Superwoman.
Is it a compliment?
I don’t think so. The context of the compliment makes me feel drained.
In today’s time, when women have started to earn money for themselves and their families, we are still trying to break out of our deep-rooted boundaries and the expectations of those around us.
Why do I say deep-rooted boundaries and expectations?
Because, from generation to generation, some behaviors have been passed down to us. For everyone, it has now become like breathing…
It’s just how it is and it must be this way.
It shouldn’t be any other way.
The inherited expectations, passed on for generations, is that a girl must grow up to become a well-trained wife.
Not someone who supports her husband, cherishes him and builds a life together, but someone who:
- Cooks 3–4 meals a day
- Cleans up however much others can mess
- Takes care of everyone when they’re sick or not, except herself
- Stays silent in every disagreement
- Endures verbal, physical, and emotional abuse
- Becomes the most religious, to bring prosperity to her husband
- Obeys everything everyone says
- Forgets how to say NO
- Fulfills every wish of her husband before he even thinks of it
- Gives birth to his children—until she has a son
- Raises the children, teaches them values
- Continues all this till she grows old and, one day, dies
This is the “right” flow of life for a woman, written into communities across generations.
If you’re a woman, these are the default settings you come with.
Otherwise… are you even a woman?
I am a working woman.
I earn my own money.
To live, to survive—I don’t depend on anyone.
Yet, because of society and the rules from the “This Is How It Is” book, I’m expected to get married to serve a man and his family.
Will I get anything positive from the marriage?
No one can say. Anything can happen. Like a lottery.
I guess it’s a lottery where you either lose everything or lose something.
Now, everyone wants me to go to work, earn money, and do all the unpaid labour women are assumed to do.
My husband? He’s only responsible for earning his money and making the minimal biological contribution to having a child.
That’s it.
The “It Is How It Is” for men is still not written with the same zeal as it is for women.
I think any woman who can do all this, juggle it with a job and stay healthy to the very end is a superwoman.
But I refuse to be one.
It’s a definition society created for its own benefit, deliberately keeping women occupied and therefore, inferior to the other part of the society that enjoys the privileges of keeping women beneath them.
I refuse to be someone whose definition is not written by me.
I refuse to accept the glorified titles society assigns to women.
I refuse to be a superwoman.
Mamma, I refuse to be like you.