1. “Elegantly” Juggling Home And
Work: Why Isn’t The Balancing Act
Expected From Men? #CloseTheGap
By Lata Jha

2. Perfect balance
• I find it strange that most discourses on women
empowerment and eulogies of accomplished females are
centred around the idea that as' complete
individuals’ and ‘women of substance’, they’ve managed to
balance their personal lives with their profession, by giving as
much importance to their families as they gave to their
career.

3. Without a break
• That they were always around to attend parent teacher
meetings, organize their kids’ birthday parties and tuck them
into bed every night while meeting deadlines and achieving
difficult targets at work.
• It’s a little disconcerting because the ability to balance both
aspects of their lives, especially the domestic, seems to be an
important expectation we have only from women.

4. The mindset
• I do not question the inherent concept of women caring and
nurturing, or the fact that they make a home.
• I do however think that the balancing act is something men
have an equal, if not more, responsibility to achieve.
• People would gently and occasionally advise him to not miss
out on his kid’s childhood, that he would regret being a
money minting machine all his life.
• But it would never be something the society woke up to and
looked down upon.
• He would shrug his shoulders simply saying that he doesn’t
care, or that it’s the wife and kids he’s working so hard for.

5. • But God forbid if there was a woman with kids who dared to
dream and lead life on the same lines.
• She would be nothing less than the vamp, not worthy of
being a mother at all.
• Her own family would ridicule her every single day, or I
wouldn’t be surprised if she had no family left at all soon.

6. We play with different rules?
• We have different rules, standards, yardsticks and
expectations from men and women. And I say this from
experience.
• Having fathers who were single-mindedly devoted to their
jobs, I’ve seen girls being told by relatives that while they
were free to pursue their dreams, they couldn’t‘afford’ to be
like their dads.
• It just wasn’t done for a girl. They would, at some point, have
to put the family before everything else in their lives.
• That their fathers had managed to sail through life, but as
women, they couldn’t.

7. Equal parts
• I do not doubt people’s good intentions. Nor do I want to dole
out moral scriptures on parenting.
• I just feel it’s important for both partners in a marriage, and in
society, as a whole, to balance their personal and
professional lives.
• With the kind of environments we’re living in and the pace at
which kids grow up and become detached, they need both
their parents to have a happy, secure and normal childhood.
• The man can’t just wear the pants when he wants to and shirk
responsibility when it’s convenient.

8. Close the gap
• We need to close the gap that exists between people’s
expectations from men and women, the norms that they
have set for both, and the double standards that they often
practise.
• As beings who make the home and the world, we deserve
that.

9. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz http://bit.ly/WIoKvR

10. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz http://bit.ly/WIoKvR