The no-career girls of BV/ Earnings of a Civil Servant - pg8 - Page 8

Originally posted by: rinall

I read a lovely article by Pooja Bedi in today's Bombay Times regarding womens' empowerment.

Here it is --

Are You An Empowered Housewife ?

Women empowerment is not just illustrated by highly educated, hardnosed, ambitious, career driven women fighting neck to neck in the workplace and breaking the glass ceiling. An empowered woman is also someone who chooses to be a housewife and not have a job. It's about having the freedom to make your own choices and lead the life of your own choosing. If you are happy with your husband making the money for you to pursue your hobbies and passions, so be it! If you enjoy being a homebody, being a doting wife, a fantastic domestic Goddess and a fulltime hands on mom, that's wonderful. There is nothing to pity or correct about it. Being a housewife is not necessarily indicative of being lazy or laid back, dominated and oppressed, but subjugation and subservience is. Being yelled at, beaten, neglected, ordered around, and controlled is certainly not empowerment. However, if you are respected and valued for your contribution to the marriage and the home, if your needs are also considered equally important as your husbands, if you have cheque signing power and credit cards, if your aching bones also get a massage similar to the one you give him, if you are treated as an equal in every sense be it emotionally and/or financially then you are as empowered as any career driven woman. Enjoy your space and freedom and ensure it is respected. Equality and empowerment isn't only about career and education, it's about your state of mind and the way you live your life.

Originally posted by: Debbiee

Nice article.

You are absolutely right rinall.

As per law also a non-working wife in entitled to a huge percentage (even if not 50%) of the husband's assets. However that's not enough. A woman should also work to negate miserable possibilities of a rainy day.

I would quote you one incident from my childhood.

We had a neighbour who was a well-placed businessman. He had a business partner and both had multiple fishing trawlers which worked on the Bay of Bengal. One day the man died in a sudden heart attack. He had 3 kids in their teen age and a non-working wife. His business partner somehow managed to run away with all the money and the wife and children had to bear huge loan that the guy had got from the government. They had to sell the house that they lived in along with the car and all the gold and other possessions. For next 10 years they lived like beggars.

Life is full of surprises. When we have 2 earning members in family, the probability of risk is lessened too. Well that's what I learnt from this incident 😊