“There’s a day when you realise that you’re not just a survivor, you’re a warrior. You’re tougher than anything that life throws your way.” This rings a different bell to different people and makes moments of your struggles rush past your eyes. Yet, in a way, these struggles form that unique thread that connect millions of people together. In a time where the virtual world is taking over every aspect of our real world, we never imagined we’d crave a day of simply going out and meeting someone rather than texting them, a day where pure human bond is all we’d ever want, but here we are. So welcome to your new normal where a scary disease looms outside ironically, doing something mankind couldn’t do itself: pause.
During these weeks of the lockdown, we often reminisce the sweet times of the past or worry ourselves sick about the future, that we forget to take in all the lessons and the minutes right before us. We forget to perceive what we already have as enough or worth giving a thought over. The planet is changing with every news flash and so are we, in many ways, knowingly and unknowingly. The line between prescribed gender roles has never been blurrier, each day they come into the ring of life and seem to lose their apparent charm.
Before this insane occurrence engulfed our existence and made us prisoners in our own home, we only realised the weight on the shoulders of the very people who kept our abode alive, be it the traditional ‘woman of the house’ or the not-so-common ‘male homemakers’ and of course, the house help we always took for granted, extremely partially and superficially.
We never gave our mind a space to think about the efforts of the people who toiled in the cabins to keep us afloat. The pandemic brought us to a standstill and provided a sense of awareness to other family members about the real amount of work each one puts in. It got us all in the kitchen, the laundry room or with a mop in our hands irrespective of our gender. But more than that, it got us to wonder, “Have I taken things on a platter and never realised it? Have I turned a blind eye to all the people that bent over backwards for me?”
More than anything, it is important to be aware that this is only the beginning. Now that we really have been in other people’s shoes, in reality, a change in perspective is in order. After the pandemic, I feel we’ll do well to remember the days of not leaving our rooms, if we are lucky enough to have one. This crisis affected men and women equally, causing ripples in our mentality, which in the future must translate into forward thinking and inclusivity in workplaces, schools and colleges. Sharing workload shouldn’t turn into a phase but rather become a daily practice, for we surely don’t need another pandemic to remind us how we all are players of the same game and how fairness always gets us extra points.
Labour issues, social protection, health care issues, glitches in small businesses, domestic violence, police brutality, the economic crisis, to name a few, are all universal issues despite the varying degree in which they affect the spectrum of genders. The only way to overcome them is to empower the weak, support the needy and uplift those we never even consider giving a chance to.
We don’t need those in positions of power to divide the masses by creating boundaries on opportunities taking gender as a basis. Today, count your blessings and one at a time, tackle problems head on, yours and your world’s. Times are evolving, educate and evolve yourself with them for the mighty globe rejects shallow notions like gender inequality. Seeing concepts getting engraved in your mind being severely challenged is hard, but change is inevitable. “But what are we waiting for? All we have is now. Don’t run from this.”