Recently, a lot or rather most of the Indian men were seen sharing appreciation posts for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that she took early action to shut down tourism and impose a month long lockdown on the entire country, limiting corona-virus casualties to just nine deaths. Brilliant things were being said about her impressive handling of the corona-virus pandemic.
Well, we do appreciate her for her excellent governance and she deserves all the accolades for it! Kudos to her!! The world needs more of such leaders. But what we are trying to ponder here is not her timely action but how hypocrisy is prevalent in Indian Society especially amidst the minds of Indian Men!!
Have Indian men ever given a second to think why Jacinda Ardern is such a successful leader? Ofcourse, she possesses all the qualities required to lead the country but deep down the credit to her success has to be given to her partner Clarke Gayford, who chose to be a 'stay at home dad' so that her partner can go out and rule the world. He chose to take care of the house while she can work outside. He chose to let her follow her dreams. He chose to motivate her and appreciate her. He chose to ignore the societal stigmas attached to working women and allowed her lady to fly and happily chose to be the wind beneath her wings.
Indian Men and their egos need to be pampered by their wives. They happily hang out with working women but when it comes to their own lady, they want her to take care of the household chores. Most parents and men historically perceive that if a family needs to stay healthy, a woman must take care of it. As a result, Indian women have been squeezed into mere caretakers of the family.
The same happens in our Bollywood industry. We say content is the king nowadays, but till date no women centric film has become a commercial super hit. You can take example of Thappad, Chhapaak, Saand ki Aankh, none of them could earn numbers at the box office because our industry is still ruled by men. There has been an ongoing debate since years that female actresses should be paid equally to male actors. But nothing concrete has happened on that.
It is long past for us to recognize that the women need equal representation at all levels. Let a woman decide if she wants to work or not. Let she be given equal status with men!!