Raising kids is a job by itself. Let me rephrase that, raising kids is like having two full time jobs without any breaks, vacations, raises, bonuses or total appreciation. My hat goes off to ladies who do it willingly.

In today’s world, it is not enough to only have a degree before a woman gets married. What good is a degree if you haven’t gained the skills to implement your knowledge?
Sure you can graduate and get married immediately, using your degree as a safety net to help you support yourself should things go wrong in the future. But think about it realistically. Job market is competitive out there. Companies are eager to hire young fresh graduates or older skilled people with some job experiences. IF things go wrong 10 years after you get married, do you know how difficult it will be for you, at that age, to start from scratch in the job market? Not to mention, if you are lucky enough to be hired at an entry level position, you will be paid an entry level salary. You will also need to compete constantly with coworkers 10 years younger than you are to survive there.

Colleges can bring great opportunities if women choose to take advantage of that freedom and explore. Remember, you DON’T have to do ANYTHING just because so and so in the community did it. Having expectations of you can be limiting and suffocating at times. However, having high expectations from yourself can be motivating and liberating.

You can allow others to guide you in life. But nobody has the right to “tell” you how to live your life.

People can be cruel sometimes. People often use good qualities of an individual in a negative way to criticize that person. Yes, they are trying to punish you for being highly educated, earning a lot of money, etc. What a way to kick someone when she is down. Shame on them! Let them find a Miss Universe look alike with no education and no earning potential for their son.

Meanwhile, accept yourself as you are and be proud. Yes, you are 36, and highly educated, and earn what you deserve. And I am sure you are a beautiful person, inside and out. Good for you! It takes a lot of hard work to be as successful as you are. Don’t waste your time on people who cannot appreciate that. They have NO right to judge you when if given the same opportunities, they won’t be able to measure up to you themselves. You need to distance yourself from the negative things in life and concentrate harder on people and things that make you feel positive.

Life is too short to have your time wasted on unproductive and backward minded negative people.

I am a girl approaching 36 in couple of days. I have completed by Masters and am in quite a respectable position in my office. My parents dreamt of having their girl being educated, and I also dreamt of studying as far as I could and then enter the workforce….

My family is not strictly conservative, but to some extent they are. During my university days, my parents were not very open to the idea of “free-mixing” with boys. But when I was in Masters class, my parents said that “ok, we are looking for your groom. You can also look around and let us know if you find any”. That was nice of them, except the fact that Masters class are considered almost the highest level in our uni. So you see, even if I wanted to find someone, I just possibly couldn’t because all my senior bhais were out of the department, and the male bachelor teachers in the uni… well, they were teachers and a teacher student relation was not in my head…

Anyway, after my masters, I joined the workforce, and soon I was doing good, and was climbing up the ladder, both in terms of position and salary. My parents kept on searching a groom for me….

Throughout my life, just like many other girls, I have dreamt of finding my own life-partner, a person who would accept me the way I am, who would love me and I would love him equally. And for this dream, I used to say “no” to any proposals that used to come to my parents. I just thought that the prospective person can not my lover because I don’t know him, and so I can not possibly love him….. I was so sure of finding my lover all by myself….

Then, just about a year back, I found someone. I believed with all my heart that he was the “one” who I was looking for all my life. I was so very happy. I was so grateful to Allah for giving me such a gift. Anyway, finally for some reason, it did not work out…

Now I am passing my days with so much pain, that I never thought existed. ….. After being refused, I thought that I will not marry, and lead my life keeping me busy with other things. But eventually I felt that to get married is important for various reasons. But whenever I thought of getting married, I felt tremendous pain inside because the person who I will get married to is not going to be the person I thought would be….

Anyway, at the moment I am just waiting for any proposal to knock at my family’s door and I am going to accept it……. I don’t know what’s to blame for my situation, in fact, I don’t blame my education or my financial status or anything, but I guess it’s my fate….I don’t know….. All I know is that I did not deserve the refusal, I do not deserve the pain that it is causing me, I do not deserve this punishment…. but I guess the end word is “what man proposes, God disposes”….

I’m going to pen down some random thoughts to add onto the already existing pool of thoughts.

i feel that it’s extremely important to give a woman time and space to prove herself……..men have a lot of leeway in terms of them being allowed ample time to work on their career……..which is not the case with women………they are expected to acheive the sun and the moon in no time in order to settle down in life(by getting married to some goon), who only thinks of the woman as a sum of body parts……………inspite of her being as good as the man or even better………..

Marriage is never an assuarance that the man in your life is going to remain that way for the rest of his life…….things change as time passes by and realising at the fag end tof ones career that one hasn’t done much on the career front can be heart-breaking and traumatic…….

Whether one chooses to marry or not……..it’s important to have a career…….everyone has the right to a life of dignity…….and self respect……..

So never pressurise women to work on their career just beacuase they need to get married early……….They should be given as much freedom to choose a career of their choice and also the time to settle down professionaly…….as their male counterparts are allowed to…………

lets get over the entire dowry thing which is rampant in the indian society……..unless we revolt to certain misconceptions which have been given the name of tradition, we will not be able to bring in a change……….

The need of the hour is a sea change in the way we look at the functioning of indian women as such……….we are a talented lot and we need to overcome certain evils that hamper our growth as individuals…………and as a community…………If not nething else, we are better than men in a lot of things………..

Understand your points. I see lots of passion in your writing.
Do you like to share your ideas how to make things better? Pointing out issues are the first thing for a change, however that alone is not sufficient, we need to think of ways that can help us move forward.

-Sharmin

the problem, as we all understand, lies in the fact that women are never considered normal human beings or equal to the other gender. according to the traditional norms in most societies, women must be protected and respected. In Hindu culture they worship women as mother goddess. Yes, they ask men to treat women respectfully. But the point to note here is men are asked to respect women as their mothers and sisters. so that evokes some questions.
1) what happens to those who are nobody (a man)’s mothers/sisters? are they not to be respected?
2) what happens to wives? are they not to be respected?
3) why is a woman not respected for being another human being? why is the importance on the role?

Treating every woman as a mother is another beatiful trap. Motherhood is one of the most over-glorified concepts in this world today- an emobiment of all virtues, no vices, one who sacrifies everything for the children, one who forgives everything.. the list goes endless. By calling a woman “Ma” (‘mother’ in Hindi and many other Indian languages) the society is making the boundaris for her life and behaviour. She becomes the most idealist thing in this world. I strongly feel that is how Hindu families survive. They protect the womenfolk, in return women get only a conditional freedom and existence.
Even the social security schemes and women’s programmes try to protect the women within this traditional framework only. Widow pension and pension for unmarried women indicate this basic disability in the positioning of women.

1. In the western society, a female who are above the age of 18 is referred to either as a lady or woman. It is disrespectful to refer to such an adult as a “girl”.

2. South Asia consists of the following countries:
- Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Burma. In the South Asian culture, a woman who does not get married by a certain age (maybe 25 at the most), gets called the following labels: old shoe, old woman, laughing stock or a dishonor to family. You typically hear phrases like “I am ashamed to have you as my daughter”.

3. In both the western and eastern societies, many girls are discouraged from a young age to be “intelligent”. What is the point of educating a daughter, what is the point of encouraging her to be too smart or too studious. Her only mission in life is:
- Have a pretty face, be demure, be fragile (i.e. weak) and helpless
- Go to college and get an MRS degree (it is the American term for going off to college and finding a husband), forget about concentraing on one’s career after graduating and trying to make your own mark in the world.

4. It is a waste of financial resources to educate a daughter, because one day she is going to get married, have kids, and eventually NOT work and NOT earn any money. When sons get educated, THEY will always work and earn money. So there is a preference to encourage sons to get advanced degrees and stop daughters from getting a MSc/MA/PhD/MBA. The crude thinking is “What a waste of money to educate a daughter”. A daughter is discouraged from getting too much education, because the traditional South Asian family fears that if she becomes too independent-minded and confident, no guy will ever want to marry her. Typically insecure guys tend to run away from strong and independent-minded women.

5. Quoting the words of a middle-aged woman with two grown kids and a now deceased husband, “A woman wears the mask of arrogance as a defense mechanism and to look tough, otherwise society will her to shrivel, collapse, be completely helpless and cry”. She was telling me how she had to work even when her kids were growing to provide the income as her husband was ill and during bad economic conditions, he would get laid off. I have a lot of respect for this woman, she is a widow, she owns her own house, she has a good executive position in a very male-dominated company, a very nice and kind lady and is financially independent. She couldn’t stop working as she had to provide continuous health insurance for her husband and family.

And finally ……
6. A young woman should not be forced to marry. In many Asian and Middle-eastern cultures, an unmarried woman is called many bad names behind her back. She is treated like an outcast. She does not get any help from people of her own cultural/religious backgrounds. Should she desire to not get married and not follow the traditional route of life, she is left to her own resources to carve out her own existence in this world. Her own people turn their backs on her. Wouldn’t this world be a better place if they just showed some genuine compassion and care to an unmarried woman. In reality, an unmarried, intelligent and independent woman has many positive things to contribute to this world, she inspires young girls, she becomes their mentor, teacher, friend and protector. She encourages other women to pursue activities that enrich their lives and those of their families. She too is a very beautiful flower – strong and powerful.