Indian men --- no housework ?

smilingfish

My Indian boyfriend said in India, men donot do any housework at home. And women are trained to do that when they were young. It's a shock to know that my bf can be very independant(doing houswork,etc)when he live in US many years ago, but he will not even make a coffee by himself when he back to India his home. We had a few discussions on this, but seemed this is sth mainly related with Indian cultures which are deeply growed inside his mind and unable to change (at lease for the time being)... but i still couldnot convince myself that isnot equality between woman and man is the very right thing that most of educated people would do despite of what the society/culture say ?

edwardseco

My brother in law does the cooking and sends me pictures. He was (recently retired) s high mucky muck executive. I have tried for years to talk him out of it. On the other hand my Indian spouse can't use a vacuume well so I don't let her.

That is really the point isn't it...

bethey

Hi Smilingfish,

Ummm, wow. I'm wondering if there may be a slight communication issue here? Was he just informing you that while home he has been accustomed to having chores done for him? Who's been doing the household chores?

Without knowing the complete context of this conversation it could be taken a handful of ways. He may have household help and honestly has no need of doing any typical chores. Between a maid/housekeeper and sending out laundry [if that is the case], there may not be much left to be done.

I've already had the "big talk" with my Indian bf. Our goal right now is to get him here to the US [impatiently waiting on the US government to make a decision]. He'll be helping as both of us will be working and we are not in the income bracket here where hiring domestic help would ever happen. He's ok with it. While with him I witnessed his ability to do laundry, I must say I was impressed with his hand ringing skills.

I'd try talking about it a little more and see what he's really saying - is he telling you upfront he will not help, that possibly there will be hired help, or is he just stating that historically he hasn't done any housework?

kristinm

I think that's the key - it seems household help is available to the most families from the middle class up so probably the men would be the last to do any housework. If its any help, while we're generalising about men and housework, out of all the nationalities we have had living with us as homestay students, the most hopeless housework-wise are Korean boys. Even when you ask them to help - as they're supposed to be part of the family - they just look at the dishes or vacuum and walk away.. the Korean girls (who are very helpful)say its because the boys get spoilt and tell us how their brothers do nothing at home while the women run around after them. We have had a couple of Indian boys and they seem quite familiar with basic household chores.

Alohaguy

I was born and raised in India. Had never done any housework at all. Couldn't even make chai...Hopeless isn't it? There was always help available. If not, mother or sisters were supposed to do it. Boy! was I in for a shock when I left India! Yep, I had to learn it all and now there is nothing I can not do. One has to "When in Rome, do as Romans do".

So, your bf is correct in saying that he has never done housework. That may be a fact. But if he says he WILL NOT do house work, then I see trouble ahead for you. He needs spanking!

zoltan

If you look at western culture (40+ years ago), it was the same situation - men went out to bring an income into the household and women did the housework (inside the home and men did maintenance outside the house).

Now in the west, there is a lot of disparity in what men/women do in regards to housework/maintenance/cooking/etc.

In India, for many families, there is no confusion as the structure has not changed for decades.

Remember, many of us are looking at the Indian culture with a western mindset - whether we perceive it as right or wrong, it just is.

Cheers
Zoltan

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edwardseco

Oh no, this came up on another thread about the Kama Sutra..

capt_mahajan

I don't like to do housework, but I do it. Becomes a problem when the wife does not believe in full time maids etc- and I do.

The easy implication here is that the wife is expected to be the drudge. My protests that this is not true are met with scorn- and the end result is that both of us are doing the housework, one (me) more unwilling-ly than the other

And then I get branded as a typical Indian male. Unfair, but such is life. And wives.

smilingfish

Acutally my bf's home do has a maid to help with the housework thing.My worries is about his attitude towards the household things and to see it in another angle, it's not just the housework thing but sth related with how a man/he see the position of woman/wife stands in a family. The most precious thing i would expect in a marriage is sharing and understanding. Marriage is where people can put down all their social and culture boundarys and return to the real themselves.... if his real-self holding such belief that woman/wife is meant/supposed to do all family household thing, i couldnot agree with it. I am wondering if he couldnot compromise himself on this such small things (even it's just the thoughts we talked), how could we go through the other unseen (bigger) difficulties/diversities ahead of us ?

puchoo

I barely did any housework myself thanks to the army of servants we had but once i got married i found more work than possible to complete..

Just yesterday i spent close to 5 hours ironing stuff for our up-coming overseas trip...

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Sidharth

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shashank.aggarwal

We all know about it Puchoos.. what you forgot to tell is that there was a mug of chilled beer sitting on the ironing board..

By the way, did you manage to burn something or not

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puchoo

I underestimated the supply of beer and ran out of it within 2 hours...!!

Nope i did not even burn one thing....infact i managed to streamline the entire process a bit....!!

Haylo

Then living with him in India may prove difficult and frustrating for you, unless you can afford help. However I think the issue is not about who does the housework, but about wider equality issues.

Education does not eradicate culture.

Especially if it means doing housework!

shashank.aggarwal

I guess you underestimated your capacity of Drinking and overestimated the beer you had..

edwardseco

Why am I getting thirsty.?