As women living in a desi culture, we’ve all been brought up with a very basic understanding – girls learn to cook, clean and make the house a home, while boys get to play outdoors, come home whenever they want and wait for the women to pick up after them.

We play different roles and complete our “duties” as mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, and wives

Yes, time is changing. And with time, our society is evolving as women are asking for equal opportunities and merit, but there is still a long way to go. A household is still largely a women’s area of interest and we are still cleaning up after our men.

An equal share of workload is as important as equal pay and equal opportunities. Equality is not just for the public sphere. It should be applied to all aspects of life where public or private.

According to the Ipsos Global Trend Survey 2017, 64% Indians are of the view that women still belong in the household, as wives and mothers

Which means, the ratio is a good 34 to 41% men.

Men, in most cases, have been accustomed of having someone else such as their mother, sister, and/or wife do the housework, they do not do it themselves. In this case, the men fail to realize about all the chores that need to be done at home. However, is it morally their fault? Louisa Peacock, in an article published in the Telegraph, states that sometimes men do not intentionally realize that they are not helping around the house. In the eyes of many, it is normal for the woman to do all the chores around the house, because it is seen as abnormal if they do not.

All this just adds burden to working women. Roughly, women spend a good 33 hours in a week doing household chores, in addition to having a full-time job and a live-in relationship.

And then, when we complain, they say “you should’ve asked, I would never say no”

I mean why should we ask?! Did somebody ask us to do it?

I guess she explained it right!!!

Dear #SouthAsian men, if you are serious about fighting #patriarchy, learn to clean after yourselves at home, in your mother's house, in your friend's house, in your office. Access to tidy spaces without moving a finger is an age old #patriarchal entitlement. Shake it off.

— Neha Dixit (@nehadixit123) January 30, 2018

If a man knows how to cook and clean, we deem it a ‘turn-on’. And I’d never get it. I mean, no one finds it impressive if women cook, it is understood as our duty.

It’s just that even if people claim that the society is changing, there is still a loooong way to go.