There was this intriguing article by Chetan
Bhagat some months ago, titled "Home truths on career wives". Here is the link for
this article:
An irate response by a housewife has gone
viral as well. Here is the link for the same:
Here is my reply to the responder, Richa
Jha:
Dear Ms. Jha,
I read with great curiosity, your response
to CB's article about Home Truths on Career Wives. While I admire your
articulate writing skills, I am not so impressed with the content.
Besides the obvious point that you are
over-reacting to the article, what is unconvincing is the 10
"rebuttals" that you have come up with. Closer examination of each of
these 10 points reveal them to be mostly a mix of emotional rants and needless
feminism.
(1) "I
am a housewife by choice." - Irrelevant to the point, there was no
mention by CB on whether women become housewives by choice or by circumstance.
(2) "Career
Discussions…" - A woman who has an experience of working in the
corporate world or pursuing a career, WILL ALWAYS be a better companion to have
a career discussion with. Having a career discussion with a woman of no
corporate/career experience, is akin to having a discussion with your parents -
there may be pearls of worldly wisdom, but they may not always be grounded in
the current realities of corporate life.
(3) "Petty
office politics is not something we should waste our evenings and weekends
on." - Typical statement from a housewife. It merely proves my point
above, without adding any weight to your argument. A working woman understands
the pressures of corporate life, and hence will be more empathetic of her
husband's professional responsibilities. In the absence of such a partner,
office politics is mostly discussed only at the office water-cooler, cafeteria
or at the smoking zone, with colleagues whose advice is usually clouded by their own vested interests in the organization.
(4) "Housewives with skills that help them
earn while still being at home.." - The conventional usage of the term housewife refers to a woman who is not directly involved in any
kind of income-generating activity. Going by your definition, Agatha Christie
or JK Rowling should be called housewives who earn additional money by writing!
(5) Irrelevant
remark. There is no debate on whether housewives are happy or unhappy with
their lives. On the other hand, the extra satisfaction and confidence of being
financially independent is true for anyone – male or female.
(6)
"Knowledge and information..." - I would
really exhort you to go take a survey of the average Indian housewife and test
her knowledge of "Bach and Bahrain, Benin bronze work and bunions,
Berettas and bhajis or Buchwald and Burke" and then compare it with a
career woman and see who fares better. This is nothing more than a arrogant
self-laudatory remark, which shows that you have no idea about the concept of a
sample size. We all understand that
people (both men and women) fall at different points on the spectrum
between utter ignorance and total awareness. Exceptional people like you may
exist, but they account for less than a miniscule fraction of the entire
population.
(7) You've merely rephrased point 4. Hence,
refer my point 4 for the counter-argument. Again you seem to be unclear on the
conventional usage of the term housewife.
(8)
"I prefer travelling alone, whether backpacking abroad or exploring the
lanes of non-touristy India. I plan most of them myself.." -
Considering that you are a married woman with two kids, I sincerely hope that
this is a lie, because if it is true, it merely raises concerns on the level of
bonding and togtherness in your family more than anything else. I pity the
woman (or man, for that matter) who makes most of her/his recreational trips
without her/his spouse or kids.
(9)
"Dependent mollycoddled kids..." : Nice to know that your kids
have learnt to be self-reliant and disciplined - It's quite evident from your
article that you are a hard taskmaster in real life. I will be neutral on this
one - while on one hand, a child who gets less attention from his parents goes
on to become mentally stronger and self-reliant (that's one of the reasons why
parents put kids in a boarding school), he/she also runs the risk of falling
into and getting influenced by bad company, if left unsupervised.
(10) Now you gotta admit, you wrote this
one just to reach the figure of 10 :)
While I disagree with CB's idea of
polarising women as either career women or phulka-making
brides, it's absurd to draw unreasonable inferences from an article whose
intent seems to be an entirely different one from what you construe it to be.
I'm not particularly a fan of CB's writings, but I don't see that as a reason
to get drawn into a futile debate which sidesteps the primary point put forward
in the article and digresses to an unrelated train of thought.
By the way, the article by CB which went
viral, was forwarded mainly by women.
