Am I a liberated woman ?

Am I a liberated woman, liberated in the real sense of the word. Liberated means free from traditional opinions or ways of behaving that might limit you in what you think or do. It means not following traditional ways of behaving or old ideas as per Cambridge dictionary. I fancy myself a liberated woman, am I mixing up being emancipated with being liberated? Emancipated means free from another person’s control or free from social or political limitations and surely I am one to a large extent. I have grown up in a very democratic household, an open household where though my father was clearly the head of the family but he never behaved in a dictatorial or for that matter in a manner that even ever smacked of him imposing his will on us. My mother’s deference towards my father was out of genuine respect, love and affection, though she would have her way whenever she needed to. I never felt while growing up that my mother was subject to my father’s authority, which she wasn’t and is still not or she and her actions in any way were restricted or constrained because of her being a woman. It looked like a very comfortable arrangement. Papa was getting the money in to the house and mummy was running the household. Our nuclear family was a part of a large, deeply connected and a loving larger family. I would see similar arrangements in other households also. Two of my aunts were working women, even then they were discharging similar duties towards the household that others who were not going out to work were discharging albeit to a wee bit little lesser extent if I may say so. I was never told by my parents, especially my father that I could not do or get something or have to do some specific tasks or behave in a certain way because I was a girl. In fact to be honest I didn’t realise the difference between being a girl or a boy while growing up for a while. Once I was around ten or eleven I started to hear people around me say things like, you need to behave like a girl or girls don’t do this or that or why are you always wanting to do what boys do. These were innocuous comments made by people who otherwise were very loving and caring and if I say that these comments were being made according to them in my interest would not be wrong. It never bothered me because it was not being reinforced by my parents inside our house and since we were a nuclear family it didn’t matter much what others had to say. I was a little girl, would forget these things very soon and continue to behave the only way I knew again when we met these people who were making these comments. After a while I realised that people would tell my parents especially father that girls have to be raised like girls and you have given a long rope to your daughters. My mother around this time I think wasn’t so sure of herself so often she would also question my father as to why he wasn’t being more careful with us. I had all masculine qualities my mother would say and by that she would mean I had zid( stubbornness) , hath (insistence), temper, ego, assertiveness. Girls were supposed to be calm, composed and submissive. She would also give me examples at times of other girls within the family or friends’ circle who were submissive or demure, behaved like girls according to her and helped their mothers’ with the household chores. I remember telling her that I didn’t behave like them because I wasn’t them and I don’t want to be like them. My refrain used to be that why should I help you with anything when you have people working for you to do these chores. My mother used to get worried and frustrated with me and also with my father who had allowed me complete freedom to grow as a person. To be fair to her, I can’t blame her at all as she was a woman of her times, a product of her circumstances and her social milieu. She was thinking ahead and was making herself unnecessarily worried about how would a girl like me find a suitable match. I didn’t fit the description of a girl who is supposed to have all great feminine qualities. Apart from the attributes mentioned above I also had a mind of my own, I had a voice which I used very often to ask questions from everyone around me and also to debate with people who I wasn’t supposed to argue with at all. For my poor mother this was not a good sign for things to come. I am not saying that my father was socially bohemian if that describes what I want to say, he wasn’t though a disciplinarian but he had his own ways to make sure that we worked hard, we develop work ethics, we learn to value integrity and honesty, we have confidence in our self-worth and most importantly we have ample self-esteem. He was invested in our overall development and always encouraged us to explore everything that we came across and engaged with us like the new age dad does at present. He treated us as an aware, sensitive, doting, loving father would treat his children irrespective of their gender. This was in contradiction with what was happening outside our household, in our larger family, friends’ houses and society in general. This dichotomy started to have an impact on my psyche without my conscious awareness or even slightest realisation at that point in time, in fact till much later in life. I started to figure out that what happens inside our household is not how the world works. In general even in educated and well-heeled families girls were supposed to behave a certain way if she was to be liked or get approval, dress up according to the sensitivities of everyone around her and speak only when it is appropriate for a girl to speak. Asking questions that too uncomfortable ones, challenging the established norms and the accepted way of life or even their authority if that didn’t make sense, from elders was out-rightly bad manners and reflected upon my mother’s skill of raising a daughter. People around her would often make a cutting remark that my mother wasn’t doing a good job as her daughter was what she was. Wanting to be treated as an equal in every which way not just the portions of goodies or clothes but even when it came to choosing my subjects in college or pursuing a particular profession to an opportunity to speak my mind in extended family gatherings and to have full authority regarding who I wanted to marry and have an independent opinion on anything and everything like everyone else was something that didn’t go well with many people. When I tried to have a say in how rituals or customs would be followed in my wedding, I was rebuked and reprimanded. When I reminded my family that my male cousins before me have been lauded for their belief and action they relented. When I called out the hypocrisy, my family yielded, they were defensive and in principle agreed with me. They said they were trying to protect me as the world outside was still not ready to deal with and accept girls like me. When I told them that my fiancé is onboard and he knows who I am as a person, they were relieved. I must however credit everyone in my eco-system to have made their peace with who I was and hopefully who I am by treating me like a different species of woman. I don’t think it was an acknowledgement and acceptance of who I was as a person but was a kind of an arrangement where I was allowed to be myself. People around me still make comments and statements which sometimes I can’t figure out whether are complements or complaints, sarcasm or even grudge dressed as compliments. The point that I am trying to make is that even though I was very fortunate to have got the parents that I had especially my father who had the courage of conviction and raised us the way he felt was right for his daughters, I don’t think we are or I am a liberated woman in the real sense of the word. My free spirit got tempered by the atmosphere of my surroundings, by the community mores and societal norms that I was observing while growing up. No one could stop that, neither my father’s conviction, nor my own awareness which in any case came pretty late in life. No one has any control on what happens outside of a house and no one can stop a child imbibing from observing the larger family, the community and the society around them. Extended family, friends, community and society was still working on the premise of girls being the weaker sex, on the premise that there is a difference between a girl and a boy and both genders have their specific roles for families and society to work normally and efficiently. No one still questioned these premises in any significant way in those days in the society that I was growing up in. Girls were happy being girls and looked down upon girls who were not the quintessential girls. These are called structural and systemic biases and condition a child in a manner that when they grow up, they fit in the system and by and large play their supposed roles. This is social conditioning and I was no exception as I too was subject to all these biases though in a little diluted form because of what was happening inside the house. I became a person that I have become as a result of my experiences both inside of my own house and also outside of the house. The confidence that I got from inside my house equipped me to a large extent to deal with what I was facing outside but could not ensure that I don’t get affected by that deep inside me . My thinking and thought process is a result of this mixed experience. I rejected things which were out rightly, blatantly discriminatory for women but could not even recognise stuff that had very nuanced and subtle biases. I never questioned Kanya-Daan when it was perfommed at my wedding because it was a done think. It is a very emotional subject and a great example of social conditioning of girls since they are told being 'paraya dhan' since the day they are born but now it doesn’t agree with me as a concept. My instinct after I got married that I need to run my house which essentially meant the kitchen and the general up keep of the house since I am the lady of the house, a feeling that i had some duties towards my in-laws without anyone having to tell me are to my mind examples of social conditioning. I don’t think my husband would have had any such feeling towards my parents. Yes technically I became a part of his family as per the trsditions but we were not living with them. We had set up our own house as we lived in a different city so both of us left our parents’ house to set up our own and since we were married to each other, my family was also as much family to him as was his to mine. Another example is when I became a mother the feeling that child rearing was my primary responsibility. I am just looking back at my life and trying to make sense of everything. I don’t have too many regrets and have lived a good life and looking forward to living a fulfilling one. I have been as liberated as my circumstances, socio-economic background, education and experiences have allowed me to be. It’s just that instead of having some fanciful ideas about myself, I am trying to delve deeper to discover who I really am.