Get married at an early age. Life is all about being a wife
Learn all the household chores. It's a scale to measure our superiority.
Learn to cook. A way to men's heart is through his stomach. That's the goal ladies.
Get a degree for higher comparability. You know, if you want to be a housewife in the urban areas.
Learn useful hobbies like knitting or sewing because how can painting or dancing be useful to anyone else?
Do not be too fat or too thin. "Hourglass" is the word.
Get a good complexion. The fairer, the better. We have to replace tubelights in the hour of need.
Sacrifice for parents, husband and then kids later. We are very privileged, anyway.
Give up your last name, your home, your parents and your whole identity.
Get acid, fire or beating proof. Our life is full of adventures.
In case of poverty, give up the chance to be educated. Brother can read better.
Mentally prepare yourself to be a "house-wife"
If you are allowed to work, mentally prepare yourself to be a working wife + a housewife. We are officially a Ninja.
Learn this equation. Motherhood = Primary caretaker. Now repeat it 10 times.
Give up your career if you want kids. Master's in Motherhood is what you need and Wife Executive is a top white collared job. Yes, it is.
Be ready to hear opinions of people if in case you really WANT to be a housewife and a mother, because there is that kind too.
No bold professions.
No profession with a higher level of physical work. We don't want to damage our stilettos.
Get this - Pink is our color. From womb to tomb. "Hail Pink" is our motto.
Do not ask for motor trucks or toy guns. Barbies. WE WANT BARBIES.
Stay alert. Always. Even when you are asleep. Who doesn't like that.
Don't opt for public transport when it's crowded. Open roads are better for getting groped.
Don't opt for public transport when they are empty. You have to master the ability of identifying just the right amount of crowd.
Wear fully covered clothes. You might expose a virtue with that
Do not apply heavy make-up. Makes you look inviting. Red lipstick = whore lipstick. You don't want that. Naa eh.
Learn self defense. Beatrix Kiddo kind.
Not to trust anyone. No one. Because everyone loves you.
Carry pepper spray. The latest in the women's deodorant section.
Cell phone should be fully charged. You never know when you are alone at night, in the middle of nowhere and you feel the need to order a pizza..
No roaming around after it's dark. Peter Pan might come, grab you by hand and take you to Neverland.
No male friends. Are you a slut? No, right?
No drinking. Relaxing in a bar with a bunch of friends is too mainstream.
No parties or disco. Music make us waaayield!
No Chow mein. No explanation.
Call everyone your 'brother'. That one word is an instant demon modifier.
Listen to and value opinions of bigots even if you don't know them. We flourish because of their blessings.
Get objectified. We are Shapeshifters. We can be Tandoori Murghi or a doll or a beer bottle anytime we want.
Be happy. There is very high chance you don't get to check off this list. You lived for only two months in a belly. You lucky little devil.
Don't over-think. It is always our fault. We are unstoppable.
Be everything, but you.
START TICKING, LADIES
OMG ! That's quite a list, Dhara ! An exhaustive (exhausting also ) list of female stereotypes :) I found myself nodding at every single thing.
ReplyDeleteI can hear the silent sarcasm screaming out of this. Need I tell you ??
Nah :)
DeleteWe get it because we all travel in the same boat, even if our stories are different.
I am from that category who is a MONSTER mother who continued to work after baby ! Poor baby needs mother when he is sleeping all day, u know?
ReplyDeleteYou have covered all possible points on that list ! And you have helped many women vent their frustration because you wrote for everyone ! Kudos to u !
This means a lot to me. I somewhere knew I was speaking on behalf of a lot of women.
DeleteI know a lot of women go through these circumstances and that is what made me angry. I just had to let it out.
Your baby will love you no matter what. You will be an excellent mother no matter what. Your choice in career does not define your motherhood.
What a wonderful list! Cracked me up, but each and every point rings true, you know! Loved it, Dhara :)
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteIf only India starts considering her women as human.
ReplyDeleteTimes WILL Change. :)
DeleteWoah. Some list that was. Things are really bad for women in many parts of the world even today. And India is somewhere at the top of that list.
ReplyDeleteAlas, sometimes women themselves are responsible for ill-treating others of their own kind. If there was more support from within their own quarters, maybe things would've been slightly better today.
Do drop by my blog. Attempted a new genre - film parody.
Cheers
CRD
My next post, which is already drafted is "Women's role in abuse against women".
DeleteThank you :)
wow!applause
ReplyDeleteYou are just awesome :D
Last point ate all points
I connect a lot with last one!
:)
DeleteNow THAT was some list !
ReplyDeleteVery well written Dhara. Loved the sarcasm in it. :)
Thank you Anisha.
DeleteIsn't it sad that even in a world when women are leaders and leading major corps, they are still rated and appraised on how well they dress, how good they look or how they cook up a meal!! And even more sad is it's not just in the minds of male population but female too. Why should any woman be a supermom or superwoman? Yeah frustrates me too when any of this obligation is forced on me. If I want to dress well, I will out of common sense, not because some imposing ridiculous minds.
ReplyDeleteWell written.
I know. It's frustrating. Women are no way behind men. They are equally responsible for pulling a fellow women down.
DeleteAlso, being a supermom is too much overrated.
Thank you.
hahahaha i would die laughing sick sick sick indians
ReplyDeleteI don't believe everyone is sick. For example, I have not been through most of these points. There might be many more exceptions like me. Plus, most of these points are because of our long going, deep-rooted culture.
Deleteshared it on FB n deBATE IS ON :P :d
ReplyDeleteOhh.. I want to see that debate!!!!
DeleteCrazy shit :\
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41WNF6yOP1A
I got welled up after listening to the lyrics. It's so powerful and pushes you to do some brain-storming. I have never heard this song before. Thank you for sharing. I loved it A LOT!
DeleteYou are welcome!
DeleteHow on earth did I miss this? Awesome piece.
ReplyDeleteI loved the pizza one. Not only that, every.single.checkbox.
You are awesome, you know that, right ?
P.S. I apologize for commenting so late. And no posting here these days. I see a lot of Facebook posts. But nevertheless keep doing that. At least you are expressing somewhere. I am not doing either. -_-
I am so so so sorry for replying this late. I know I am awesome because I read super awesome people like you.
DeleteYes, Facebook page has made me lazy, but I will try to get back to the blog as fast as I can. I have to hop on your blog too, to check what's going on. Haven't been anywhere lately.
Thank you :)
First of all, no apologies necessary, especially among friends and umm bloggers as well.
DeleteHaha. Touché. But still you are awesome nevertheless.
Its okay. No hurry. At your convenience only.
Take care. :)
Hehe.. Thank you again. Your comments always makes me smile. :)
DeleteApplause for most of the points you've written. You've covered pretty much every point with which women are abused or put down in India. And it's great that you and many others like you write such posts. It helps in at least 2 ways - it helps you (and others) give vent to their frustrations, and secondly, it raises awareness. While the first point is well and true (as you can also see from the other comments), the second is not always true. The issue with this post is one I have with pretty much every such post I see on the internet -- that those who are going to read these posts already know how to treat a lady, how not to discriminate and how to behave. These posts don't reach the crowd that really needs to be educated.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I know it may not have been your intention to be a crusader - perhaps you wrote this blog post out of frustration, and I'm not putting it down. I'm just reflecting on my thoughts.
Cheers.
Thank you "Anonymous" for your well-thought input. I agree with you that majority of the people who will be reading this knows how to treat a lady, but I not everyone. We always believe that educated, literate people are always well-behaved, liberal, broad-minded people, however that is not always true. I have come across a lot of instances where those kind have demeaning characters and thought process.
DeleteYou are right too. More than all that, this blog is a medium to vent all my anger and frustration towards anything/everything that bothers me as a human. I have also written an open letter to a rapist and I am am sure no rapist is every going to read that, but.....
Anyway, thank you again :)
Thank you for a considerate response. I was afraid my post might be misconceived as a disagreement with your post or something.
DeletePS: Yes, I have been checking this post every couple of days for your response. :)
Cheers.
Not at all. Your comment was very genuine and constructive and I am always open to such kind of comments.
DeleteThank you for being here. You can follow the blog through your email or Facebook, so that you don't have to check every now and then.
A great satiric article, I agree with mr. Anonymous, loved the public transport point, well expressed.
ReplyDeleteHaving read this I thought it was extremely enlightening. I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this informative article together
ReplyDeletehttp://shopvop.in/cotton-sarees-online.html