Monday, September 8, 2008

The Imbalanced Theory of Balancing!

There’s no better way to put me off, for a man or a woman both, than to display a male chauvinistic attitude.
I usually do not get into arguments with MCPs (M=male , C=chauvinist ,P=pig) –the reason being – If I do , I end up giving them a flavor of my feminist thoughts – and most often than not , it hasn’t worked wonders to alter their shallow psyche.
However, the world seems to be so overcrowded with these species, that the probability of encountering them is unfortunately quite high!
In one such recent encounter, a so- called friend commented over the dinner table that why taking up Human Resources as a career choice is such a good decision for me. I was flattered initially - as I thought he is referring to how my KSA s (knowledge, skills and abilities) are apt for this career path ,only to realize later that it wasn’t what he meant. His theory states that women must land up in jobs where they can be home by 6 and thus establish
“ balance” ( perceptual error that HR jobs are “wella”) .Another Mr. Know it all had a even more radical theory – that to have a good “quality of life” … the woman of the house shouldn’t be working at all !!!!!!
I will not waste even a word on the second loser here, though the “balance” theory is not bad. As a person I believe in all the “balancing “stuff.
But the question remains -Why is it so ,that the measure for balance is permanently skewed and hence screwed in our society? Isn’t the art of balancing life meant to be practiced by both sexes equally? And if it is not an equal responsibility – why call it “BALANCE” at all!!!
I have grown up in a household where my dad loves cooking ,he beautifully manages all the household errands and my mom is still working !(dad opted for a early retirement ). I adore my dad for all the delicacies he cooks and my mom for the way she handles finances and investments…It was always like that and I haven’t seen any personal disasters and have grown up to be a “normal” person, just for the records! May be that’s the reason that my mind is not conditioned to accept what most people adopt either out of circumstances or otherwise.
Coming back to the dinner table, as I mentioned I choose not to react to my dear MCPs. However many thoughts were provoked in my mind…
The next day our professor asked us to crack a case-study in the class .Ironically , about “women at workplace”. It was based on gender discrimination at certain organizations. The same set of people now talked about thinking “out-of –the –box” , breaking paradigms and cracked the case, quoting Indira Nooyi and Kiran Majumdar Shaw .The most striking phrase used was “ the time has come to break the glass-ceiling” . I couldn’t help but laugh and pity them and their future “balancing partners”.

17 comments:

Arpita said...

Kudos to Pooja !!!!!!!!! me being a feminist...felt every bit of it was sooooo real and true!!!!!!!!
ROCK ON!!!!

Gypsy Couple said...

he he .. nice nice .. I got a feeling of ur "feminist tendencies" from ur orkut profile .. and this post established it once and for all.

I like the way you established that most guys are MCP's without being overtly frank about it, while conveniently forgetting that though Indian society is changing it does take a while to bring about such huge changes.

I think I won't take up much of your comment space.. instead I'll write a post in reply to ur post on my blog, linking it to urs (thank me later for bringing in the extra traffic)

I'm no MCP .. but I think some points you've mentioned are a widespread misconception and need to be dealt with ..

more on my blog .. wait fer a day or two .. itll be on my gtalk status..

nea said...

well men will always be men. and they will remain men who feel that we are intruding something that has been there territory right since the begining of human race when the men went out for hunting leaving the women folk at home. times have changed but it will take men a million more lightyears to adapt!!! cz not only are we intruding their territory, we are taking away something they believe is thier fundamental right: protecting their women. it is just something that they have seen their father do, who have seen their father do and so on and on. what i wanna see if when will men get over this workplace discussion and we start having discussions of how they fare at the home affairs!!

and anyway its scientifically proven that women are better at multi tasking than men!!! so as far as MCPs go, let them be.. cz they don't know any bettter ;-)

pooja said...

thanks arpita and rishab (waiting for the blog)..and mallika , nea i couldnt agree more wid u girls..

stuntman mike said...

i realise this comment of mine can start a row btwn the two of us and really tick off the feminist in you but still .. i gotta do it , and stay honest to the myself in me.
i proclaim to be a mcp.... period. but my defntn of one is slightly removed from ppl you describe here.. these ppl who feel that their partners shud stay back at home and cook them good food and wipe their dirty ****es are wat i call self righteous bastards. i think i loathe them as much as you do. sadly enuf, you'll always find ppl like these around you.my chauvinism, if you can call it that, stems from something which is a lot more base, crude.

i have realised i am incapable of respecting " women " .... i respect individuals, and not their sexuality. i hate how you're always supposed to treat women like damsels in distress, and i hate how women are incapable of being honest and open, hate how some women always hanker for emotional dependence, while the rest of them take sadistic pleasure off somebody else's emotional dependence.
thats me the mcp.

nice post and true thoughts

pooja said...

i agree wid what u have written in first para..as far as the second one is concerned , i guess u must hold individuals above generalizations..so u cant say all women are like that...like all men are not mcps all women are not emotionally dependent or incapable of being honest..
need 2 get a broader view

Anonymous said...

very nice... sounds like Preity Zinta's character's biography from Laksha... very nicely written, level headed piece, but I shall advocate those profound 'MCP's' who aint that good at what they want to say and what they ultimately end up saying, not that they are bad people, but a lot of times, Guys especially cannot deliver their thoughts in most appropriate set of words, and they get mis-interpprited, and get catagorized under Chavunist Male catagory, not that the catagory doesn't exist, but some guys deserve exclusion...
Nevertheless, again, I liked reading your reflection of thoughts

Also,I am sure, you have what it takes to break the glass barrier and I think you will explore miles beyond the barrier one day...

Sarang said...

Well...I agree that the household chores are definitely skewed towards the fairer sex. But I can’t agree on the point why one should hate MCPs. MCPs (a very harsh word indeed) need to be empathized with. For the rationalization, check out:
http://tatimatla.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-mcps-are-vctims-and-not-victimizers.html

Mukul said...

good one Pooja... simple, interesting and little humorous as always :)

But i can't resist myself from coming to the rescue of fellow males. I agree that a significant proportion of males are MCPs (can we please use a better term :P) And my defense lies in the genesis of this tendency.

Let us go back in time. For thousands of years, our sole mode of survival was hunting. Males, by the virtue of being physically stronger, were the ones in-charge of hunting and females were responsible for household chores and for raising kids. And this is what the "balance" meant at that time. So this tendency is in our genes.

With changing environment, this mentality should have changed, but nature takes its time (we still have appendix even though we don't need it :)

With this, on behalf of all the males, I rest the case and leave it upto you to decide who is to blame for MCP tendency... is it the males or is it evolution ;-P

pooja said...

thanks ...may be MCP is a very "strong " word to use, agreed.
but i like how u all men here seem to agree on imp points i wanted 2 make ,i hope the species has atleast started 2 decline in numbers
:)

Nithya said...

hmmm i really wish u had bashed those hardheaded morons. their short sightedness will take them nowhere. and wen they actually have to work under women bosses they will cry their souls out.

Many a times we tend to keep quiet bcos we know it will have no affect on them but i think we need to more verbal so dat they think twice b4 expressin their early man philosophies.

pooja said...

he he nithya ..well said..
relax and take a deeeeeeeeeeeep breath nw ;)

Want to be back to basics , simpler life said...

men die early .
they have more chances of dying by heart attack .
almost all develop postrate problem .
Men have high rate of success in suicides.
All world problems have men in power to blame.
In pain all cry " ma , amma, mummy , ami " and not " appa , baba, papa or abu "
They cant leave the job , even if they want to .
........So let them be MCP's .
Ki farak penda hai.

Yuvraj Singh said...

I think you should get into an argument with such people and give them a taste of your balancing.....
BTW Nicely put.... you talk like Swades movie's heroine.....

Anonymous said...

=)))))))) Men will be men and women will be women....

Nirvana said...

an interesting piece...i liked the unequivocal expression of thought....well at such issues i believe that women should come out strongly...unfortunately indian society has been pro male for a long period of time and to break this we need spirited and bold people like you...
although i would like to say that making a generalised statement actually does not help the cause...u did mention about your dad who is very sweet and has balanced his life so well...making general statements does include knowledgeable people like him too...but then i guess the kinda statements made at the dinner table fuses your brain...would have done to any1...
in the end i would say more is required but in a controlled and directed manner....

pooja said...

thanks nirvana
i appreciate ur insight ...
the entire episode started with the dinner table statement..which offcourse i agree would have been said JLT, the issue, however, is not that .
the issue is much more macro and embedded into the thought process of some men and women too -
the central theme and my objective was to negate the theory of balancing ..which i think I did !thats all
cheers