Are we ready for gender role reversal?
So often I come across a lot of articles about women empowerment, patriarchy, feminism, men vs women, etc, etc. What I am going to talk about today may not convince many feminists out there. Women’s oppression is not a new topic and had been practised for ages. While 21st-century women know to walk shoulder to shoulder with men, we often fall into trap of our social conditioning. We have decided to take up men-dominated tasks and to be honest, we have often outperformed there but what still is unfathomable to me is that are we really ready for this role reversal?
Let’s not go far and question the girls who are planning to get married in a few years. How many of you aren’t looking for a partner financially better than you? Is the well-settled career of the boy not on your checklist? How many of you are ready to settle with a partner with low career aspirations and is eventually okay to perform a role of a babysitter? So there is a possibility that we blame society and parents for our such choices and which is absolutely correct to some extent. But what we have to really ask ourselves is whether we are being fair enough when we talk about role reversals. If women can decide to be a homemaker, men certainly can too. If there can be stay-at-home mothers, stay-at-home fathers should be accepted too. We must weigh all opinions, all choices and all perspectives on the same balance. Sometimes, while we are being feminists we forget that feminism is the entire concept based on equality. Feminism was never women getting more rights over men.
Role reversals are a boon to women and at the same time bane to men. Women have taken up tasks to be the breadwinners while if men decide to stay at home they are given nasty looks. Men have been pressurized of getting a good job and securing a luxurious lifestyle. I can’t ever deny the fact that women have come a long way even to be heard but we need to contemplate well that we can’t jump into the role reversal thought just because it is trendy. We, the women know well what it feels to be denied basic equal rights so we must prevent it well for our male counterparts. We must stop being callous and think pragmatically. When it comes to gender roles we must understand that we cannot choose according to our conveniences, our choices should be based on realistic approaches.
When the men out there have decided to call out patriarchy why can’t we lend them a little support to be who they want to be? They can be amazing artists, singers, dancers, and homemakers but our financial expectations from them and “this is not a man’s job” kind of mindset might bog them down in life. So let’s stop scapegoating society, family, and our social conditioning for our expectations and be a little kinder towards this role reversal in true terms.
