Annusuya Ghimire

Gender and gender roles are not inherently bestowed or biologically hardwired. Gender is a social construct, the idea of which changes from society to society and over time.
Gender roles probably aided in day-to-day lifestyle in the pre-industrialised society. But now, that people have had the chance to explore other topics outside of mere survival, the traditional concept of gender no longer serves as a factual representation of modern reality and gender roles aid in the progression of humanity.
However, even if the world today has seen inventions that make life convenient, even if technological development has changed the world drastically from what it used to be, our societies, even today, are based on ideas that came about a few millennia ago.
Numerous traditional norms have been identified as outdated, and yet, when it comes to gender roles, society still frowns upon those who challenge these outdated social constructs.
Men's Creation
As such, the modern world has witnessed a rise in feminism, identifying that most of these practices were created by men who were in positions of power, for the powerful and against the minority, underprivileged and women. The development of feminist ideas across generations pushed back on the traditionally assigned gender roles and aimed to move away from patriarchy and towards meritocracy.
We have witnessed a shift in ideologies- from economic to social, and yet, we fail to change the very toxic tradition of seeing women as someone to be restricted and controlled. Namely, we still do retain the tradition of giving everyone a say in a woman’s personal life and matters- more than the woman herself.
The trend of men and society making decisions for women is not a thing of the past or something that came about only recently. Institutions dress-code women, the patriarchal society refuses to let a woman work in a “man’s world” and society still victim-blames women for rape and sexual assault, restricting their movement and freedom, instead of doing something against the perpetrators.
Even at a policy-making level, we see men making abortion laws, making decisions on birth-control measures and putting forward bills that make it difficult for a woman to be liberated, autonomous and independent.
Most of these scenarios come into play when a woman Is not given control of her own body and expression. There is a system put in place so that a woman allegedly won’t miss out on life, aka, bearing children and looking after the husband’s family. However, for a lot of women, nothing could be farther from the truth than this concept of living life.
From a very early age, women are indoctrinated that their main purpose in life is to be a mother and raise children. We can see this from one of the most popular make-believe games for girls- playing house. In this, the young girl takes care of the dolls, tends to their health, organizes teapots for the dolls and feeds them. The toys given to a girl are an embodiment of the child she is expected to have and care for in the future.
Boys, on the other hand, are pushed out into the real world and toughen it out even in childhood games. With this kind of conditioning ingrained in our minds since an early age, as a woman, we are not only expected to have children, we are expected to want to have them. At the age of 20-25, we are asked when we are going to have children- not if we want kids or not.
“You will change your mind,” they say. “That’s selfish.”
Society sees there to be something fundamentally wrong with someone who is a woman and chooses not to have children. There is a lot of stigmas attached to childlessness and someone who voluntarily chooses to remain so is seen as the “other”. But why would a woman choose to do so? Some people simply do not like kids.
For some, their biology does not allow it and they do not want to go for adoption or surrogacy. Some people are not equipped to raise another human being right from the scratch. There is no universal instruction manual for raising a human and the mother, usually, the caregiver, is the one held responsible for shaping another human being. That is a huge burden to bear and some people are not ready for that.
If a man is not a father, there is no problem. If he chooses not to marry, it is his choice; no one would judge his level of male identity. Yet, if the same case were to be applied to women, society would start pointing fingers at her and start regarding her as majorly flawed. Women who remain childless are regarded as rejecting their femininity- ones who want to identify with men.
Why is society so scared of women who chose to remain childless or unmarried? Why does it have to associate all the negative stereotypes and make them look so small and feel so ashamed? The male-dominated patriarchal society is not ready to hear that not all women want children. What the entitled people also fail to understand is that at the end of the day, it is a woman’s body that has to conceive a child. She has the choice to do so or not.

Responsibility
Men do not have to go through the pain of labour and hormonal imbalances or postpartum depression because of pregnancy. Society considers a father-figure for the child to be vital, and yet men do not have as much responsibility in raising a child- be it going through all of the temper tantrums, the rebellious phases, teaching emotional intelligence, morality and values and shaping their minds to make them fit yet remain competent—it is usually a woman taking on these roles.
But of course, she cannot choose whether she wants to go through all that, simply because of some social construct put into place centuries ago.
Women will always be under fire- whether they decide to remain single or get married, whether they decide to have a child or remain childless or whether they decide to stay home and raise the child or work after childbirth. Why is it so difficult to let women live their lives if men are allowed to do the same?
Society would not raise the child for her if a woman realises that she is an incompetent mother. Society would not get a woman out of an abusive relationship or family even if she has a child. If she chooses to leave them, she would be frowned upon, if she is a single mom, she would be shamed.
Society, as a collective, would not protect the woman when things go south for her, and yet, they demand the right to control her body and her life. Women are not just some clogs in the machinery to make society run, they are human beings. So stop being so judgmental about someone else’s choices- set women free, let them carve the life they want to live and let them learn. Because at the end of the day, each individual is living their own life and no one else can do that for them.

(Ghimire is currently studying at Webster University, Cha-am, Thailand)