I am not a feminist, but...(Post1)

I am not a feminist, and to be honest, never gave it a thought before I started reading IHM's blog. My mother was a working woman and she never differentiated between me and my brother. If something was not right for my brother to do, it was wrong for me as well and vice versa. My grandmother was a strong lady as well , raising her 7 children alone when my grandfather was sick . So, in our house "You are a woman and not supposed to do so and so..." was unheard of.

Now, I realize, it is not true. Even in today's generation women do have restrictions. So, I thought of coming up with "I am not a feminist, but..." series in which I will post the stories where I felt things were biased.

Spoke to a lady for a work assignment and found her extremely good. When I asked her, why she was not working, her answer was that her husband was in different city and she wanted to keep the family together and could not find any work in his city. Now, I do not have anything against it , if she was happy with her choice. She was miserable thinking about the great career she had and the position she would have been if she had not quit her job for her family. When I spoke to her husband, I realized that he was not as competent as her at his work and he did not want his wife to work if she had to travel .

This story made me think about the bias society has towards men in terms of their career. We still think of a man as a bread winner and woman as a home maker. Though, the lady is as qualified (if not more) as the man of the house.

-Why does a woman have to quit her job/independence so that the family should be together. Isn't it the responsibility of both?

-Why do society ask a lady, how would her husband manage without her, when she travels for work? We have always seen the man traveling on work and leave behind the wife to take care of the family. But, he never has to answer that question.

- Why should the woman feel guilty about being ambitious, when it is seen as a great asset for a man?

- How can a woman not confront her husband about her career goals? Isn't it an important part of marriage?

This story is close to my heart because, I quit my job too when I moved to US . But, the difference was, I wanted to take a break from my career and see how the things would turn out. When I realized that being a home maker was not my forte, everyone supported my decision . Of course, it was not without concerns which would have been the same if Sudhir had traveled. Wonder how my life would have been if not for Sudhir,my parents and in laws support...

India V/s SA

It took me couple of days to come out of the depression of watching this match. It has been a long time since I watched a cricket match live. So, on Friday , I decided to break this spell and watch a supposed to be most competative match in Group B- India V/s SA. I am a big fan of Indian team and hoped that India would win. After all I heard that they were doing great in recent times( Ya! I can't believe I am not following cricket ). So, I got up early on Saturday morning and started watching the match on Internet.

Suddenly, I realized, not much has changed , Indian team is still the same team which I used to watch an year back. Why you may ask...

1. They can still lose matches after an amazing innings by Sachin .( Don't they feel bad for him? He does all the hard work and sets the stage where other batmen can just take singles to win the match . But, I guess he is asking too much out of middle order!)

2. Only Indian team can get all out from 267/1 stage! Can anyone explain me 9 wickets for 20 odd runs? that too with more than an over remaining?

3. Where are the bowlers? I agree we have always been weak in this section. But, how can 296 be not a defend-able total?. Did cricket change so much during an year that 296 is a bad total? May be due to twenty twenty , there is no scope for bowlers anymore. Cricket format should change and we should have only batsmen in a team . You can either have a machine bowl/batsmen can bowl. After all, if one only has to swing their bat at everything why bother making a poor bowler run?

4. I saw Kohli/Raina/Sachin/Sehwag do good work in the field. Where are the rest? Looks like Munaf /Harbajan/Nehra think its not worth bending their back to pick up the ball and Dhoni has to fumble with the stumping, thankfully batsmen were not quick enough! Anyways, why should we field !batting is our strength , isn't it?

5. Indian Players still look so under confident, we had the advantage of being the unbeaten side with able to perform well under pressure . yet, when SA was struggling at 247/6, SA batsmen looked more confident than us!

6. I have one question for Dhoni, why could he not bowl Harbajan in the last over. SA batsmen are not good player of spin especially the tail enders. he had taken 3 wickets already in the match against Ashish Nehra's 0. Yet, Dhoni wanted Ashish to bowl. Logic?

7. Dhoni commenting about his batsmen in media. You are in the middle of a world cup and you need your team to be united and motivated. I have not read any leadership book which said criticism is the best motivation.

Over all, I enjoyed Sachin/Sehwag batting , other than that the match was just the good old disappointing Indian performance. Getting so close to the victory and then throwing all away has always been our trend. Looks like we still continue it.

P.S: This is totally from a perspective of a person who has not watched Indian team play for an year . This match made me feel I haven't been away at all (Sad but true!)