With Eid behind us, everyone can picture the perfect family gathering. Men sitting together, comfortably talking about politics, finances, and whatever topics interest them. Women moving between the kitchen and dining area, setting the table, preparing delicious food, and serving everyone with care. Children running around the house, laughing, playing, and adding to the lively atmosphere. From the outside, it all looks warm, joyful, and completely normal, the kind of scene people associate with family, tradition, and celebration. But if we pause for a moment and look a little closer, we might begin to wonder whether this “normal” picture is as balanced and fair as it seems.

We do not see the gendered labour of our festivals and how they are centred around patriarchy. We simply name this pattern the “tradition” and “culture” of our homes. Whenever such a conversation begins, the immediate response is that this is our culture and that we cannot break away from the customs of decades. But that is not really the argument here. Saying that the work women do should not exist, or that it has no value, would itself be an insult.

In fact, one of the biggest problems I have with the perception of feminism in the modern world is that it sometimes portrays the work women do at home—the management of households, catering to guests, looking after children, raising them largely on their own, and continuously being the thread that holds everything together—as somehow less worthy than a paying job. I do not think the stress of a typical job can ever truly match........

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