By Recently, I had met a high-ranking military officer. During the long conversation we had, he casually mentioned that his wife has a Bachelors in Technology (B.Tech) degree but she never worked. Initially after their marriage she had thought of taking up a job but after eventually after starting a family she finally decided not to work as she felt she could not cope.
This part of the conversation made me travel a few years earlier to my days at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB). IITs in general, tend to have large population of male students and smaller number of female students, though this trending is changing and evolving now.
In my final semester, I remember discussions about the future and career from all corners- be it the corridors (popularly called as infinity corridor at IITB), the mess, the classrooms- everywhere I could hear chit-chat about the future, as if it were an end in itself, but little were we to know that time that the question of future exists till the existence of life itself. I could see many students preparing for the Job Placement season – either mentally or materially (by getting their formal wear like suits ready). Some students were planning to proceed abroad for pursuing higher education and some were just astray. In the female hostel, I knew there were few who had had a tough journey coming from backgrounds with strict family and societal pressures and their parents were planning to marry them off.
During this season, I happened to have a chat with a fellow student who was happy to share the news that she was accepted by one prestigious university in USA. I congratulated her and the conversation shifted to other students in her stream- what were they upto and the ultimate question of the future! She mentioned that one of her classmates was going to get married as she was not able to secure a job in the Placement season. She sadly expressed her grief and expressed how unfortunate her circumstance was mildly criticizing her parents.
Today, I share my thoughts on this matter here:
I feel like this is a golden era for the young females in the Indian society ( at least in urban and semi-urban areas) because this is a transition phase – while higher education is being encouraged so that women can also bag fat pay-checks, at the same time despite all the higher education, if she decides to be a home-maker and a nurturer, that idea too is welcomed in the name of the past trends.
Did this era ever exist for men?
Did men ever have the privilege of choice?
Yes, physiologically and biologically there are differences, but there are many countries where the concept of females not working was never there, perhaps even certain parts of the Indian society.
Perhaps this is the last generation of young women, who have got the ‘choice’.
We often mistake ‘freedom’ in the context of women as being able to do whatever men do – having the freedom to go out and work is one such example. The redemption of freedom is earmarked and drenched in this thought. No. That compulsion cannot be called as freedom. True freedom is when the privilege of choice exists – the emotional and mental assurance that you will be taken care of – with whose money is a secondary question. Men have been unlucky in this sense – they never did have this choice. Even the son who is most loved in the family is looked down upon when he doesn’t work.
So, my answer to my friend at IITB that it is pitiable that the young female student is getting married – what is pitiable is our thought that the only option that marks her liberation would be for her to secure a job. It is an expression of freedom that she will be looked after despite her job.
To the high-ranking military officer’s wife, the choice never existed – she never had the mental or emotional assurance that her little ones would be looked after. She dropped her choice as she had no other option.
For myself and for other young women truly aiming for freedom while we can – I wish that the ‘CHOICE’ always remains for us.
