Why does Society make Women feel Guilty for Prioritising Work?

Guilty for prioritising work: I sit down with my laptop with mosquitoes hovering over my head and my family members moving in and out every minute because privacy is not a concept in my family. Every time I sit to work, I made guilty for prioritising it.

“How will she take care of her marriage, husband and kids?” my mother shouts insinuating that a working woman will be ignorant towards her family's needs. While my father assumes a silence with a stare that clearly shows an anger balloon inflating inside him. If that wasn't bad enough, I start doubting myself.

Why does society make women feel guilty for prioritising work? Why should women’s responsibilities towards her family become more important than earning a pay check? Don’t women have the right to prioritise their dreams, aims and personal choices? And why is "keeping a family together" a woman’s responsibility alone? Do the house and family belong to women alone?

Why women should be guilty for prioritising work?

In our society, there is a rigid divide of gender roles that define motherhood, wifehood and housework as a woman’s primary responsibility and earning a pay check a man’s responsibility. And any woman who tries break these conventions is villainised as a threat to the ‘harmony’ of the family. She is shamed for being selfish and ignoring her responsibilities towards the family. And it is only worse that unmarried women are reminded and trained for their duties after marriage rather than encouraging to achieve something in life.

But are we not done with this stereotype yet? Do we still need evidence to prove that women are capable of earning and excelling in their careers? That their birth is responsible to make a change in society, stock markets, economy and the world and not just to exert themselves in making the perfect rotis?

How women over 40s are creating space for themselves at work.

Dear women, being selfish is important

I feel that being selfish is not immoral but a necessity for women in our society to break the stereotype of sacrificial, self-less women who never care about their choices and needs. To change the entire dynamics of gender roles and inequality, women must step up, own their choices and live for themselves. But, mind you, this doesn’t mean women have no feelings for their loved ones. Do we ask men if they love their family and keep it together when they return late from work? Do we ask the working men if they washed the dishes, cooked the meal and fed the baby? No! Because society considers a man’s labour at work as an expression of love for the family while a woman’s working hours means escaping and ignoring her duties towards family. Why can’t women’s work and salary be taken seriously and used for meeting the expenses of the family? Is a woman’s love visible only in housework?

Why should women’s responsibilities towards her family become more important than earning a pay check? Women should have the right to prioritising work, dream, aims and personal choices?

Moreover, why does the idea of women being the "main" members of the family come up only when they aren't indulged in housework? Why doesn't this absence of women worry people during family discussions, gatherings and major financial decisions? Doesn't this show the reluctance to allow the freedom to women that challenges conventions and makes patriarchy uncomfortable? Too much of hypocrisy, isn't it?

Support the working women in your families

It is high time now that we do away with this division of gender roles. It was in older times when women had to be in the kitchen and behind the purdas because they didn’t study and go out to work. But, change is inevitable and beautiful. Today women are earning and paying half or all of the expenses of the family. So stop undermining their job and making them feel guilty for spending time and energy on earning money. Rather step up to support them and use the time and labour that you waste in criticising women in cleaning the house, cooking the food and feeding the child/family. It is about time now to encourage equal division of housework and parenting responsibilities. Moreover, women themselves need to stop feeling guilty for prioritising themselves. Spending time at work doesn’t affect your love for the family. But sacrificing your job, financial independence and personal choice will certainly affect the love for yourself. Don’t let that happen.

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Views expressed are the author's own.