February 18, 2009

Super-wives

The term "housewife" is pretty antediluvian in this 21st century. It was coined ages ago to indicate the female head of the household who basically did just that - managed the household. As essential as this maybe, somewhere along the line, the term sort of transcended into a mildly derogatory one.

Oh, Rakesh's wife doesn't go to work. She's just a housewife. This is one of the examples of it's usage in this connotation. As if it were that easy! Surely, anyone should know that you don't have "go to" work to have work to do. And so the term evolved into the less-offending homemaker. This is an American term which has been adopted in the rest of the world to describe the genre of women who stay at home and manage the household. Who ever thought it was easy to manage a household especially when it involves children is probably nuts. That's a full-time job in itself. The same term when applied to an equivalent man would be a stay-at-home dad and not a househusband. Funny.

These days however, is the age of the superwives. Though no one calls us that. We "go to work" and we do work at home. We have office hours too, but we are also adept at cooking, cleaning, washing, laundry, tidying, managing accounts, shopping for household things, and a multitude of other things. Who knows... maybe some day this term will catch up, something along the lines of Soccer-mom or super-mom

7 comments:

Sachin said...

Oh that's very good. For us husbands, nothing can change our humble, helpless genre, be it Super, house, working, salaried, self-employed and the list can never end. Everything means, we just need to slog day (at work) and night (at home - oh i know u will say, what work do u guys have, but to keep wives happy, in good mood is itself the most difficult work) and bring in money so that the wife can shop whenever she can. Poor us!!!!

Jaya said...

Sachin -> Seriously, what work? And the reason you need to keep the wives happy is coz of all the work she does in and out of office. So stop fretting and pay your dues. :D As for shopping, women these days earn enough to buy what they want from THEIR own salaries. So, if you men slog at work, so do we... add to that all the household work and there's no comparison. :P

Gandalf said...

I like the word "antediluvian". And yes, agree with you. Though I'd never agree with you that we men had it easier out in public. Insightful post.

Ramya Venkat said...

Goood post Jaya!! n very true... without doin much there r men taking all the credit n women like us are being very modest!! ;)

Jaya said...

Gandalf -> Seems like typical male syndrome to me. Glad that you agree in secret though. Take care your girlfriend doesn't know abt that though. Lol.

Ramya -> Thanks n very true :P

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... This is truly the age of the women. I am proud to be one of your mentioned women here. Ode to us girls Jaya!

Anonymous said...

now a days wives are as efficient as their husbands.they should play the lead role in managing the household and husbands must support in their effort to manage home.

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