The women I am fighting for, are working women. The very working women who come home and their inlaws STILL want them to do all the housework and cook fresh meals each day. Fine, you can still fit in a fresh dinner every night (maybe people will have to eat dinner at 9 pm and suffer indigestion), but fresh meals 3x a day is pretty impossible for a working girl. At least cook your own goddam andha roti in the morning and salad for lunch. That shouldn’t be hard work for anyone.
If you think it doesn’t happen, it does. Especially in Pakistan. I’ve had a number of cousins and aunts who went through this, and they eather had to drop the job or the husband. One of them dropped the husband and just left. She was a lawyer, and is now a judge in the Karachi courts, and so she didn’t have time to sit there and scrub the floors under her MIL’s direction, which is what the ridiculous woman was demanding of her.
And this was a family that was able to afford a maasi - they were just making her do the work to put her in her place.
She left, and I don’t blame her. When you get married and you enter a home, they should treat you like a daughter and you should treat them like family. I think what Reha is saying is right. When you don’t get treated like a daughter, and are instead treated like crap because of an ego control issue on the part of the inlaws (and we always blame the MIL, but its not like the FIL or the husband do much to stop her, so they’re equally to blame), then there is no incentive for that woman to give any respect for her inlaws either.
The stay at home women - meh. I don’t plan on being one, so I have no incentive to fight for their rights. IMHO, if you’re going to sit around on your butt all day and do nothing to contribute to the family other than pop out kids, you should at least cook some meals during the weak. Maybe not all, but at least some. And play a role in seriously educating your kids and teaching them some morals. I’ve seen too many housewives sit in front of the TV and gossip on the phone and they let their kids do anything. Just go to any desi dawat and see how many kids are misbehaving and moti behns mom is sitting there doing nothing about it, more interested in gossiping about other girls with other married women.
**That part says it all. I mean, really, how scary is it to go from your loving family into one where you are expecting the same love they show their daughters, but instead you get treated like a slave? **
**BTW this does happen in educated families too. The girl I had a thread on before? Yeah both daughters were college educated and the sons were too, one being computer something, and the other in real estate. So it CAN happen ANYWHERE! **