we wanted to be, but my father will read this and remind me that our freedom was never his or mom’s “to give”, aazadi basic human right hai!

So naturally, big sister and I are unapologetic, highly opinionated, loud women who don’t sit like a girl.

‘Change starts at home.’ –is an overly used quote and I completely agree with it, so do my parents. They made sure we never abided by any stereotypical norms and to make sure their daughters never thought of themselves to be any less than a boy, they set great examples for us.

Even though my father is the bread earner in the house and mother a homemaker, there are no gender-specific roles assigned. I remember when mom had surgery, dad would wake up before the Sun, make us huge breakfasts even though didi and I usually had cereal before school, he would braid didi’s hair and pack us lavish lunches. Our friends would wait for mumma to fall sick or go out of the town so that they would get to eat those special meals from our tiffins, I am not kidding. Our household functions on the principle of equality. For example, my parents aren’t allowed to play their ‘I gave you life’ card in any of our debates because then they will always have the upper hand.

So, my house is a democracy, a good one, and it is adorable to see mom-dad make conscious efforts to be more understanding and sensitive.

But you see, no matter how modern and woke our parents try to be, their brains were conditioned to see a certain thing, a certain way. My mother was functioned to think that her pati is her parameshwar, and so washing utensils is below him since he is the bread earner. That’s just what she was taught, and I cannot blame her for that now, can I?

I did mention that I am an over-thinker, so I automatically dissected this whole scenario in my mind. I also mentioned I am a feminist, so this really did a number on me. And I realized, that women across the globe are fighting against male privilege, chauvinism, rape culture but isn’t it some women themselves standing in the way of eradicating these deeply rooted seeds from our patriarchal society?

If not letting my dad wash his dishes isn’t giving him special privileges only because of his gender, what is?

If a teacher saying that girls only wear dark shades of lipstick to attract male-attention and then complain about the same to a class full of adolescent, impressionable boys isn’t promoting rape culture, what is?

If a mother excuses her son’s disrespectful behavior because vo toh unka raja beta hai but bashing her daughter for the same isn’t encouraging chauvinism, what is?

Change starts at home, right?

Will these seeds from the past continue to grow and spread their roots, stealing from our present?

Is it just me, or are you all wondering about the same?

Yours truly,

Jasmita Shah