Career or home, in India super women are still losers

Loyola is a single mother. She’s attractive, independent, and successful in her career. She has everything going for her until she meets Neil. Suddenly, the confident Loyola feels there was something missing in her life--a man, a partner, a father figure for her little girl. Neil came with a bagful of promises—of completing her family and giving her child a father, of enabling her to fulfil her dreams that she had brushed aside so she could attend to the more important things. Loyola had made peace with herself and hadn’t ever thought about these things, not until now.

Priyanka has been married six years now. She had met Vikram in her first job. Their relationship started with friendship. Priyanka is four feet something, but that doesn’t take anything away from her alluring personality. She could put anyone to shame with her intelligence and her wit. In her family, she was the youngest—her father’s princess. Today, like all other women, she is doing her best to balance work and life, and home.

Anjali, a mother of two charming teenage boys, is a successful professional. She and Varun had an arranged marriage. She’s struggling to juggle her career, her family, her sons and her ailing parents. She looks happy, but she does this without much help, not even when she has chikangunya.

In the past few months, when I looked at my own life, and the lives of the women around me, the bitter truth hit me like a train that came out of nowhere. We can rant all we want about how women are independent and have the right to make their own choices, have a career, stay out at night, pursue their interests, and travel solo. Loyola, Priyanka and Anjali are powerful women, successful in their careers. So, they made their career choices, and they stay out and work late nights. They bring home the moolah that runs the household and ensures a comfortable lifestyle. Now, that should make them happy, shouldn’t it?

The men in their lives were drawn to their drive, beauty, strength and ambition. But today, it is these very qualities that go against these women. It isn’t that men do not like strong women, they just can’t deal with them. Most successful women struggle to make a mark at home. They’re the only adult in the relationship. Neil, Vikram and Varun continue to visit their friends and party late nights. They spend hours on social media, enjoying the attention there. They don’t deal with strange expressions when their children fall ill and they need to take the day off. They don’t wake up at 5 a.m. to pack tiffin for the children and get them ready for school. They don’t clean up after dinner and aren’t the last ones to go to bed.

Although women have taken on the role of the breadwinner, they fight ego battles with their partners at home. Rest, vacation and ‘my time’ seem like foreign terms. The promises seem fake, the hopes seem false and the dreams that had been on hold are eventually shattered. She will prod him once, ask for help twice, and nag him a number of times before she eventually gives up. Frustration starts to creep in. By now, the promises are nowhere in sight.

Neil keeps working on his music, he forgets all about helping Loyola to make time for herself so they could both work together. She feels anger and pain for being stupid to believe that a single mother can fulfil her dreams. Priyanka is cooking and cleaning the house at the end of the day, and has absolutely no clue where Vikram is. He comes home late in the night at least four days in a week after drinking with his friends. They hardly ever go out. He mostly vacations with his school friends. Anjali is struggling with her son’s behavioural problems. He won’t listen to her. She has no authority. But she continues to function, quietly. Varun lives in denial. Everything is perfect for him.

These women are called superwomen. That should be enough to boost their ego and give them confidence, shouldn’t it. Sometimes it does, but calling someone a superwoman isn’t the same as extending a helping hand. I don’t want to be a superwoman if I don’t have a superman to do the things I do; to have my back when I can’t.

This is not a battle of the sexes. This is not a fight for equal rights. This is about the choices a woman is left with. She’s left with no choice in her choices. She must either choose her career, or choose home. And more often than not, she chooses to balance both, alone. It drains her physically, and then mentally. When all cries for help fail, it drains her emotionally.

There is no recognition of how much stress a woman takes. There is no recognition of how much she seethes within and hurts. There is no recognition of their frustration and when it begins to change to resentment, and the cheerful, charming woman turns bitter. Once that happens, she stands alone to fight her greatest fear and her biggest demon…herself.

Today, Loyola, Priyanka and Anjali aren’t the women I knew. They’re cold. They constantly suffer from neck pain. ‘It’s been there for a while now,’ they say. ‘No one notices. It doesn’t matter anymore.’ They don’t smile anymore. And when they laugh, it sounds sardonic, as if they were mocking their own situation. ‘I’ve stopped complaining. I gave up nagging a long time ago. He won’t get it. He used to when we were dating. Now, I’m a permanent fixture in the house, so why would he bother,’ said Priyanka.

The failure they believe is theirs to own. It’s a failure to ‘make’ the men feel where they’re coming from. It’s a failure to recognise their own qualities and strengths anymore. ‘Who am I?’ Loyola texted a friend. ‘What are my accomplishments?’ The questions are frightening. The struggle within is worse when there’s no outlet. These women continue to function, like machines. The battle for equal rights continues.

For the Loyolas, the Priyankas and the Anjalis, the more things change, the more they seem the same.