If women at your home have taken care of their responsibilities then that is a sign of their unequal treatment. And there are brands that create campaigns around that.

Survey major A C Nielson has recently conducted a survey for washing powder brand Ariel that shows some startling statistics about how women are treated unequally at home (this is how it is projected by Ariel).

Ariel campaign brings the survey findings for us. There are six in all –

More than 2/3 rd (> 67%) of Indian women feel, there exists inequality at home, between men and women. 76% of Indian men feel laundry is a woman’s job 85% of working Indian women feel they have two jobs, one at work and another at home 73% married Indian women feel, a man prioritizes relaxing over helping with household chores More than 2/3rd (> 67%) Indian men prefer to watch TV than to do their laundry 77% of Indian men depend on Indian women for doing the laundry

(Don’t get confused with the percentages, this is only based on the sample A C Nielson has taken and I do not know about any authenticity. But in this article, I will consider them to be a true finding by a genuine survey).

Now let’s take each survey finding one at a time and try to understand the truth behind the finding.

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More than 2/3 rd (> 67%) of Indian women feel, there exists inequality at home, between men and women

So the point is >67% Indian women feel Indian men do not contribute to household chores equally. But I wonder why should Indian men equally contribute to household chores at all? Don’t they have the responsibility of going out, earning and acting as provider and protector of the family? Many men in India have to work for sixteen hours a day to make a good earning for the family so that others at home live in peace. Isn’t it asking too much from a man? So even if a man does not contribute to any household work can we really blame him? Then what are women for? What is their contribution in a family? They are not supposed to be the bread earner for the family, they are not legally or otherwise bound to be provider and protector as the responsibility lies with men. When they are already doing their bit, how the expectation of Indian men helping in household chores arise at all? Isn’t it funny or asking too much from a man?

Rather I wonder when in most of our households we have maids working or electrical gadgets doing most of the household work than how the question of women feeling inequality arises. Who pays for all these gadgets to do the household work? Who pays for the maid? Do women pay or men? If men pay for these amenities then why should they again do work at home just to make women feel comfortable or equal?

I feel this survey question result should have been the reverse. Yes, there is inequality exists in Indian homes, because, Indian women are not made accountable and responsible for all household work yet. Simply because some women take up the responsibility of household work, it doesn’t become their responsibility and that does not mean every woman is duty-bound to do the household chores. We have many examples in our society where women do not do any household chores and expect their husbands to do everything while they enjoy their money. Such women can’t be punished in any manner. In fact, asking women to do household work can be considered as domestic violence and make the husband lose his own house. In fact, an overwhelming majority of men should have felt that there is no equality at home because no matter how women behave, the husband loses his own hard-earned house to his wife (and now his ancestral property under IRBM).

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76% of Indian men feel laundry is a woman’s job

So? Similarly, almost 100% Indian men and women too (barring a few men like MGTOWs) feel being provider and protector is a man’s job. I am not sure how will this feeling make any difference? Do Indian women wash clothes by their hand nowadays? Most of the households have washing machines and women use the machine to wash clothes. So what’s the big deal? It is actually the machine that does the laundry work and not women, not the modern urban women at least. Moreover, all of us need to have some job right? We are not here for free lunch. Even our constitution talks about the duties of citizens apart from their rights. Did Ariel researchers forget that? What is the responsibility of women in their families then, someone please clarify.

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85% of working Indian women feel they have two jobs, one at work and another at home

Oh, that is a BIG number. But how many of them really DO the laundry job? Or they only outsource the work to a maid or a machine? Why are cooks and maids in so high demand nowadays and why maids occupy most of the discussions of married women?

The argument can be that these working women coordinate maid’s job, they oversee what these maids are doing so the household runs smoothly. Well, I will argue that in many households even men do that and we still don’t know the percentage of men doing that.

Coming to women’s feeling of having two jobs, one being in the workplace. Just check the average hours spent by women in workplaces and you will know who really need to slog for hours to be the breadwinner for the family. It is undoubtedly the men who do most of the work at workplaces and women under different pretexts are given easy/flexible working hours, work from home, more leaves etc to manage their home and workplace. Also if we see the percentage of women taking part in workforce vis-a-vis percentage of men, we will know this so-called 85% woman is actually a minuscule number.

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73% married Indian women feel, a man prioritizes relaxing over helping with household chores

So what the man is supposed to do after 8-16 long and stressful hours of work. Do we expect them to work even at home? Those who feel this is man’s privilege actually forget the hard work these men put in to get the home running. They are beaten up, hated, face cutthroat competition, boss’ abuses, colleague’s backstabbing and society’s red-eye every time to earn a respectable living for the whole family. Women enjoy the fruits of men’s sacrifice in the outside world by living in a peaceful homely atmosphere, in a non-competitive environment where there is no tension of quality check of the household work, where there is no tension of competition, where there are a lot of rights earned simply because of marriage and where there is no tension of losing one’s job, are women at all in disadvantage for doing household chores? This shows us that such surveys are intentionally done to enslave men in a kind of bondage where there is no responsibility defined for women and only the men are burdened with more and more expectations every day.

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More than 2/3rd (> 67%) Indian men prefer to watch TV than to do their laundry

Again, I don’t know the truth and I don’t care about it. Even if men are watching TV than doing their laundry that is because he needs relaxations after a hard days work. He should not be expected to do everything at home. A family has shared responsibility and if men are expected to earn and be providers, women are expected to own up the caregiver role. If she fails it is her failure and not that men. Also when the man provides for the expenses of the maid, washing machine, laundry detergent to enable women, then it is women’s responsibility to do these jobs. If any woman feels unequal because of doing some work at household, they should not get married in the first place. Also, these confusions occur because Indian women today do NOT have any responsibility defined. These needed to be defined before anything else.

Question is what happens when a woman works in the corporate world (yes, I am talking about that 19% or so urban Indian women who work in the corporate sector) and is still forced to do household chores. In my opinion, in these cases, a man should share the work. But her earning does not ensure her contribution to the family. I know many women who earn but never contribute to her own family. Asking such women to contribute to the family may attract dowry or domestic violence complaint. This once again proves how much hollow and one-sided such survey findings are.

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77% of Indian men depend on Indian women for doing the laundry

Again a very poor finding. This happens because 100% of Indian women depend on men for their maintenance within marriage and even outside. Did you say that not every woman seek maintenance? Sorry, I forgot that happens too. But when we compare the percentages of men and women seeking alimony on divorce we know this is almost 100%, well ALMOST, but that is definitely more than 77%.

I feel rather than doing such time-wasting surveys, brands like Ariel should better do a survey on their own product and improvement of its quality. Every one of us has some responsibility to own up. Even when a woman is our President or Prime Minister she is expected to SERVE the nation and not enjoy a free meal. Such surveys and publishing and discussing these results will only increase gender inequality and create unnecessary hatred based on gender. I am surprised that brands are paying money for that. This is nothing but propaganda to break our families and implant a sense of greater inequality in the minds of women so that they break away their families. Such surveys in a way will create more disturbances in India and it will never empower anyone.

What our families do in their homes is better left to them. Brands unnecessarily trying to cash on some opportunity for earning some quick bucks is shameful. Bloggers writing about such campaigns showing that women are discriminated against in their own families will only lead to breaking up families of their own and probably their own children. Because we all need to remember that –

RIGHTS ALWAYS COMES WITH RESPONSIBILITIES

To Indian women

If you feel taking household responsibilities is oppression, if you think this as inequality then please do not get married ever. Be single and do ALL your work yourself, you will know what real hardship and oppression are.

To the brands doing such surveys

Don’t expose yourself to the wrath of peace-loving Indian people and create such hatred. If you don’t own up any responsibility, then don’t but you can not provoke others to do the same for your benefit.

To my readers

This is a part of a bloggers campaign where male bloggers are not eligible to take part. By writing a blogpost in a negative way and by not supporting the brand’s campaign I would have lost the opportunity of earning Rs. 1000 anyway. This post is to show how gender bias is created in our society through blogging campaigns and I am very happy writing this because I have probably created 1000 more sparks for true gender equality and NOT fake business motivated a sense of equality.

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* Disclaimer – Images are not mine. These are all taken from Ariel campaign page. All image source

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