As a student with some of the best grades in class, I grew up with a lot of dreams. I remember dad always pushing me to dream bigger. I’m sure am not the only one who grew up this way. Since school we are always pushed to perform better (girls, boys alike). Through high-school, college, parents fuss over grades (as we gradually begin to let go of them). Not only academics, personality development is also emphasized upon, you are encouraged to be a part of myriad extra-curricular activities. The general idea is to make you not just academically brilliant, but smart, outspoken and in general an overall genial being.
What do you want to be? We hear this question over and over. Then we are bombarded with the big word “career”, and we knock doors in search of career guidance.After all this, when we have graduated and settled with our job we are said to have begun our career, or laid the foundation stone for the rest of our life (in most cases, besides those who plunge back into academics for further studies.)
So you have this overall upbringing, and now you are well settled with a decent job. Then the big search begins, and there is an overall hullabaloo. Guy over guy rejects you. Sometimes the reason is you are too brilliant, sometimes too smart, a little too outspoken, sometimes a “good job”, may be you are too career-oriented, a big-city girl, too independent. All the things that you once thought were your positives are the very reasons why you are rejected. And when you ask why are they negatives, you get some weird logics, all that often end up with “it’s in our genes”.
What’s wrong if i am brilliant, smart?
-- well it may hurt my ego some day. I cant have my wife outwitting or outsmarting me.
What if I am outspoken?
-- In our society, men better do most of the talking, I don’t want to appear as a henpecked husband.
Isn’t it possible that may be you are an introvert and I am an extrovert?
-- (pause...) people wont take it that way.
I have a decent job out here. Well I earn XYZ per month. I may even be up for a promotion next month.
-- I think we could manage fine in my salary. You would then be able to take good care of the home (and me). I wouldn’t want to carry salads in my lunchbox. Will you quit this job after we get married?
Will You? I have a package that earns better than you, I have considerable savings,we could rent up a house here. I could work up something in my company so you could join us. Are you willing to quit your job?
-- It would hurt my ego to have a wife that earns more than me. I would develop an inferiority complex. Also it wouldn’t appear too good, me shifting for you. You sound too career-oriented, ambitious.
Is that a bad thing? -
-- Blank
Do you drink?
-- Yes occasionally. Do you?
Yes occasionally. I love partying too.
--It was nice meeting you.
______
I believed marriage was where two people shared their lives, not where one drags the other into his own. But in a society that lives on dual standards, this is the last thing to hope for. Is it right to abandon your dreams all of a sudden? Is it right to force someone to abandon his/her dreams, ambitions? You cant raise someone by one values and then suddenly force him/her to accept another set. Another set that often stands upfront against everything that you believed. It is true that even if two people are given equal opportunity and equal conditioning, they may turn out to be two very different people, but I had not fathomed that they would also develop two drastically different social codes.
It’s okay to have an ambitious daughter, then why not a daughter in law? If you raised your son and daughter as equals, how did the guy still turn into an egoist male chauvinist? Why should the man always do all the talking? Cant a woman do it, if she is more apt for the same? Why should she always be the wife? Cant you be a husband too? Why should the woman uphold the man’s belief of superiority, let him live in his world of dreams as he shatters through hers? Why should an independent woman suddenly guise herself as a dependent to suit the man? Why do even the darkest of men want the fairest of women? Why is it okay for a man to have been dating women but not vice versa? Why is it always that you’ll delve into the woman's character and not into the man’s ?
I often here answers like “that’s how our society is”. But society is not some bigger, exclusive entity, it is many small entities like us put together. Change begins at home. We have to change first, ourselves, our thoughts. There are probably more dogs than bitches out there, we just don’t make dog sound as bad as bitch. Independent women are not home-breakers. But it would be wrong to expect someone to live in subjugation. A man who helps his wife around the house, is not a hen-pecked husband, but may be he’s a tad bit more understanding and less egoist than you are.
While women are empowered, men need to be tempered to handle the power. Just as women are made aware that they are equals, men too, should be made aware that they are equals.
Think and Share (not necessarily the blog (;)), but the thoughts, even if they may sound feminist at places)
What do you want to be? We hear this question over and over. Then we are bombarded with the big word “career”, and we knock doors in search of career guidance.After all this, when we have graduated and settled with our job we are said to have begun our career, or laid the foundation stone for the rest of our life (in most cases, besides those who plunge back into academics for further studies.)
So you have this overall upbringing, and now you are well settled with a decent job. Then the big search begins, and there is an overall hullabaloo. Guy over guy rejects you. Sometimes the reason is you are too brilliant, sometimes too smart, a little too outspoken, sometimes a “good job”, may be you are too career-oriented, a big-city girl, too independent. All the things that you once thought were your positives are the very reasons why you are rejected. And when you ask why are they negatives, you get some weird logics, all that often end up with “it’s in our genes”.
What’s wrong if i am brilliant, smart?
-- well it may hurt my ego some day. I cant have my wife outwitting or outsmarting me.
What if I am outspoken?
-- In our society, men better do most of the talking, I don’t want to appear as a henpecked husband.
Isn’t it possible that may be you are an introvert and I am an extrovert?
-- (pause...) people wont take it that way.
I have a decent job out here. Well I earn XYZ per month. I may even be up for a promotion next month.
-- I think we could manage fine in my salary. You would then be able to take good care of the home (and me). I wouldn’t want to carry salads in my lunchbox. Will you quit this job after we get married?
Will You? I have a package that earns better than you, I have considerable savings,we could rent up a house here. I could work up something in my company so you could join us. Are you willing to quit your job?
-- It would hurt my ego to have a wife that earns more than me. I would develop an inferiority complex. Also it wouldn’t appear too good, me shifting for you. You sound too career-oriented, ambitious.
Is that a bad thing? -
-- Blank
Do you drink?
-- Yes occasionally. Do you?
Yes occasionally. I love partying too.
--It was nice meeting you.
______
I believed marriage was where two people shared their lives, not where one drags the other into his own. But in a society that lives on dual standards, this is the last thing to hope for. Is it right to abandon your dreams all of a sudden? Is it right to force someone to abandon his/her dreams, ambitions? You cant raise someone by one values and then suddenly force him/her to accept another set. Another set that often stands upfront against everything that you believed. It is true that even if two people are given equal opportunity and equal conditioning, they may turn out to be two very different people, but I had not fathomed that they would also develop two drastically different social codes.
It’s okay to have an ambitious daughter, then why not a daughter in law? If you raised your son and daughter as equals, how did the guy still turn into an egoist male chauvinist? Why should the man always do all the talking? Cant a woman do it, if she is more apt for the same? Why should she always be the wife? Cant you be a husband too? Why should the woman uphold the man’s belief of superiority, let him live in his world of dreams as he shatters through hers? Why should an independent woman suddenly guise herself as a dependent to suit the man? Why do even the darkest of men want the fairest of women? Why is it okay for a man to have been dating women but not vice versa? Why is it always that you’ll delve into the woman's character and not into the man’s ?
I often here answers like “that’s how our society is”. But society is not some bigger, exclusive entity, it is many small entities like us put together. Change begins at home. We have to change first, ourselves, our thoughts. There are probably more dogs than bitches out there, we just don’t make dog sound as bad as bitch. Independent women are not home-breakers. But it would be wrong to expect someone to live in subjugation. A man who helps his wife around the house, is not a hen-pecked husband, but may be he’s a tad bit more understanding and less egoist than you are.
While women are empowered, men need to be tempered to handle the power. Just as women are made aware that they are equals, men too, should be made aware that they are equals.
Think and Share (not necessarily the blog (;)), but the thoughts, even if they may sound feminist at places)
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