Social conditioning forces educated girls to do laundry, wasting talent

Though the mainstream media in India may claim that the status of women has improved in India, the harsh reality remains that women have far less freedom today than compared to a few decades ago, and the unemployment levels among women have increased, especially for those who are not well connected or good looking or fashionable. Instead of education and being financially independent, increasingly in Indian society, for women, the emphasis is on getting married, having children and keeping the house and clothes spotlessly clean. So if their daughters are not good housekeepers , not interested in doing housework , keeping the house, clothes spotlessly clean , both men and women face social censure and it may adversely affect the marriage prospects of a girl or woman and indirectly the status of her family.

With surveillance technology becoming widespread and economical it is increasingly cost effective to spy on people in their homes without their permission. If a young woman or girl is not interested in doing the laundry for clothes and other household chores, quickly the neighbours and others will know about it and gossip about it affecting the social status of the family at times. In some cases, the father of the girl may not scold his daughter directly, however he will tell his wife, the mother of the daughter that she has not trained her daughter properly in doing the household chores.The mother will be upset when taunted in this manner and tell the daughter and other children that their father is shouting at her for not training the daughter and force the girl to help in household chores especially doing the laundry.

Though many households have washing machines, just putting the clothes in the washing machine with the best detergent available will not be enough to make the clothes spotlessly clean for many extremely dirty clothes. Many clothes especially underclothes, have to be scrubbed properly before being put in the washing machine to be washed. It requires some additional effort and time to be spent in applying a detergent soap to the clothes, and then scrubbing the soiled clothes. After the clothes are washed, the mother will also insist that the daughter help her in putting out the laundry to dry and finds out the different types of fabrics, cleaning detergents, fabric whiteners, starches which are essentially for cleaning clothes.

The mother will usually insist that the daughter will learn the process of cleaning the clothes well, while the brother of the girl will be free to enjoy himself, playing games with his friends, on the computer, watching television or generally enjoying himself. When the brother finds that his mother and father are insisting that his sister help in household chores, while he does not have to spend his time doing the work, he will think that it is the duty of a girl to do household work, especially cleaning clothes, utensils. When the brother grows up and gets married, he will expect his wife to look after the household chores, and when he has children, the attitude towards household work especially doing the laundry will be passed on to his children.

I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.

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