I’ve never understood why women respond with, “No, I’m a housewife,” when they are asked if they work. Only a housewife knows that ‘not working’ means doing everything that no one else wants to do. The tasks entail buying vegetables, planning meals, sorting piles of laundry, cleaning the home, stocking the fridge and cancelling interesting plans for as little as a leaky faucet. Housewives cater to individual whims, are courteous to sudden visitors, make the budget stretch and look after family members who grumble about an ever so slightly crumpled shirt or a vegetable they dislike. There are just that many vegetables out there and no one likes to answer what they would like to eat until something (they aren’t in the mood for) is put on a plate in front of them. If people had to pay for tolerance and patience, housewives would be richer than anyone out there.
As the job of the housewife began to be taken for granted, the quintessential Indian housewife began to make a slow and steady exit. I miss the traditionally clad woman who tied her hair neatly in a bun and collected her daughter’s trousseau in a trunk by her bedside. Her qualification (aside from her basic education) was that she could cook, sew, mend and look after the home but no one thought it was important because it didn’t bring in money. Over and above these qualities, most housewives suffered their mother-in-law’s barbs silently (grumbling was reserved for discussions with their own relatives), sacrificed personal pleasures (such as facials) for the economic benefit of the family and raised their children to be deferential.
Women in those days had aged by their early forties; their frown lines on display, small rolls of fat peeping out from beneath their blouses, and little or no change in their hairstyle or dress code for decades. The aunties, as they were addressed by all youngsters, were uniform in appearance and ideology. They carried inexpensive handbags that contained a handkerchief and currency notes; a fashion statement compared to their mothers who had stuffed wads of notes in their blouses or batwas. The big tote, credit cards and mobile phones had not yet made an appearance. For many, a bunch of keys strung on a silver trinket was tucked at the waist. It symbolized authority.
Moreover, they spoke about their childhood like it was a pleasant dream even though it didn’t sound like one. Their father, usually loved and respected, wasn’t an active participant in their daily lives, their mother was preoccupied with household duties and uncles and aunts were more often than not a tad evil. Besides, they thought nothing of their parents fussing over a favourite child and often forgave a sibling for being rude. Somehow, none of these issues translated to mental trauma. Their youth, referred to unfailingly as their ‘college days,’ belonged to another realm, one that could never be revisited; only fondly remembered. They never discussed adolescent struggles about growing up or romantic crushes. Everything was neatly swept under the rug. It probably petered out in the form of regular back aches and headaches but they did a great job of convincing everyone that it was nothing a Saridon or Dispirin tablet could not sort out.
After all they had to focus on packing lunch boxes, on disciplining the house help (which usually got their goat) and making arrangements for everyone’s miscellaneous routines. They took public transport wherever they went because the car was reserved for the patriarch. A break from routine usually involved a market place where they matched blouses and petticoats or dupattas to their outfits. The occasional kitty club meeting or family gathering gave them the opportunity to socialize. I’m not sure if they worried about philandering husbands because they were never going to get a divorce. Also, the men were aging as gracefully as them so they didn’t have any worries about mid-life crisis ruining their stable domesticity. If adultery (either their own or their spouses) did disrupt their lives, they certainly did not allow it to disturb their marriages. It goes without saying that the social environment didn’t give them an option to break out of a marriage but on the other hand mental conditioning prevented them from desiring it, so it led to a happy compromise. Moreover, they didn’t have much time to dwell on their personal allure because they slipped effortlessly into the next stage of their lives of becoming grandmothers. Almost all young people back then got married and almost everyone had children because they were expected to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
The path of the housewife veered in a new direction from this point onwards. My generation altered the perception of a housewife. First of all, they coined a new word for them by calling them homemakers. By the late 90s, most Indian women my age had adopted Western attire with a vengeance, coloured their hair in all shades of brown and blonde, enrolled in gyms, partied till odd hours and ventured out on women-only holidays. We were not going to waste what remained of our youth. We made fashionable purchases, addressed our childhood traumas, rebelled against difficult marriages and voiced our needs. After all, we found ourselves in a changed world where the liberties available to men were beginning to jar on our nerves. We didn’t believe in hoarding trunks with our daughters’ wedding trousseau, we required bank balances for their education. We decided to disarm our boys and arm our girls. If guys could have a bachelor party, girls could have a bachelorette. We reinvented the sensible aunty and turned her into a daring one. The housewife now wore blingy jewelry, giant sunglasses and dressed like a movie star. The era when the movie star dressed like the housewife instead of the other way around, officially came to an end.
Most of all, no one liked to squirm uncomfortably when they were asked what they did for a living because ‘housewife’ had become an outdated word. The economy had opened up and made space for young women to earn their own living and achieve their own (as opposed to their husband’s) goals. Most housewives began to explore hitherto hidden talents like singing, writing, painting and such, so that they could feel in sync with a new world. As a society, we were, perhaps, so wrapped up in this life that we ended up creating a world where personal needs began to take precedence over familial ones without realizing that the needs within a home defy change. Consequently, we raised a generation that wanted all the traditional joys, but unlike our predecessors, we were unable to prepare them for the traditional lows. Most of all we forgot to tell our children that someone has to be the provider and someone the nurturer.
Hence, the sacrosanct deal between two life partners began to unravel. Not everyone managed well with a gender reversal of roles. For many couples, a new power struggle emerged and began to wreak havoc. Eventually, the demise of patriarchy gave birth to the career driven supermom. She handled everything with efficiency; husband, marriage, kids, work and home. The toll childbirth takes on the body, post-partum depression and hormonal changes, notwithstanding. The definition of female emancipation did not include normalizing a woman’s decision to be the one who looks after young children or aged parents. The position of the housewife grew fragile. She felt dependent, vulnerable and mocked. To say that housewives spend their time at Pilates classes and sipping ice tea with their friends is as absurd as saying corporate employees spend their time chatting around the coffee machine and planning power lunches.
Instead of tweaking the age-old arrangement between husband and wife to provide financial independence without working outside the home, we made it mandatory for women to leave the home in order to gain financial independence. We became a consumerist economy and one income could not handle all the household expenses. Thus, independence for a woman became more about applauding their dressing choices and spending choices without worrying about the pressure their various roles put on them. Eventually, everyone wants to be tied to home and hearth with a sound understanding of finances, so that no one feels obligated to the other. Also, every family has different requirements and a choice to not work outside the home has to be respected and the person provided for. It’s never too late to alter the concept of a supermom. The label belongs equally to women who make a choice to set aside their personal goals to nurture others.
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