Opinion Leave me alone this Women’s Day
This Women’s Day and on other days, I want to reclaim my head space and outgrow the demands to manage and maintain, self and others.
I want to borrow the words of Virginia Woolf and tell my girls that there is no need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anyone, but oneself. Women’s Day or not. 
With barely two weeks for Women’s Day, the pinkwashing has commenced. There are talks, panel discussions and online gigs. A corporate group, which also runs a lab, has offered me a Women’s Day special health check-up: TSH and ferritin levels emailed to you at discounted rates; mammogram at half the price. One opens the screen and there are offers raining on make-up, skin care and clothing, from factories that want us to consume more.
The other day, when someone asked me about the most valuable real estate, I said it is the space between one’s ears. Head space is the most precious space. It is where one lives. And that is exactly what a woman does not have to herself. The noise in the head is constant, shrill and annoying. It is programmed to plan ahead, for the next meal, the next meeting, the next crisis that is just around the corner. Many decades ago, in her path-breaking work, Virginia Woolf argued the case for a room of one’s own. I want to argue for a headspace of one’s own, transcending the physical four walls.
Have you ever analysed a woman’s handbag? It is symbolic of the headspace that is overloaded. A woman’s handbag has a lip balm, a sunscreen stick, a pocket perfume and dental floss. A quick snack, wipes, hair grip and safety pins for sure. The load! She has put it all to be well-put-together. My handbag is symbolic of my head that has no space left.
A man’s purse is just plastic and paper-money, membership cards. I find men (mostly) unbothered about sunscreen or chapped lips. I have male colleagues who walk into the office without a shave. Cool, easy and light.
The load of caregiving and maintenance on Indian women across all levels is tremendously heavy. If it is not the children, then the maintenance of the house, the spouse, the parents. Add to it the pressures of a career, if she has one. And then the pressure to look well put together, which has become a euphemism for not having one wayward eye brow hair ever, not a pleat out of place even if her heart beat is. She should know to apply the right colour corrector, the right cushion covers as per season, and the spread on the table is directly proportionate to her efficiency and knowledge on what spikes glucose and the latest millet on the block.
My friends and I go on girls’ trips, but only after stashing food in the refrigerator, filling canisters with healthy snacks and detailed notes on how to and what not to. Even when away, the frequent phone calls and video calls with children/parents/partner amplifies her role as a crisis manager. Multitasking is no longer a compliment, but a ticket to mayhem in the head.
The result of this hyper-alert state of women is the stress load and neuroticism that is the butt of all jokes and memes. If not for desi mom, who would comedians have to roast? The desi mom is now a hashtag that shouts, screams, is sarcastic and one that hits the children. Abusive and “mental”, most of the time.
This Women’s Day and on other days, I want to reclaim my head space and outgrow the demands to manage and maintain, self and others. I want to be left alone, without any unseen load on my frozen shoulders and progress reports on health, hormones and beauty standards. I do not want a discount code to buy that exfoliator that will “polish” my skin, nor on a kitchen appliance that reinforces the role of the women as the primary in-charge of the kitchen.
I want to borrow the words of Virginia Woolf and tell my girls that there is no need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anyone, but oneself. Women’s Day or not.
Susan Thomas is a career bureaucrat, Tedx speaker and a content creator
(National Editor Shalini Langer curates the fortnightly ‘She Said’ column)
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