to work or not to work

S_and_S · March 10, 2013, 6:00am

its encouraging to see so many advices.
based on your advices and what i also think is reasonable for her to do at this moment is to take up some part-time work or look out for some charity work. although in Pakistan we don’t have much opportunities for part-time jobs, flexible hours jobs in corporate sector. but can try.

what i feel and have also discussed with her is that the reason her husband wants her to work could be because he might feel embarrassed among his family members and social circle for the fact that his wife doesn’t work even when she is capable of.
the fact that he always give the examples of his family women that they work since she must also work makes me think this way.
for a fact we have people in Pakistan in abundance mostly in the upper segment who if learns that the highly qualified good profile wife is not working, they would easily make remarks such as " OH, your wife doesn’t work, you keep her locked inside the house" or " she is so qualified why don’t you allow her to work, you are so chauvinistic" so you get the idea they automatically assume in such cases that it would be the husband stopping the wife to work and be independent and blah blah without realizing that it could be the wife’s choice. and these kinds of remarks and the image can upset husbands and male folk and to escape that embarrassment they could push wives to work.

anyhow, if he is asking her for work because of this reason and if my cousin do a compromise and get some part time work then it would save him from the embarrassment in his family and social circle. then after some time there could be two things that can happen, either my cousin becomes used to it and continues or she would still not like it and would want to leave after some time then may be in that scenario the husband would not create issues again because by then people would have known that he is not someone who stops his wife from being independent and work as they would have seen her working. and when she decides to leave work they could buy the fact that she does so because of her own choice as if the husband was the one stopping her he would not have allowed her to take it up in the first place.

what do you guys think? m i making any sense here?

Wow, is it just me or are Pakistani people extremely annoying? Your referring to established and educated people here but yet still you can’t get away from the cultural stigmas and ignorant mindset. Basically the husband is just embarrassed in front of his friends and the fact that both husband and wife can very easily explain (if they really need to) to their “educated” circle why she doesn’t work it just isn’t good enough because it all boils down to what others think. .. In my opinion, educated or not it has nothing to do with being productive or contributing to anything, it’s all a competition and “dhekava” about whose working where and doing what. Which to me sounds extremely silly. What is wrong with our people and why can we not get away from the judgmental attitudes and ignorance?.. Why can’t people be allowed to live their lives according to the standards and values they set for them own selves. It’s all about whose doing what and “log kya sochay gai”

Even after the experience and educated minds around them the family still feels the pressure of being talked about because their DIL chooses to be a stay at home mom and that seems to be more important over her wants and how she choses to live her life. Ridiculous. Forget education, Pakistanis need an education on humanity and doing right by others first, the country literally needs to start back at the basics. Maybe an extreme view but I am so sick of the ignorance.