Choose to challenge: Women and Cultural Stereotypes in the Kitchen

Women have been the subject and the center of cultural stereotypes. Womanhood as a whole has been on quite a journey in the past centuries. The fight for the right to vote to the fight for equal pay, these battles are numberless and at each step. The month of March is a reminder of the battles that were fought and the battles ahead of us. It is to remember all the people that contributed to the present that we see. It is also to realize the struggles of women across continents and celebrate how they chose to challenge and bring about a change.

The theme for this year ‘Choose to Challenge’ takes us back to all the women who chose to challenge, who took a stand and brought us to the world we live in today. It is wonderful to see women in Saudi Arabia behind the wheel, driving without fear, and to see the Indian Cinema evolve with more space for women-centric films with critical roles for women folk, this would have thought to be impossible in the 90s. It is a great time to be a woman, the uproar of feminism in the 2000s to women paving way for their future in the 2010s. But is it really a great time to be a woman?

Women still face the grind between work and household responsibilities. The burden of day-to-day responsibilities is still gender-based in most parts of the country. We have Indian women leading the lunar expeditions yet women continue to face workplace inequalities. When we turn our view towards crimes against women, it is a horrendous state of affairs. Women like Chanda Bibi and Rani Lakshmi Bai are the epitome of strength and safety of a state, yet women continue to live in constant fear of safety. The crimes against women are rising at an alarming rate; the growing literacy rate is also unable to drive to a world free of gender-based inequalities.

We at IGT challenge the social construct of gender roles in the kitchen. Most of the household responsibilities are shouldered by women. Our society has limited life skills such as cooking to just women.  Modern women man the household and rule their areas of the workplace as well. But this should be no excuse to leave the chulas to the women.  It is time we step forward and choose to challenge this societal practice and share the responsibility of the household. Be the first to educate, inform and set an example in your own household. It is said; change begins at home, be a pioneer for this change.

Let Women’s day be a reminder, a wake-up call! This Women’s day don’t just “buy expensive flowers” or “take over the kitchen for a day”. Instead, share the household responsibilities shoulder to shoulder, equally. Choose to challenge and break the chain of this social construct. And as we celebrate Womanhood once again this year, let us celebrate the strength and resilience of all the people at the forefront of the gender equality movement.

As Ban ki-moon once said “Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone’s responsibility.” Join in and choose to challenge!