In The Great Indian Household, guilt is gendered
Whose responsibility is it anyway? | Words by Prakriti Singh
Hello and welcome back to Deep Fry. It’s been three months since the last edition, an unintentional break as I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with work. However, now that I am back with a clearer head (and more time in hand…hopefully), I shall try to keep this newsletter more regular. If you’re new here, do read the previous editions here, here and here.
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*Trigger warning - Domestic abuse*
A few days ago The Indian Express published a survey report where men and women across different states and union territories of India were asked if they believed men were justified in beating their wives. 52% of women and 42% of men surveyed said yes…with reasons - if the wife disrespects the in-laws, neglects the house, doesn’t cook well, the husband is justified in hitting her. The absolute mind numbing thing about this deep-rooted patriarchy is that half of the country’s women justify it too.
If close to half of country’s population can justify domestic violence, how can we even begin a conversation about the emotional violence? In most cases - including my personal experience - it’s not even acknowledged.
I have spent the last one year collecting stories of emotional abuse that women have to go through as organizers of meals in the family - stories of plates thrown across dinner tables; stories of verbal abuse; stories of having no agency over one’s own life choices (to cook or not to cook, or even what to cook); the stories of power play between mother in law and daughter in law - make no mistake, the beneficiary of this power play is always a man; the stories of crushed self worth…I can go on.
It’s these stories out of which the idea of this newsletter was born; to take a different approach towards domestic kitchen and family meals; to look at them through a different lens and start a conversation around the emotional abuse. To talk about the Brahmanical patriarchy that puts a woman’s worth in her kitchen skills, and then crushes her self worth by questioning those very skills.
As I bring this series to a close and move on to a different topic, I hope the conversation continues. And if there are men reading this newsletter, join in…cause the women have gone hoarse talking and we can use more voices here.
On to today’s newsletter where a modern, young, educated woman shares her story of casual, every day gender discrimination and the idea of guilt as a gendered emotion.
Whose responsibility is it anyway?
Something that a male friend said in a casual conversation stayed with me for months. I kept going back to it. We were talking about dating, and he said that most of the women he ends up meeting tell him that their mental health is not good. They are anxious and restless. A lot of them are also seeking therapy. I think what he said stayed with me because, at that point in time, I was considering therapy too. If women around me, including me, are restless and anxious, then there must be something going wrong…right? I am talking about urban women who are privileged, who have had access to good education and employment opportunities. I am one of them.
I got married in April 2021. Last few months before the wedding were stressful. What added to the stress was the pressure to perfect my cooking skills. The expectation from me was to spend time in the kitchen before starting my work-day and after ending it. I couldn’t keep up. I did not like being in the kitchen at all. All my childhood years, my only motivation to do well at school was not to have a future like my mother’s or every woman I was surrounded by. Don’t get me wrong. My mother is great. She loves cooking for us, and she makes the best food in the world. However, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go out and earn my own money. Financial independence was important for me.
And here I was after all these years, fighting the battle that I thought my education would save me from. I fulfilled all the criteria that should have made my life different - a postgraduate with financial independence. But, no matter how good I was at school, college or work, it was never enough. While growing up, my grandmother would constantly compare me with other girls who were good at studies but at the same time also showed interest (or were coerced to show interest) in cooking and household chores. It annoyed me sometimes, but most times it made me feel guilty – for not being enough, for not doing enough.
Before the wedding, an aunt told me that it didn’t matter that I was a working professional; the job of feeding my family was still mine. I was constantly exhausted thinking about living a life that everyone around me was preparing me for.
In the days leading up to my wedding, I was jealous of my partner. We both had the same education, well paying jobs, but the rules were different for both of us. He only had to work and provide for his family to be a good husband, while I needed to do a double shift; work and earn my own money because I am ‘empowered’ and cook, feed the family, and clean after them because I am a woman. As a modern young woman, things were added to my plate, but nothing was taken off it. I was supposed to do all those things that a full-time homemaker did while also managing a job. The worst part of it was that people had examples of women who did manage to do the double shifts; glorified even. I was constantly asked to be like that neighbourhood girl who wakes up at 4 AM to finish all the chores before going to work and sleeps at 11 PM after feeding and taking care of everyone.
After the wedding, I moved into a rented apartment. For a while I tried to do what I was expected to do. I cooked and cleaned. It got exhausting in no time. My partner and I decided to hire a domestic worker. While he didn’t give it a second thought, I felt guilty for doing so. For the longest time, I also hid it from some of my family members. I didn’t know how to tell them. Cooking food for the family was an inextricable part of the ideological construction of what constitutes a good wife, a good woman, and not being able to do so made me self-conscious. I felt the gaze of my grandmother and the aunts even though they were not physically around. As a woman I was conditioned to sought validation from people, so now I was scared of their judgement.
I also realise that despite the guilt I could still do this only because I have a full-time job. I wonder if I wasn’t working (paid employment) but still wanted to hire a domestic worker, would I have been able to do so? The guilt or discomfort comes from the idea of masculinity and femininity that society imposes. The husband keeps up his part of the bargain by being a ‘breadwinner’, and the wife needs to keep up hers by being the ‘homemaker’. And if a man or a woman does not fit into this definition, they are deemed inadequate. A woman’s aspiration to do well at her job and the imposed ideals of womanhood work together and exacerbate the stress.
My brother, who is just a year younger to me was never asked to learn to cook at home. Today, as an adult, he enjoys cooking. He likes experimenting in the kitchen. When we both were at home during the pandemic, my grandmother called me while my brother was in the kitchen and compared us. She said that he was more interested than me or even better than me in the kitchen. I felt humiliated. It was unfair because there could be no comparison between us. I have been told since childhood that I need to learn to cook. Women in my house have taken turns to tell me this and have also trained me. This was not the case with my brother, though. He learnt when he wanted to and because he wanted to. Various scholars have pointed out that while women’s performance of housework is often considered obligatory; men’s participation is constructed as optional (Moras, 2016). What I did in the kitchen was taken for granted; it was never good enough. However, my brother’s participation was noticed and appreciated.
Today I live on my own with a supportive partner. No one is there physically to tell me anything or to dictate how I choose to live. No one is there to comment on how I am not cooking or how bad I am at it. However, I have realised that it’s still difficult to break the mould, to stop feeling the gaze; it’s difficult to undo all those years of conditioning wherein I was taught to be a certain way. I am trying to let it go, though. I am trying to prioritize myself and not care about how people see me. Baby steps, each day!
References
Moras, A. (2016). ‘‘This Should be My Responsibility’’: Gender, Guilt, Privilege and Paid Domestic Work. Gend. Issues, 1-23.
Credits
Prakriti is a full-time communications professional and a part-time writer. Her work has been published in EPW Engage, The Telegraph, Feminism in India, LiveWire, and Film Companion among others. Follow her on Twitter.
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