By Rachaita Hore
When I was born in the 90s, the expectations from a woman in the house were clear and numbered right from birth. You went to school, obeyed your elders unquestioningly, dressed respectively, did not fool around with boys, scored good grades, learnt to assist your mother in the kitchen, went to college before finally settling down to your marital household by age twenty-five. And that was it. From then on, her attention was to be focused on providing a good home for her husband and child. If she was lucky and wedded into an educated liberal middle-class family, she was allowed to take up a teaching position at a neighboring school. Any less and she was made the subject of constant reproach and counsel.
Western attire was becoming increasingly acceptable under Bollywood patronage. But women were still quite the commodities in pretty clothes in the movies. The television was yet to see its first K-serial. Only vamps and women with loose morals smoke and drank. They were expected to save their virginity for their wedded husbands. Divorced women were almost always frowned upon. Marital rape was not considered a violation of a persons consent. Women had no say in the workplace. Daughters, wives, sisters and mothers in India had to be content being just that.
Cut to 2014, twenty years later the scenario has undergone a sea-change. The circumstances now favor the women and the Indian woman has emerged onto the forefront of the society. Once out of her shell, now the world is for her taking. Indra Nooyi is one of the worlds most successful entrepreneurs. Deepika Padukone is Bollywoods highest paid actor. The first quarter of the year is not over yet and more than 4 women-centric film releases have made big money in the theatres. Colleges and universities abound with meritorious female scholars. Women work neck to neck with their male colleagues in corporates. Smoking and drinking are considered gender-neutral vices. It is acceptable for women to have had boyfriends in the same way that it is considered normal for men to have affairs. She can now establish her career before her parents start nagging her to settle down.
All this is well but there are still unwritten rules that a woman of today is expected to not overstep. She may work but her work uniform is dictated to her. She may debate with men and challenge entrenched gender roles but she has to preserve her femininity and take due care of her appearance. Sure, she can continue with her job after marriage but not on a compromise of her maternal duties. She has the freedom to be out at all hours of the day. She also expresses compliant understanding that on her rests her familys honor. The Young Indian Woman today is more liberated than the Young Indian Woman of a decade ago.
Yet, this liberation is not of a complete kind. A falling patriarch reluctantly concedes it in parts. The woman with her newly re-awakened sexuality now commodifies her own body in media to assert her identity. This mistaken reading of female empowerment goes far in depicting how deeply invaded a woman has been by the malestream mindset. The hijab is another matter of much discontent. Majority of the modern population look down upon the headscarf as a symbol of feminine oppression. Curiously, many among the wearers of the hijab are against its discarsion. They think of it as a form of historical continuity. What to the outsiders stand for suppression; to them signifies liberation, say as opposed to a short dress. The liberation stands in the power of choice. Thankfully, the Young Indian Woman is more empowered by the State here. Now all that is desired is a more inclusive and integrated change in popular mindset in her favor. The struggle towards equality has only just begun.
She is a second-year English Hons student at Lady Brabourne College, Calcutta University. She is a wannabe-writer/journalist and has been authoring articles on and off for The Times of India since her first-year. She has also had her fictional pieces featured in various national magazines, online and offline, notably Kindle Magazine and Youthopia. Feminist, Hipster, Oddball are all labels that have been used at some time or the other to describe her. To start a dialogue, drop her a mail at rachaita.h@gmail.com.