The problem, nowadays, is not merely that many women are denied independence. The deeper problem is that men, families, and society are often not mature enough to respect the few women who do become independent. A society that does not know how to coexist with independent women will continue to preserve misogyny, whether women are earning or not. 

So, what is independence? If a woman is earning and still unable to live the life she wants, what makes a woman independent? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and thoughts. I think it is free will and the exercise of consent that make a woman independent. For example, if a woman wants to stay in her house as a house wife and raise kids while she wants her husband to fulfil her needs as that’s his duty as a husband, and if she is given all of that without being pressurized to work and earn for family to do “50/50”  that’s empowerment, as her consent to stay at home and raise kids is respected without trapping her in guilt trip and she is well provided for, for all her needs. Contrary to that, a woman who is working and still expected to do everything at home, from raising kids to doing laundry to cooking food and fulfilling her husband’s needs without her consent, is not empowered. Independence, in its truest sense, is not merely the ability to earn. It is the ability to make choices about one’s life, body, marriage, work, motherhood, education, and emotional needs without coercion, guilt, fear, or social punishment.

In the present times, all these concepts and phenomena have stopped working distinctly in distinct black and white areas and are working in a mess of grey areas. And it is exactly this grey area that abusers are using for their benefit. Unfortunately, now we don’t have just illegal or legal relationships between two genders, but we now have consensual acts, rape and marital rape; now we don’t have misogyny and harassment but decorated misogyny and calculated harassment; now we don’t have a housewife or a working woman, but now we have a stay-at-home mom, an independent woman or a shackled-earning woman.........

© Paradigm Shift